Sameera

I open the door a little to notice boss in his usual spot.

"May I come in sir." I asked for permission.

He replied in a serious tone while going through some files, "Yes, you may."

Beginning of the working hour is the safest time to enter this cabin. He gets crankier as the day proceeds.

I take in the room painted in white and gray. I see rays of sunlight seeping through the window at the east wall. It makes the room brighter than it already is.

Boss is seated in a moving chair opposite his huge glass table, that is the only black furniture in the room.

As soon as I got myself seated in the opposite chair to Mr. Praveen Solanki a.k.a. my boss, he started, "In the slum near the eastern forest area, a couple has reported to have seen a wild animal. Go with Anwar and get every single detail on it."

Hearing such a thing made me feel like more of a detective than a journalist.

I nodded and headed back to my desk. Yeah, I don't do much greetings when it comes to my boss, no one does, because he thinks it's a waste of time and energy in workplace and he only replies to a greeting with a nod or a lecture.

He totally deserves the trophy for workaholic of the decade. Hence, no point in trying to be formally polite. Not that someone so successful in their field of profession at the age of 35 requires that.
    
I collected my essentials before heading towards Anwar's cabin. "Good morning bhaijaan. I am instructed to tag along with your team to the slum."

I informed him and he replied, "Well good morning Sameera. Seems like we will get a good story today." I didn't miss noticing his special sarcastic tone.

This story seems not as much important as I thought it to be from boss's good mood. Maybe I misinterpreted the cause of his extra calm demeanor today.

"That I am not much sure of as boss seemed to be in a pleasant mood, I guess." I said, wondering if my interpretation was wrong.

"His mood had nothing to do with this case. You know he puts equal emphasis on all news stories. Must be something else that made him so relaxed today." he replied.

"So, can you provide me some more details?"

As I asked, our camera person entered with his equipment and asked if we were all prepared to go. We nodded and went towards the van. As we settled on our respective seats the driver ignited the engine proceeding towards our destination.

Anwar Abdul Khan is like a mentor to me. He is a 5'8", lean person with dark complexion, black eyes and long black hair. He's been married for 5 years with two daughters whom he treats like princesses. They are indeed bhaijaan's two priceless jewels.

I still remember the day his second child was born and he treated the whole office staff to a lavish lunch at the best restaurant in town.

He is one of the kindest and bravest man I have ever met. At 31 he is very much successful of a journalist. And not to mention a great human being too.

 As my thoughts continued, bhaijaan called on for my attention. "Sameera I hope you are listening attentively because I am not repeating. Everyone, the slum we are headed to has a tiny forest to its left, at the edge of the town. Some of its residents have complained before about animal sightings. But this couple we are about to meet claim to have seen an animal rather monstrous in size than the usual wild ones. So our job is to talk to them, try to find the actual occurrence of events of last night and write an amazing story about it that would catch the eyes of our audiences. So prepare yourselves team."

He explained and all of us shouted "Aye aye captain" in unison.

_______________________________________

We reached the place and came out to meet two people who seemed to have been eagerly waiting for us at the entrance of the slum. The couple had dark complexion and messy brown hair and the clothes they wore looked years old. That is the typical slum dress code. Though they had good physique and didn't seem pale or undernourished.

After they escorted us to their house, a tad bit near the forest clearing, we prepared our equipments and ourselves for the interview. Anwar bhaijaan was the interviewer and I was to take notes of their responses. Easy one.

Well, I was rather excited to get a nice story, such as corrupted officials that deprive these slum people of their rights or some very bad gang of criminals troubling them that have connection with some secret underworld organization or any particular higher level crime report.

But instead we are here to spend our time and energy consoling some slum inhabitants, who are such fools themselves to be living near the forest area, that there are no huge animals around hunting their precious lives but just some small wild dogs or cats that must have come out of the forest mistakenly while looking for food or just wandering around.

As if wild animals are growing impatient nowadays regarding their growing population issues to enter into human civilization and get themselves killed and contribute in controlling wildlife population explosion. Great joke.

Not like I don't sympathize with these people in slums living in such unhygienic conditions and having less than half of their basic necessities fulfilled, I absolutely do. But you see it's not just corrupted officials or selfish political leaders or goons or money launderers all the time that contribute to the miseries of these people categorised 'below the poverty line'.

Because most of them don't even give a thought about acquiring their rights or performing their duties in the first place. Whoever pays the highest amount of money, they worship them. Education is the least important acquisition of human life as per their ideals.

My roommate Akshita came here months ago for one of her projects to teach the children of this particular slum. But all her efforts went in vain cause none of the parents sent their kids to attend even one of the study sessions during the 4 weeks time.

After many more efforts, though she never told me how, she got their permission, in part only. She had to go to their houses to teach each kid personally behind closed doors for only half an hour duration, during the last week of her project.

Their own lifestyle and mindset is so similar to those animals they are putting blame on to get media attention. I really feel bad for those innocent animals that have their forest burned or cut down by these people living in the slum in spite of already having a government allotted house in the outskirts which they are currently renting to others to earn rental money.

Yeah, sometimes the truth is bitter. But it is the truth I came to know from my roommate and some official records whose sources must be hidden for now.

I was writing down the responses of the couple to the questions Anwar Bhaijaan was asking them. They have reported that an hour or so before midnight, yesterday, the husband was returning home from work where he encountered a more or less 5 feet huge animal.

Though he failed in his attempt to hide that he was drunk. I wonder how such vulgar news always spreads so fast. But obviously false news travels faster than the true ones. Especially with such attention seeking people.

Anyways, he said to have ran immediately after hearing the animal's scary howl, and fortunately his house door wasn't locked properly due to a half broken lock. Hence, he immediately entered his house and told his wife everything.

Though his wife never saw the particular animal but she claimed to have heard his howling from a very short distance to her house.

I guess the animal has already had dinner, which saved this poor soul in front of me from becoming the dinner himself. Guess the animal only came here to digest his food by scaring drunk people who have invaded his forest territory.

Anyways, Anwar was done with listening to their part of the story and we came to the conclusion that there were no solid bases to prove the truth behind this scary bedtime story. So Anwar bhaijaan got started with the consolation part to convince them that it was only a little wild animal from the little forest who lost his way. So convincing right?

No. The looks on the faces of the couple didn't seem anything close to 'convinced'. I mean did they really thought we would buy such a baseless story about some giant animal invasion. People these days think media persons have no brains and will broadcast anything for gaining TRP. They are still pretending to have been victim to a giant animal last night.

Anwar bhaijaan assured them saying in a very convincing manner, "You must be terrified, I can understand. But I am very much sure it was only a wild animal which wasn't unusually huge. But, it was still a wild animal and we will try our best to dig deep and find out any solid proof to your report. Also, we will let the forest department know of this so that they will pay more attention to such instances and be careful here on. Both of you should calm down now."

Though the crowd of people that formed around when we arrived to get their version of a spiced up story were thoroughly convinced and gradually leaving. Thank God they didn't try to demand further investigation into this useless made up story. They must have realized just how blunt it sounded only.

Well if you really want the nation to know how oppressed and underprivileged you are then you should try to find better stories of oppression that will melt others heart while watching you on their TV screen, not cry about some non-existent beast to gain more dwelling space by deforestation.

The story was definitely aimed to pressurise the government into cutting the forest further resulting in more habitable space for the slum.

These tales are usually made to scare 5 year olds not to go out of house at night. Doesn't match up to the level of convincing for the nationwide audience.