A letter from R. Rajagopal to EP Unny
(sourced from social media)
It is unfair to stand in judgement of a newspaper’s front page, which is more dynamic (as in evolving) than most other sections, until we make an attempt to understand what must have gone through that hard-to-pin-down impulse called the collective mind of the newsroom.
I have hence steered clear of commenting on pages with which I am not directly involved. But I am breaking that resolve today, possibly putting EP Unny, the cartoonist, ill at ease.
Most English newspapers I saw today has religiously stuck to the straight and the narrow, reporting what happened in Ayodhya yesterday. As I said, there must be a collective mind behind that decision. Amid the tide of cynicism, I would like to believe that the newspapers did so to ensure that they do nothing to inflame the fraught situation. Unlike some TV and social media outlets, most newspapers have managed to retain their responsibility on days that run the risk of spinning out of control. In that sense, straight reporting without any hint that may tip the scales over the precipice with terrible consequences is the right decision, I feel.
So, after such a long preamble that shows how uncomfortable I am writing this, I must now mention the headline of The Indian Express New Delhi edition.
After a strapline or kicker in red ink that quotes Prime Minister Modi as saying “Not a date on calendar, origin of a new kaal chakra”, the main headline is just the date: January 22, 2024. (Visual below)
As I said, the headline states a fact, not provoking but respecting the intelligence of the reader to figure out whether what happened was just. This is a widely accepted form of journalism, especially so soon after such a polarising event marked by naked triumphalism endorsed by the State.
At the other end of the spectrum, a question does exists whether it is not the duty of a newspaper to send a reassuring message to those who must have felt wounded by this triumphalism. I suppose to err on the side of caution is better than taking a chance that can inflame passions. Besides, it is the editor’s prerogative, which should not questioned by an editor-at-large.
Then, I stumbled on Unny’s pocket cartoon, which, by definition, lurks way below, almost unnoticed, locked, loaded and ready to strike like a viper.
I do not know whether it is by design or happenstance. Unny also plays on dates — and the outcome is a stiletto thrust that kills but spills no blood.
The disjointed but sequential calendar in the pocket cartoon shows three dates: January 22, 26 and 30. Then Unny’s Calvin, the bespectacled lad that gives the strip its leitmotif, if not mascot, takes over and goes on to demolish Modi, Bhagwat and yesterday’s spectacle with one fell blow.
“A great way to begin the year — thinking of Ram, the Republic and a Ram bhakt.”
The banner headline (a single date) took up eight columns in light font at the top with some white space to spare — a design device to enhance the impact.
The strip in netherland takes up only one-eigth of the column space of the headline and uses far fewer words than the kicker and the headline. Yet, the kicker has not left anything unsaid. It is more evocative and more powerful than any editorial on the subject I have seen. In fact, it has become the shortest yet loudest signed editorial — a rarest of rare statement that newspapers seem to have forgotten these days, probably because editors realise how hollow they sound.
Unny has produced several world-class cartoons. But Calvin’s Calendar takes the podium as far as I am concerned. I wonder, I marvel: what if the headline writer also had thought up the same idea? Who would have yielded ground then? How would the three dates have looked in eight columns with Calvin’s thought bubble? We can only wonder. What a wonderful place the newsroom will become then!
As I said, I don’t know if the Express did so by design. If so, it is worthy of a Pulitzer. If not, it is still worthy of a Pulitzer because it shows how a newsroom that allows diverse opinions to thrive can deliver masterstrokes untrammelled by one another.
I hope some university will add this page to their syllabi for journalism.
Why is it that it usually takes children to shout out that the emperor has no clothes? All of you must have seen Adarsh Raj, the boy who is telling it as it is to a Godi Media propagandist.
I was hoping some newspaper would be audacious enough to make Adarsh the lead story of the day. It does not cost anything to hope.
The clarity of Adarsh is out of the world. So is that of Unny’s Calvin. The kids are all right, unlike us.
Then my friend Jayan sent me a video (below Video 2 ). It is in Malayalam but language is not a barrier here. It shows a thief being chased at the Kannur bus terminal yesterday. He has stolen a lamp — so that he can light it as singer Chitra had exhorted Malayalis. Chitra’s call shocked several Malayalis — she is free to light any number of lamps but how can she exhort others to do so?
Turns out the thief was part of a street play ridiculing Chitra’s call without mentioning her at all. The play ends with the question, unknowingly taking Calvin’s observation to the next level: on January 30, there were two Ram bhakts. One was assassinated, the other called Nathuram pulled the trigger. “ON WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU?” the protagonist in the play asks.
The guy speaking out is not a boy, for a change.
Adarsh, Calvin and the Stage Workers — they have proved that they can communicate better than the loudest and ugliest propaganda machine in India.
There is a lesson for those of us who give up hope — and our fight — so easily.