PRE-VISION

Many a time I come across newspaper headlines which prove to be prophetic subsequently. I may recount a few of them. Hrithik Roshan should not be front page news, wrote Wilson John in The Pioneer edit page just to make the point that the terrorist killings in Kashmir deserve more attention of our mainstream newspapers than films or fashion. But to my surprise, anti-India riots broke out in Nepal over a reported repartee of Hrithik Roshan and he was adorning the front page for almost a week, just two or three months later.Similarly, Bhasker Ghosh wrote a feel-good piece on his visit to Kathmandu in The Hindustan Times edit page. And within a day or two the Royal carnage took place exerting a spine-chilling effect the world over.More recently, just two days before the attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11, Dr G.S. Rajhans was dwelling upon the need to clip the wings of Taliban and its terrorist outfits, in Hindustan.Chandan Mitra recounted the shenanigans of Report Murdroch in destabilizing the media scene in UK in The Sunday Pioneer and in a matter of a few days the Tahelka pandemonium broke out.Yogendra Yadav wrote a stern piece on the food shortage and famine-like situation in many parts of the country in the edit page of Hindustan and laced it with a ‘Vikram Vetal’ quiz. And lo, when I open the Delhi Times, an ad splashes a picture of ‘Vetal’ escorting the king ‘Vikram’ to a Delhi restaurant.The same ad featured ‘Ravana’, the next day, his ten heads adorning the single neck. I was reminded of a letter to the editor of The Statesman complaining a few days earlier that the Ramayana depicts him as ‘Dasagriva’ as well, that is, as possessing ten necks and how it is difficult to imagine their position atop a set of twin shoulders.

TUSAR N MOHAPATRA
[2002]