Every time the first of April rolls around, news publications all over the country try to outdo each other in trying to come up with faux news items that their editors think tickles the readers’ funny bone. It’s like the most boring person you know showing up to your costume party dressed like a clown. In trying to come up with actual jokes, these organisations forget a really important source of hilarity for all their readers: their attempts at sincerely covering the news.
We at Scroll take our responsibility towards our readers quite seriously. Unlike less prestigious publications, you will never find us indulging in cheap pandering by having some self-proclaimed jokester write us a cheap parody. We will not stand for such prurient clickbaiting. At least not until we’re bought out by Mukesh Ambani.
Unlike web publications who like to insult their readers’ intelligence by giving them nothing but gratuitous, low-information fluff, we believe in only providing our loyal subscribers with something of substance. As much as we would like to spend the rest of the day talking about our own virtues, we don’t think that is appropriate. Therefore, we asked an eclectic group of famous people to tell us what Scroll really means to them.
The first one to send us a touching note was none other than Aatish Taseer, a man who has managed to turn being an offspring of semi-famous parents into a literary career:
“Whenever I want to read the opinion of cultural elitists who are in denial of the world that surrounds them, I log on to Scroll dot in. In choosing to focus exclusively on content written in English, your website has decided to ignore this county’s rich culture and ingenious traditions. Unlike your readers, I choose not to remain trapped in the ignominy of a dialect that was alien to this land till about 200 years ago. As I was telling the Uber driver who drove me home last night, we need to shake up all the people in the country living in the cocoon of their own making. To paraphrase Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Unlucky is the one/who cannot see/what lies in front of his eyes.”
Thanks, Aatish! We’re looking forward to your next book about a prolific writer called Aatish who publishes thinly veiled biographies under the guise of literary fiction. Congratulations!
Our next stop was popular teevee anchor and the man who spends all his time on twitter trying to be a #CoolDad, Rajdeep Sardesai.
“When I first logged on to the beta version of Scroll, I was quite impressed. The internet was finally coming of age and Indian news junkies would be better for it. But a fair warning for all the webinistas out there. Over the past two decades, I have seen the business of television news change focus from informing people into random people just yelling at each other. Of course, I have nothing to do with this degradation. I was just the lowly editor-in-chief of one of the country’s largest media conglomerates. I had no control over what went on television. It’s not like I could decide to be different and not turn the 9 pm news into a shoutfest. I had shareholders to think about, dammit!”
Thanks, Rajdeep. Sorry for editing out all the Mohammed Rafi songs you linked to.
Top Cop. Graphic novel superstar. Pigeon vigilante. These are all words that describe our next contributor. A few days ago, we reached out to the mental health facility that Kiran Bedi is currently staying at and we politely requested her to send us a few words of encouragement for our humble web operation. To our glee, she happily obliged us with a small essay.
“I would like to take this opportunity and congratulate all the writers, editors and contributors at Scroll for a job well done. From the file I keep about you, I understand that you have been criticised by a lot of people for simply doing your duty. That must feel unpleasant, to say the least. Let me tell you that I completely understand how you feel. You give and you give and people reward you by choosing the human version of a change dot org petition over you. I too have been berated, rebuked, reproached, admonished, chided, criticised, ridiculed, laughed at, made fun of and parodied. But I still stand strong! I’m going to tell you the same thing Modiji told me at the beginning of my election campaign: first they ignore you. Then they mock you. Then you take a large donation from a friendly billionaire and in the end you win.”
Thank you Ms. Bedi. If we even last half as long as one of your umpteen press conferences, we will consider ourselves a huge success.
When talking about eminent personalities, how could we forget India’s self-proclaimed youth icon and the face of a website that specialises in arranged marriages, Chetan Bhagat. Though we have routinely criticised him for his patently false opinions, he was gracious enough to send us a short note appreciating our contribution to the national conversation.
“I was surprised when the people at Scroll approached me to write something for them. Oh, now that you need people to click on something, you come to me. What happened, did Samit Basu say no? Look, I don’t read your website. But what I gather from your typical liberal hypocrite behaviour is that you have nothing but contempt for people like me. When comedians and actors are attacked for their freedom of speech, you publish a zillion articles defending them. But when I write something sexist or homophobic, no one comes to my defence. Because, you know, having your Twitter mentions column flooded by dozens of critical messages is literally the same as having 14 unreasonable FIRs registered against you. So excuse me for not showering you with compliments.”
Thank you, Chetan. That was . . . . well, a bunch of words strung together to give the appearance of coherence. So proud of you for making an effort and using the correct punctuation marks!
While we were trying to wrap this up, our inbox pinged with an email from an unfamiliar address. It was a note from Professor Jagdish Bhagwati, who had invited himself to tell us what he thought about our little website.
“I don’t usually write in to web publications but my assistant told me that you were soliciting thank you notes from various members of the intelligentsia so I thought I’d do you a favour and send something in. Now, I usually don’t read the internet. I don’t trust this so-called democratisation of content. Back in my day, you would trust editors to vet their writers and publish only those who deserved to be given a soap box. Nowadays, anyone with an ability to write a sentence calls themselves a writer. Don’t get me wrong. I have the utmost respect for web writers. In fact, my niece almost married one! But just because one has an opinion doesn’t mean one should share it with the rest of the world. If you have domain expertise about one subject, it doesn’t give you the right to speak about everything else with the same authority. If only some people would stick to their own side of the lane!”
Thank you, Professor. We’re just glad you got through a whole paragraph without once mentioning Amartya Sen. Congratulations on this Herculean achievement!
Now we throw open the floor to you, dear reader. Send your notes of congratulation to letters@scroll.in.