Thursday, October 30, 2008

Letter from Anonymous

An anonymous person wrote a scathing comment on my blog about something I wrote recently, and I reproduce it here. I wish he/she had revealed his/her name. Though I will respond to the comments, but I think more than attacking me personally it raises an important question:

Do we, as journalists, make any contribution to the people whose plight we write about? Do we help or touch their lives in any way apart from our soppy stories about them?

Responses welcome.

Here is the comment:

"Watching all this horrible and disturbing scene on your blog and the poetic description of tragedy of Madhepura is too heart breaking to bear.I ask you that why all this is being made the blog item? did you dare to wet your feet into the flood water of kosi? how many victims have so far been paid plenty monitory assistance by you? in the blog photo you look to be belonging to a prosporous family. If all this is just a report of a correspondance, then it is nothing more than the commercial use of the national calamity. For the sake of pity people please stop all this tear dropping and if possible take some real steps for their rehabilitation."
(All photos by the author, except when credit mentioned otherwise)