Sadistic Joy

I started my day with an ugly surprise, thanks to the Bengali news paper "Ananda Bazar" that I had been subscribing for years. On the front page of their today's edition, they've printed a picture of a victim who was traveling on a train that came under terrorist attack last night.

The picture was showing the upper half of a dead human body entangled in debris. Another picture was showing a severed human hand with rings on the fingers. As India has been suffering from terrorism for so many years, this type of incidents are no more new. But the ugliness of the way it has been portrayed on a newspaper is unprecedented.

In our families a newspaper has a wide range of readers including young kids who would invariably grab it first thing in the morning, to mimic the older members of the house. Such a gruesome picture on the front page is bad enough to traumatize those young minds.

When I compare this with another newspaper that I subscribe to (Times Of India, English daily), I see broken rail cars showing enormity of the accident; but no ravaged human body. This is an appropriate representation of the fact, without challenging people's taste.

The newspapers editors should show appropriate maturity and responsibility for their profession, which was absent today in the case of Ananda Bazar.

As a responsible citizen and a regular reader, I feel strong urge to register my objection towards this kind of tastelessness.

I'll stop reading that newspaper if they don't stop showing insensitivity towards people and society.

NB: “Ananda Bazar” is a Bengali phrase; it means “Market of joy”