Since there was some time for the train to arrive at our suburban station, three of us were squandering our time on political and social debate. The arguments drifted from one point to another, including, our local politics or the state of the government affairs(We the people of India, have a say in everything. Doesn’t matter if we are not heard to, because the value of words is determined by the depth of our pockets and not by the truth in our ideologies). At one point the discussion my two friends was about the slow pace of judiciary system where one was of the stand that the cases took too long to clear, while other felt that high profile cases were cleared faster.
What was I thinking at that point, I don’t remember, but I came up with a story that Kasab (see? to be on wikipedia, you need to either score runs like Tendulkar, or be a one time terrorist, one who has bumped off Dawood Ibrahim from the top of India’s most wanted and hated list) who is languishing in Indian jail, was not being brought to justice fast enough. Above that, his stubborn demands were being fulfilled by India. Just few days back, as he was complaining of high summer heat, the 1.5 tonne air conditioner of his cell was replaced with 2 tonne model. My friends knew that no such incident had happened, but the story was catchy. Later was we were discussing with our fellow travellers on the train, again politics and shit, my friend brought up this Kasab “incident”(made up one.the 26/11 one was for real). And atleast 8 people heard what he said.
Now I calculate. Aleast 40% of these 8 will narrate this to other 8 and so on. I would say aleast 20-30% of them will be fool enough to believe it. And then the made up news, will become a rumour, and a rumour turn to news. If things go out of hand, we will surely see few T.V. channels airing “exclusive”(read staged) videos and pictures of a delivery van outside the arthur road jail, and people unloading the 2 tonne air conditioner from the van.
Thats how rumours turn in to news in “India”n TV. A true example is setup by Amit Verma on his India uncut. Read the first section, and you will agree.