Arnab’s nation wants to know, but should media run ahead of police in Sheena Bora case?

Why does Siddhartha Das matter? The man who is purported to be the biological father of Sheena and Mikhail Bora has been tracked down by our intrepid media. He has been all over our television screens – his face sometimes hidden by a handkerchief, sometimes by a crash helmet. He was interviewed, the newspaper informs us, in a car on the Eastern Bypass in Kolkata, as if he was a whistleblower. At some point during his TV interviews, where he had little to reveal, one could have been forgiven for wondering if that was Das or just some random technician with a handkerchief over his face. Why this kolaveri? Is Das the key to unlock the puzzle of Sheena Bora? And why is the media playing Five Find-Outers in this case anyway as if this was an Enid Blyton mystery? [caption id=“attachment_2418424” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A screengrab of Arnab Goswami’s interview with Siddhartha Das.[/caption] “The whole country has been asking where Sheena’s father is… Why have you not come forth earlier?” said Times Now’s Arnab Goswami, castigating Das for being laggard, entirely unmindful of the fact that just because his “nation” wants to know, it does not have to be Item 1 on the police investigation To-Do list. The man by his own claim has had no relationship with Indrani Mukerjea or the children in years. He didn’t know who she had married after leaving him. If he has any relevance to the actual case it would have to be to establish a)he exists and b)he claims parentage of the children. But in reality Siddhartha Das has been thrust into the limelight to satiate our own voyeuristic interest in the checkered love life of Indrani Mukerjea. He basically serves to underscore three foregone conclusions: The unbearable badness of being Indrani Mukerjea: Das’ testimony helps hammer home the image of Indrani the Heartless. Not to mention the added scandal of Indrani the unwed mother, with Das revealing how they first got “intimate” in a movie theater while watching Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. In addition, he tells us she was “money-minded. She had ambitions for a better living and the high society". And then the clincher - if she did murder her daughter, “she should be hanged”. Indrani Mukerjea might not be the World’s Best Mother, but absentee father Siddhartha Das is hardly the poster boy for Great Dad. Every masala story needs someone you can pound: The media likes nothing as much as its ability to get on the moral high horse. Shows owe their TRPs to being able to find someone they can hector and bully. The same shows that handled Peter Mukerjea with kid gloves came down on Siddhartha Das like a ton of bricks. Could it be related to the fact that Mukerjea is a mover and shaker in media circles while Das merely holds down a modest job in a small handicrafts company? “Prove to me you were concerned about the kids. How many times were you in touch?” thundered Goswami as if the investigation in question was about Siddhartha Das applying for the custody of his children. We are the media and we are just so smart: The media is patting itself on the back for having beaten the police in finding Das. That’s assuming the police were in a hurry to find Das in the first place and could not have managed to track him down on their own. But in the course of its detective-work the media has seen fit to reveal Das’ modest salary. It has interviewed his current wife. And even worse it has quotes and SMSes from the owner and manager of the small company where the man works. Das says he is hiding his face to protect his identity from neighbours, co-workers and employers, but the media seems to be nonchalantly contacting all of them for their reactions anyway.  This might not be illegal but that does not mean it does not stink. This is an ugly case and the more we learn about it, the uglier it gets. Siddhartha Das is just the latest source of excitement du jour added to the infotainment feeding frenzy. There is such a thing as investigative journalism. But that is not the same thing as jumping into the middle of the investigation. Digging up dirt in the name of truth-telling is leaving us all with very dirty hands.