The reports that never get written

On the sidelines of assignments lie many untold stories

March 21, 2018 12:15 am | Updated 12:15 am IST

It is not uncommon for reporters to return from the field with incomplete stories. These may be accidental encounters or mundane everyday occurrences that don’t fit into the narrative of the main story you’re working on, but add value to your understanding of that society and the daily lives of those interviewed. However, due to deadline pressures or other set story ideas, these stories never take shape. I encountered two such stories recently.

Located 20 km from Allahabad city, Jaitwardih is a typical Uttar Pradesh village with bad roads, overflowing drains, unemployed youth and electricity woes. In 2015, this village acquired political value as it was adopted to be developed as a “model village” by Keshav Prasad Maurya, who is today the Deputy Chief Minister of U.P.

It was in that village that I came across a primary school wall splattered with slogans discouraging people from open defecation, and with messages on incentives provided by the government for constructing toilets.

But what caught my attention was a curious “public notice” put up by the village head. “Every other day, thieves break the locks and steal bags of rice, wheat and gas cylinders from the school. Therefore, I humbly inform you all that anybody found loitering around the school compound after the day’s session will be held answerable and legal action taken against them,” read the notice. Sounds like a story idea worth exploring, doesn’t it? However, as I was in Jaitwardih to report on the Phulpur bypoll and was focussing on the caste alignments there, this story remains in the form of photos on my phone.

The other such story was in rural Gorakhpur. While visiting Dalit families there, I reached a village where a 15-year-old boy had drowned in the local pond just a few minutes before my arrival. He had been on a boat with two friends. The three of them had jumped out of the boat to dodge the electric wires that were spread above the pond. Two of them had survived. The police was quick to arrive at the spot but the body was not found for several hours. The villagers were fuming and a big crowd had gathered at the site. They held the local electricity department responsible for the dangling wires.

The incident reflected the perils of daily life in rural U.P. where administrative apathy leads to the loss of innocent lives. But, like before, I was sadly forced to move to the next village to pursue the story for which I had gone.

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