A while ago, I read this headline.
‘Jacqueline Fernandez and Harbhajan Singh Jet Off On Their Year-End Vacation’.
Interesting, I thought. And read further.
‘Famous faces like Jacqueline Fernandez and Harbhajan Singh have already taken off to destinations divine — not together, of course!’ said the brilliantly worded opening paragraph. I was riveted. I needed to find out if their famous faces had gone all by themselves, disembodied, floating beatifically past security, leaving their equally famous, if headless, bodies back in India to attend to other engagements. Because celebrities have those kind of powers.
Unfortunately not.
Well, the essence of the piece: apparently, Ms Fernandez had gone off by herself to New York on work/holiday. While Mr Singh, who may have never met Ms Fernandez in his life, was on a family vacation with wife, Geeta Basra, and daughter. Had he gone to New York, too, perhaps? We don’t know. Because the reporter thought that wasn’t germane to the story.
So, the two unrelated events were bracketed together in the headline purely because M/s Fernandez and Singh did something similar (travel) at roughly the same time.
And the funda behind this: catchy headline, dude! So what if it’s patently misleading?
Why stop there is my question. Here’s how the ‘journalist’ could make it even more interesting. Why not eliminate the time factor, too? Why let that limit the possibilities? Then he could have a dizzying array of headlines that don’t interfere with journalistic ethics one bit:
‘Elizabeth Taylor and Aftab Shivdasani Marry Again’, ‘Rabindranath Tagore and Amit Shah Caught Trimming Beard’, ‘Valmiki and Twinkle Khanna Attend Literature Festival’, ‘Maharana Pratap and Vijay Mallya Seen with Horse’, ‘Ramar Pillai and Baba Ramdev Get Into Herbal Business’, ‘Victoria and Devdutt Pattanaik Share Their Secret’.
Then there’s the other kind of fake headline.
‘Zaheer Khan and Sagarika Ghatge’s honeymoon pictures in the Maldives will give you #travelgoals’ said the caption with a pic of the couple on a beach.
Seriously. Can someone explain?
For years and years, at different times, parents, teachers, girlfriends, in-laws, and editors have asked me what my goals were. And I have maintained a stony silence. Because I’ve never had a goal of any kind. Not one.
So why would a cricketer and his actress wife going off on their honeymoon give me goals of any sort?
The other day, an actor was diagnosed with cancer. I dread to think whether it is giving anyone #chemogoals.
Finally, those dastardly headlines/captions that invite us to watch video clips.
I got this video as a forward from a WhatsApp group. It was accompanied by the following legend:
‘Rare priceless video of Netaji Bose’s arrival in Singapore. Must watch.’
Maybe because I hadn’t had my medication yet, I responded with:
“Sure, I’ll watch it. But how can it be rare or priceless if you can share it so freely on our ‘Hurray Halfwits’ group? Unless, of course, it isn’t a forward. And you obtained it because of your keen interest in Indian history. And after years of painstaking archival research, and great personal sacrifice, you unearthed this footage in a dusty, forgotten house in Singapore, converted the 8 mm print into a video, and sent it to us fortunate WhatsApp users first as some sort of exclusive worldwide premiere. But if you didn’t, it is about as rare or as priceless as the Tamannah jpeg you sent us earlier with the words ‘Season’s Happy Grettings’ (sic), or the video you sent just before that, of a monkey hurling faeces at tourists in Bali.”
Needless to say, I have been asked to leave the group.
Sigh.
If that made news, I wonder what the headline would read.
‘Unpatriotic humour writer excommunicated for disrespecting great freedom fighter?’
Krishna Shastri Devulapalli is a lot like Pandit Ravi Shankar. The former is a satirist while the latter is a sitarist.
