Feel The Silence
Thus came into existence a file at the CIA headquarters marked the Goswami Dossier. To be fair, it must be noted here that no stone or Google search was left unturned by the CIA to divine information.
AJITH PILLAI fantasizes
Dipped in Witriol
AJITH PILLAI
Trust the CIA to take note of a magazine like “The Caravan.” Its December 2012 issue, devoted to the media, has Times Now Editor-in-Chief and superman news anchor, Arnab Goswami, on the cover. “Feel The Noise” screams the headline under the picture of the man who sends shivers down the spines of millions of TV sets every evening at prime time. Apparently, the undercover CIA operative in Delhi dispatched a copy of the magazine to his boss in Washington who in turn forwarded it to the White House where an official, taking a cue from apna PMO, sent it back ordering “a discreet inquiry.”
Thus came into existence a file at the CIA headquarters marked the Goswami Dossier. Researchers who traversed back and forth through the 15 pages (12,000 plus words) of The Caravan story could “arrive” at very few original conclusions (despite going through the exercise of reading the text backwards in a Greyhound bus). To be fair, it must be noted here that no stone or Google search was left unturned by the CIA to divine information. In fact, a smart aleck at the agency, who once wrote a paper on the Spanish Inquisition and its impact on Brit Glam Rock even tried to establish a link between the magazine’s headline and “Cum On Feel the Noize” a 1973 chartbuster from Slade, that bunch of long haired chaps from Wolverhampton.
An analysis by a team of pop psychoanalysts of the song’s chorus --“So, cum on feel the noize/ Girls grab the boys/ We get wild, wild, wild”-- failed to yield nothing more than the broad deduction that Goswami liked a studio full of noise and this perhaps reminded him of the comforting audio levels at the bazaars where gossip was openly traded in Guwahati, a city where he spent some time during his younger days.
Anyway, that didn’t amount to much by way of insight and the CIA irtually closed the dossier when someone noticed a curious entry—an observation by a former colleague of Goswami that “Arnab lived, ate, slept and dreamt TV”. This was communicated to the higher ups in the agency with the noting that “decoding Mr Goswami’s dreams may perhaps be worth the while.”
That’s where NASA came into the picture. The space agency, as is well known, has several quirky inventors who remind one of “Q”-- the incredible gadget guru in James Bond movies. Well, to cut a long story short, NASA’s mad scientist who goes by the name Hi-Q had just developed the dream decoder — a device attached to a spy satellite which could snoop into the innermost recesses of the mind and translate impulses in the brain into simple English. (A test done on a sleeping New York cop yielded this result—“Man, don’t gimme burgers when I’m askin’ for caviar and honey”).
Well, the decoder was programmed to catch Goswami as he slunk into REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep when dreams with maximum recall occur. The first three nights threw up nothing remarkable -- the usual happy dreams; Arnab whipping up furious passions as politicians and activists wearing Stetson hats and riding high horses took pot shots at each other with tongues that looked like Colt 45s; the acerbic Goswami testing the skills of sheepish cricket board members by asking them to recite multiplication tables while demanding that they explain to the nation on how they divide and rule when they can’t multiply. “Gentlemen, the arithmetic has changed and the tables have turned,” he finally says as he switches to another dream where he takes on forest department officials guilty of providing the lions of Gir with watered down Eau de Cologne when the beasts were demanding “original fragrance Brut deodorant.”
Finally, after all those happy dreams, the patient monitoring paid off on the fourth night. Hi-Q was all excited as the printer at the receiving station in San Bernardino came alive. So here goes the transcript marked “Dream Sequence 10”:
Setting: Times Now studios, Mumbai. Subject sees a TV monitor on which he is shown conducting a debate. Topic: Who is future prime ministerial material -- Rahul Gandhi or Narendra Modi? Participants: Mani Shankar Aiyar, Digvijay Singh (both Congress), Venkaiah Naidu, Nirmala Setharaman (BJP), D. Raja (CPI) and Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M). .
Arnab Gowami (AG): On the Newshour tonight we debate the question that the nation wants addressed. And it wants it addressed with urgency on this channel — your channel. Ladies and gentlemen it’s the big Rahul Gandhi versus Narendra Modi debate ahead of the 2014 elections and Times Now has a line-up which will discuss the plusses and minuses of both leaders threadbare so that the people of this country can decide for themselves. So, let me set the ball rolling by asking Mani Shankar Aiyar to give his assessment of Rahul Gandhi.
Mani Shankar Aiyar (MSA): Arnab, for once I have nothing to say.
AG: What do you mean? Surely, you’re not on national television to say that you are at loss of words when it comes to commenting on Rahul Gandhi! Saying something like that on this channel could cost you a Congress ticket.
MSA: Arnab, this loss of words can happen. Some get stolen; others are taken away by force and some others you eat when you are put on a diet and hunger strikes. As for the Congress ticket, I believe a rail reservation can get me a lot further. Also, I must take the opportunity to tell the nation — I mean the viewers of Times Now -- something that one of my school teachers told me—speech is sliver but silence is gold and the price of the first can never outstrip the worth of the second.
AG: I guess the fury of the debate is getting to Mani, so, we’ll get back to him later. But Divijay Singh you surely must have a view given that you are Rahul Gandhi’s close advisor…
Digvijay Singh (DVS): Well, ever since they put up blinds in my room its curtains as far as views go. So like Mani I’m speechless.
AG: Ok, I think the Congress is truly vexed and therefore tongue-tied. So, let’s go over to Venkaiah Naidu…
Venkaiah Naidu (VN): Silence is not only gold but also platinum. So, I say Rajdeep, sorry Arnab, what’s the point in speaking when you can’t walk the talk with me on NDTV 24x7? Same and ditto are the views of Nirmala who wants to exercise her fundamental right to be seen but not heard. As some poet said a thing of silence is a joy forever.
AG (visibly angry): What’s happening? Loss of words, right to silence, walk the talk, no views…
Sitaram Yechury: I must point out that the Left parties are strictly going by recent research which conclusively proves that chances of making mistakes is directly proportional to how much you speak or write. So we would rather err on the side of silence.
AG: Something is surely wrong, horribly wrong…
DVS: Arnab, you’ll love this story. Last week I went for dinner to my friends, the Lambas, in Bhopal. They’re known to invite guests for a meal and go through the evening without uttering a word. I had almost forgotten the practice the family follows till I accepted their invite. Well, after dessert Lamba senior, scribbled a note and passed it to me. It read: “Digvijay Singhji, hope you enjoyed your dinner and the Silence of the Lambas!” After that I vowed not to talk politics, at least not on national television.
AG (worked up): I think I better call off this discussion right now on Times Now. One has heard of politicians walking out of TV debates but this must be the first time in broadcast history that an anchor has had to stage a walkout. And it’s all happening exclusively on your channel. But remember ladies and gentlemen--the nation is watching…
Subject gets up in cold sweat. Immense relief is writ large on his face as he slowly realizes he just had a nightmare. (Transcript Ends)
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