I bribed a journalist!

It isn’t unusual for a journalist in Chennai to encounter instances of casual bribery. Only, it happens regularly on their line of duty

In the journalistic circles of Chennai, it is simply referred to as the “cover”.

Possessing the subtlety of a government lobby and the crudity of paying for a harlot’s services, the “cover” is, simply put, a monetary favour to a media reporter/ photographer in exchange for better coverage.

Cover and thy shall be covered with glory, in print or on TV.

Mediamen in most press conferences and symposia in the city’s glitzy star hotels (repeat: most, not all; italicise, bold, underline) and even protests by the bourgeoisie, including slum dwellers, are, invariably, handed over glossy looking packages containing a host of gifts ranging from diaries to pens, folders, pamphlets and literature about the event in question (also known as the ‘press release’) and, of course, the “cover” – an innocuous looking envelope containing currency. The handing of the cover is a process of convenience: no eyebrows are raised; it is as essential as the greasing of palms at the local government office for a document. In crude terms, it is insurance, a surety, for positive — at least definite — media coverage. 

One incident would serve as a testimony. According to an account, the organiser of a presser, an industry executive and a newcomer to the city, was taken aback when certain scribes, TV and press reporters alike, stipulated to him the phenomenon in no uncertain terms and stormed out in a huff.

Decay of morals, did someone say?

Lots may have been written about paid news, the bubonic plague of the media, but no one talks of the cover phenomenon, which may, of course, be referred to by other words elsewhere. While the former is dependent on the publication’s allegiances (surprise, surprise!), the latter can be a test of character for scribes.

This phenomenon, in my understanding, can be distilled down to the question: gift or graft? While accepting tid-bits at such events surely do not amount to a crime, the scope to enhance the grandness of the tid-bit (till it ceases to be one) always exists. This is when the transgression into graft happens.

That this is reading too much into hospitality and distorting it is a matter of conjecture; however, the inducement a journalist faces, when in a ‘yet so near and yet so far’ situation is for real. I must, however, reiterate that not all organisers of pressers are ATMs for journalists and the latter a bunch of salivating, money-minded chauvinists.

It may also be pertinent to note that the pay packages of scribes of regional TV channels and dailies, in particular, is a pittance when compared to their English counterparts. Such organisations, on their part (although reminiscent of Goebbel’s — he, of Hitler’s lieutenants — theory, I must remind that this is hearsay!) reportedly encourage their employees to satisfy their financial needs via such events. Behold, Krugman, Amartya Sen, mutual co-existence could never have been illustrated better. And then there are stringers, scribes working in non-urban centres, for whom “take a hike” is more a swear word than words printed on their payslips.

Journalists, as an occupational hazard, need to socialise (and I don’t mean of the Rani Mukherjee in No One Killed Jessica kind). Lunches or drinks at five-star hotels or tee-offs with industry honchos offer us that rare opportunity to deconstruct them, for the benefit of the public and publication. Tales also abound, of senior scribes who would not even accept a glass of water at such events.

However, what matters, above all, is public perception. If the public begins to slot us along with the corrupt, need anything be said about the media’s credibility?

Forget the next 2G or the CWG expose; if the Fourth Estate is to scrub India squeaky clean, it will have to begin from its own Aegean Stables.

Tea stalls: Of university and diversity

Tea stalls in Chennai — outright common, yet unique

Beverages have been totemic of the civilisations in which they were consumed. The Soma Baana (said to be a distilled form of arrack) from the days of the Mahabharatha to the beer of Munich, swilled in copious amounts during the Oktoberfest (as well), testify to this. Likewise, Chennai, too, has its beverage.

And here’s a knock on the head for those claiming that filter coffee — yes, it was the jingle for an advertisement of Leo Coffee that brought an unheralded A R Rahman to movie director Mani Ratnam’s notice; the rest as the cliché goes, is history — bags the title. Such people would cite its intrinsic link with the city’s heritage by pointing out its availability in the canteens of the various Kacheri Sabhas -- the Narada and Krishna Gana Sabhas to name a few, since their inception. “After all, no meal can be deemed as proper unless it is washed down with a cup of filter/ degree coffee,” they’d add. Every restaurant, be it the new or the old, the Triplicane Ratna Café, the Saravana Bhavan or the newly-sprouted Madras Café outlets, have it on their menus.

This roadside tea stall selling filter coffee
proved to be an epiphany to this writer

However, no enumeration is needed to prove that nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, tea, and not coffee, could rightfully stake claim to the title. This is, of course, under the premise that sales of the wares of the hordes of the city’s TASMAC shops (the government-owned liquor stores) are not considered.

Tea, teyilai, theneer…
The labyrinthine network that is the roads of Chennai abides by the dictum: “We may or may not be metalled or paved, but we would certainly have at least one tea stall in our midst.” Be it the roads in upmarket R A Puram or Besant Nagar or Royapuram — portrayed infamously by Kollywood, the portmanteau for the Tamil film industry, as the city's dark underbelly — the tea stall (theneer viduthi in Tamil) could be the city’s calling card to omnipresence.

These stalls are an Encycloapaedia Britannica unto themselves. From the road-side vendor with his cycle retro-fitted with a tray carrying flasks of tea (in some cases milk, coffee and Boost and Horlicks, too); to the ramshackle stall selling short-eats such as bajji, bonda and samosa, duly wrapped in paper; to those selling international magazines (Maxim and The Economist included!) and newspapers, we have proof of unity in diversity.

However, the element of homogeneity in this diversity is so striking that it may be safe to declare that a Vaastu-shastra, a set of laws and rules for construction, of tea stalls, is a treatise waiting to be authored. Here's why:
·         For one, the de-rigueur arrangement includes locating the stove at or near the entrance; you don't have a stove at the entrance, you don't have a tea-stall. Is it to lure customers? That could be an open-ended question
·         The cash counter is usually located to the left of the stove, and is about three-fourths the size of the stove counter. Tea-stall norms (TSN, from now on) dictate that currency and eatables jostle for space, with boxes containing currency and snacks being snug neighbours
·         The exhaust fan, for some inexplicable reason, is, in most cases, located at the eye-level of the tea master or ‘master’
·         Tables and chairs, if present, are usually inside, and visitors have to make their way past the counter and stove – doubtless a daunting task. This zone could be your place straight from heaven or hell depending on your affinity for tobacco set alight; non-smokers are, hence, advised to avoid the ‘s-zone’
·         Needless to say, TSN also dictates that kettles, stoves and boilers form part of most of tea stalls, as would other obvious ingredients such as sugar and cooking gas; add to the list vessels containing chutney and sambhar if it doles out snacks too.
·         Want your tea brewed a little stronger? Then wait for the vendor to extricate his swimming pool cleaner-like strainer from the kettle, containing tea dust used since the beginning of the day, and pour your brew through it multiple times, until the desired ‘strength’ is achieved. Black tea aficionado? Just ask for the kattan-chaaya.

Here’s one phenomenon that we may be able to beat the Chinese without breaking into a huff: tea pouring, in which Chennai’s vendors have transcended every fathomable barrier. You think the vendor’s standing arms akimbo, you think he has unsheathed a sword; everything happens in a flash that you close your eyes in fright; however, he hands you the cup of brimming hot tea humbly, like a temple elephant.

Tea may be downed in generous amounts in Chennai, but its brew masters, by tradition, hail from God’s own country with which Tamil Nadu has a long-standing water dispute. Exceptions to this rule exist, of course, which are few and far in between (the joke that Neil Armstrong was flabbergasted to encounter a Malayali tea vendor in the moon isn’t without its empirical evidence, after all!).