In Jammu and Kashmir where respect is often expressed in megawatts but delivered in milliwatts, a senior journalist recently got a front-row seat to the spectacle of well-intentioned disaster.
Having weathered decades of deadlines, dwindling ad revenue, and the slow erosion of actual readers who prefer memes over editorials, our venerable ‘veteran journo’ decided—just this once—to seek a little help from the alma mater that once armed him with idealism and a diploma.
The department head, draped in nostalgia and pressed khadi, responded like an old Bollywood uncle: full of emotion and no shortage of promises. “Send him straight to GEM!” he thundered, as though summoning a divine intervention and not a government procurement officer.
Enter: The GEM officer. Efficient, respectful, and clearly terrified of ignoring a recommendation from the journalism department. Within minutes—and possibly without reading even half a PDF—he generated a supply order worth ₹15,570. Precise. Grand. Prompt.
Only one minor detail: the item turned out to be… an iron trolley.
Yes, nothing screams “support for struggling media” like a 40-kg industrial cart on wheels. Designed perhaps for hauling typewriters from the 1970s, or metaphorically, the weight of unpaid bills and unrealized grants.
Our poor journalist, nursing a bandaged right hand (presumably a battle scar from turning too many pages of unpaid invoices), tried to raise his hand in protest. Unfortunately, pain beat sarcasm to the punch. By nightfall, he found himself calling back his beloved department head.
“Sir,” he whimpered, “They gave me a trolley.”
“What kind of trolley?” came the scholarly reply, “Iron?”
“Yes.”
“From Delhi?”
“Yes.”
“Then consider it character-building. Next time, opt for something lighter. Maybe a yoga mat. Or some digital air.”
And thus, the lesson was learnt. In the bureaucratic bazaar of goodwill, always specify before you qualify. Because sometimes, when you go asking for paper, you end up with 40 kg of iron.
But hey—respect was shown, nostalgia was felt, and somewhere in Delhi, a warehouse ticked off one less trolley.
The moral of the story? Never underestimate the power of a strong recommendation… or the pain of lifting it with your wrong hand.
