Once I held a pen, so I know it!

All the pens that write do not necessarily write words. There are scribbling, written blabbering, nonsensical blah blahs and oodles of doodles that draw ink out of them. Pens are not designed to die writing nothing but the owners’ names over and again.
And a journalist has a conscience that does not allow him/her to bleed it too much on gibberish.

Once I held a pen, so I know it!

Ethics were what we lived by. They were very much there. Since, we were a breed too poor to put up posters on every wall on our existence; those who little knew us, never knew of our ethics. After all, I come from a kin who did not send a hundred fishermen to sea at the wake of a storm and watched them die. Mine isn’t a fraternity that shrugs shoulders at the tragedies of our women, toiling their way to death in the Middle East. Ours was not a culture to call unprintable names on public platforms; or Adam-tease its female counterparts just to dodge questions.

Our hands have no blood-stains—rather the blotches that are left by ink!

We breathed through censorship, the demonic 18^th Amendment, thugs, arson,murder, white vans, goons and the defeat of the Right to Information Bill. Ethics is a poor name for another device designed to felicitate choking. My fraternity will choke, yet it will not die but live through.

Once I held a pen, so I know it!

Ours were the hands that were tied for the convenience of the truth-fearing. Eyes, though could see, were not allowed to look beyond the fences. Yet, the pens kept carving strokes on the papers; sending words to the printers and back to newsprints. Though they would have soothed many, pricked a few to near-death. Praises were pleasant surprises; threats and clarifications were the ten o’clock plain teas. Those were the overfed cats, jumping out of the bags. And the hands that held the pens, clapped at the sight. Sense of fulfillment does not come with surrender or cowardice.

Once I held a pen, so I know it.

Truth, even in its crudest and the most indigestive form, still fits to be delivered to those who want to know it. It is the unspoken pledge between the reveler and the learner of the truth. Those who come between them are blunt-headed murderers who would only see the pointed finger without seeing the direction it was pointed at. It was no easy dropping hints. Metaphorics would have never been journalism. Hints would have never been information. Yet, the times made them so. The bravest few abhorred the frills and the sugar coats, thus their fraternity was compelled to stare at the frills of their open coffins. The press, as one would loosely call it, has seen enough bloody days, red-letter days and Januaries full of blackened days.

Though a nation could be free once every year to remember war heroes, its citizens would hardly see the trouble of remembering a missing byline on paper or disappeared face on television. For us, hardly a day passed without remembering one of those whom we outlived; perhaps, thanks to our own insignificance. Though press cocktails may flood with scandal at their mention, when tough times hit the newsrooms their martyrdoms would surge, and there would be uncomfortable silences too obstinate to be broken from sighs. And everything would get back to normal. Occasionally a poem or a tribute would appear for a name achingly familiar. Idealization is allowed in small doses. Even the enemies by principle could write elegies.

Those who hold a pen swear in allegiance to stick together; despite the color of their ink, the quality of their newsprint and the reach of their words. And this is something, no amount of breakfast-stuffing with a golden spoon or a countless cylinders of tear gas could take away.  

Once I held a pen so I know it!

In a country where the citizenry is deprived of its rightful right to information, and the former’s complacence at hands of depravation have always been the painful reminders of the isolated path, our breed had chosen to walk. Ours were no superstar faces. No girl screamed at a left-out byline, like the way one does when the golden-eyed boy walks out of the stage. The only ones who scrapbooked our clippings were us. Fame was not a fairy- gift created for us. Yet, we took pride in the familiar light that crossed the reader’s face, at a random introduction. We could even skip a few meals if a reader could narrate from memory a line from a long forgotten feature.

This was the highest form of recognition, so credible and transparent that even dollars or pounds could not buy; nor could it be forced out at gunpoint.

Once I held a pen, so I know it!

There is a reason why one is called a journalist; and why not every writer can be one. Indomitability loses its sense when there is no battle to fight. This is why fiction is less hurtful and such writers have fewer enemies, many fans and so much money. We have fought. For us. And for people. We had everything. We had nothing.

My kin has pens and words; everything worth defending.

They have only scissors and they will only know how to cut, reduce and lose!

Once I held a pen and I know it!