I’m not saying that. Kobad Ghandy, the top Naxalite who was recently arrested in Delhi, is saying that. And he’s saying that courtsey Jyoti Punwani, a Mumbai freelance journalist and courtsey the Hindustan Times.

Jyoti is clearly impressed with Kobad’s ideology and friendshio (he stood witness to her wedding and served his family’s ice cream at the dinner that followed). So the tone of the write up is one of admiration for the man. Which is all very well. But while discussing his early days in Mumbai the writer slips this in:

“After a whole morning of wrestling with Lenin’s “Imperialism” at some open-air camp outside Mumbai, Kobad would start making lunch, insisting that we learn to wring the necks of chickens, else how would we stand the sight of blood when the revolution actually came?”

Now, that nonchalance might suit a hardened Naxal teaching his prospective comrades but what about the writer? Is it the norm these days for journalists to draw such vivid imagery of violence with the same nonchalance? If the writer is swayed by the subject, the editors at Hindustan Times seemed to have relished the ghastly quote even more to have thrown it up into a blurb to ensure nobody missed it. It seems that any talk of chicken is toast for HT.

One can understand Kobad espousing violence. But what was the point and purpose of the writer in bringing such stomach-churning stories from Kobad’s kitcthen to millions of breakfast tables? Shouldn’t somebody at the HT have used the editorial scissors?

Help me figure this one out by making your comments.