T
he name is Chandran (that’s ‘moon’ in my mother tongue Malayalam) which is perhaps why I’ve earned the moniker Mr M. My job, incidentally, involves tapping telephones for the income- tax department. Now I take immense pride in my work and am happy to be known as an expert when it comes to recording conversations. In the business for the last 10 years, life has been as good as it can get for a tapper. It’s only in the last fortnight (ever since the Niira Radia tapes featuring conversations with senior journalists became public) that my world has turned topsy-turvy. I am literally snowed under with requests from editors and reporters. And, believe it or not, all of them want me to tap their phones! Now, at first, I thought they were joking. But one gentleman explained that everyone desperately wanted to join the elite club of journos who have been tapped. “Mr M, as you well know, the Radia tapes featured top editors. Who wouldn’t like to be like them? Which is why you have to help. We have to prove we are worthy and powerful enough for people like you to monitor our calls. Today, having one’s phone tapped has become a bigger status symbol than Z plus security.”Mr M The Telephone Tapper
I am literally snowed under with requests from editors and reporters. And, believe it or not, all of them want me to tap their phones!
I wouldn’t know about that but one journo representing a Kannada paper in Delhi said he would call a fixer and reveal some details of Karnataka CM B.S. Yediyurappa’s land-grabbing scams. “Sharp at noon, I will make the call and you do the rest. I want to catch all the editions of my newspaper,” he said as he nervously lit a cigarette. I was hard-pressed to explain that only phones of vvips are monitored. “If you were working for a national daily, there would have been some hope. But even then, it would be difficult because my waiting list of presswallahs looks like the reservation chart of a Trivandrum Rajdhani Express in the holiday season.” Strangely enough, he seemed surprised that so many scribes had already approached me. I tried my best to fob him off. “You must understand that every self-respecting journo wants his/ her phone tapped. Now, how can I agree to all these phony requests?” But this chap wasn’t the kind to give up easily: “Mr M, my entire career is in your hands. My editor is most upset that my phone has not been tapped. He says it’s because I don’t have any contacts in Delhi. And at home, my wife and kids no longer respect me. Why, the other day my 15-year-old son wondered how I could call myself senior special correspondent when my phone hasn’t been monitored. Mr M, if you don’t help then I’ll be left to record my own conversation. But that would be dishonest journalism.”
Well, finally, moved by his plight I agreed to save his career. But I gave him a word of advice : “Yediyurappa won’t do. His grabbing land is as exciting as revealing the name of the school where my neighbour’s son studies. So think of something more exciting—something on 2G, Soniaji, Rahulji or CWG....”
(As imagined by Ajith Pillai)
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