When Ishmeet died... and the TV lost its soul

Breaking news? Absolutely

They've stir-fried, garnished and hung national TV on sale. They keep wrapping it in these ugly yellow ribbons in some sort of self-certification. News-telling? Tch, tch… 'remote' chances. News-selling? Sure, buddy, all the time. After all, hijacker's dangerously at hand – hidden inside the hollows of the harmless remote. One finger-shift, and there's always a better news-seller out there. And bigger breaks. And the biggest bucks.
And there she is – our anchor, smile widened permanently from everyday expanding. The smile. It is such a bloody job essential, and the news on the telly-prompter changes so rapidly, there's never enough time to pick from these options: Paste Smile, Strip It Off, or simply, Pull All Plugs And Just Break Open. And in all this chaos, she breaks news of the 19-yr-old Ishmeet Singh drowning, with her safe-to-smile face. On this side of the screen, the parents and friends are barely surviving the shock. From the news-storming on all channels, between volcanoes of anguish, they're probably gathering little crumbs of information on how they lost their only son to a faraway island. And our girl on TV here? She's in prime time ecstasy - too busy matching smiles with different colours of news.
And then, on another channel, if they wear the right expression while breaking news, a worse mockery 'breaks' in. In the middle of a Lata Mangeshkar or an Abhijeet struggling with words over the loss of the unassuming, promising talent, and Farah Khan shuddering over how the boy's mother would be coping, there's this desperate break to be taken. Like, it's now or never. And not before announcing the 'promising' bit 'coming up': on how the kid lost his life and how his mother lost her mind somewhere. "But all that, after this short little break. Don't go away": the promise spits enthusiasm and you wonder if the anchor actually said that!
As 24 hours turn into Prime Time and 'breaking news' becomes how 'Sallu and Kat stare at Splitsville' or how an alien stares at us earthly-beings from somewhere on Mars or how a lizard and a cockroach found love or something like that, Death dies of cold neglect. Or worse, it turns a reality show with a popcorn interval.
Reality bites… Ouch, it does! But hey, let me go grab my dinner before I catch the footage on Ishmeet's cremation. While I bite into my cucumber, chances are I may not taste blood after all.