HACKS AND HEADLINES By Rashme Sehgal IndiaInk Price: Rs 295 Pages: 319

Despite the occasional urge to sensationalise, a blurring of the dividing line between Church and State (editorial and marketing) and the temptation to tweak circulation figures, the print media in India has largely been respected for its independence and ability to hold the government accountable. Like any profession, it has its charlatans, but they are limited enough to cause little impact on the overall credibility of the profession.

Rashme Sehgal obviously has a different view. Even though Hacks and Headlines is fictional, albeit thinly disguised, her journalistic world is peopled by immoral editors and scheming journalists who spend most of their time indulging in illicit sex or office intrigue. It is a bleak place where journalists are either stabbing someone in the back or scratching another. The title makes it obvious: "hacks" is a word that defines the bottom-feeders in the journalistic pond.

While the plot revolves around a village caste scandal, it becomes an instrument for a series of unsavoury events, including the overthrow of a government by a newspaper baron. The subplots are mostly to do with women journalists using their sexual appeal to give themselves a leg up (sic) in the profession. Having been a journalist herself, if Sehgal had stuck to fiction, this might have passed literary muster. But there are too many factual references. There's Leelawati, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and head of the Bahujan Samaj Party, as also mention of Sharad Pawar, V.P. Singh and Pramod Mahajan among others. The plot does get fast and furious and is occasionally authentic, but ultimately it is mostly frenetic foreplay ending in something of an anti-climax.

Post Script -By Charmy Harikrishnan   PICTURE SPEAK AUTHORSPEAK: SHANKAR VEDANTAM When headlines become redundant the day after, what does a journalist do? Turn to the seeming permanence of books and write stories that were left untold under the dateline. As national staff writer with The Washington Post, Shankar Vedantam has had his share of terror-writing about James Gartenberg, a real-estate salesman who was trapped in the burning 86th floor of the World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11, and tracing the history of extremism from Robespierre's guillotine to the suicide bombers of Palestine. But away from the beat, what struck a chord in the Bangalore-born journalist was closer home-the Kargil War. "Newspapers reported facts but the emotional element was missing," says 35-year-old Vedantam, who has brought out his debut collection of short stories, The Ghosts of Kashmir (Tara-India Research Press). In the pre-9/11 world, Kashmir "was the most dangerous place on earth". In the post-9/11 world, the centre of gravity shifted and the tragedy of Kashmir became so commonplace that it ceased to be news in the international media. So in 2003, when the war on terror raged in Baghdad, Vedantam made his way to the Valley with a few stories inspired by news reports. "It was 9/11 happening in Kashmir," he says. There was the suffering of the exiled Pandits, of Muslims "who were too poor to get up and leave", of veiled women who hid behind closed doors and never ventured out at meetings. "At least the victims of 9/11 are remembered properly. The trauma of the Kashmiris is yet to be recognised," says Vedantam. Along with the seven stories, Vedantam includes a non-fiction piece, written during the 2003 visit. "No one asks what we want," one Abdul Majid tells the author. A Mohammed Altaf says, "Pakistan blames India and India blames Pakistan. In the middle, Kashmir gets destroyed." Like a newspaper clipping shown during a Brechtian play, they remind the reader that these are the facts, that in the battle of political one-upmanship between India and Pakistan, the Kashmiri is the loser. For Vedantam, next is a play, Flying While Brown. The journey goes on, fiction as the postscript of reportage and vice versa, passions carefully corroborated by data.