I wish I was a good storyteller. Sometimes I believe people should converse only through written material, there is host of options to choose from: texts, emails, letters and what not. But this blog post does not discuss better means of communication in the modern world (so you can breathe easy now). It just opens with me lamenting about how I don’t have any cool stories that I can share with grandkids and even if I had, I would just end up stuttering them, getting them all wrong and killing the fun element anyway. Now that I have gotten over with the lament, I won’t deprive you from a story. It’s a thriller and had you heard it from the horse’s mouth, you would have been listening with your mouth agape and eyes wide, just like I had been. I can’t give due credit to the person I am borrowing this experience from because it is a thriller with action sequences and guns. Anonymity isn’t a choice, but a necessity. To it make it spicier, I have taken the liberty of modifying it a bit and writing it in first person. Without further ado:
Journalism was not my first career option. I wanted to be a cricketer. I was a decent right handed batsman and a nasty spinner. But media happened to me. And so did this assignment. Ever since Tehelka, sting operations had become a rage. I had done plenty of stings till now. Catching petty police officers, clerks red handed on tape. I felt like James Bond. But then I realized that nothing really comes out of the effort. After a couple of stings, the excitement wore off. But this was different. This was big.
It is good to have connections with the media. Especially if your connection is a media baron with a whole range of channels and their crews at his disposal. Let me clarify, I’m not the one with the connections; I’m the disposable crew. So what happens when a hot – shot takes his media baron friend’s help in taking revenge from a rival? You are about to find out.
Our brief was simple. An admission racket was ruining the business of our big boss’s friend. We were to carry out a sting operation to catch hold of the agents involved who would give indications about their big daddy’s involvement. And in today’s world, indications and rumours are enough to build and destroy reputations. Money was not a problem. The entire operation was funded by the vengeance hungry big boss’s friend. He had given us strict instructions to ask him directly for any requirement. He did not trust anyone enough to be a middle man.
The first leg of the sting was carried out successfully in Bangalore. An agent had been traced. A person from our crew had won his trust and convinced him that he could act as a middle man between the agent and a rich party who was desperate to get his brother admitted in a top notch engineering college. The second phase was to be shot in Delhi. And this is where my role starts.
I was the rich party, a businessman from Hyderabad with a dumb brother and a lot of money. Vastu, my colleague and friend, had done brilliantly in the first phase of the sting. He was playing the part of the middle man. We had booked two adjacent rooms in a south Indian hotel. The first room was where the drama was to unfold. Five cameras had been hidden strategically in the 12’ by 12’ ft room. One was hidden in an old dialer telephone, one strategically placed behind two vase, two cameras were placed on diagonal ends of the ceiling disguised with curtain holders. And one camera was hidden in a bag. There were microphones all over. The wires were hidden beneath the carpets and taped to the corners behind the curtains. The second room was where the entire set up was. All the big machines, audio faders, monitors, controllers. The technical set up was all complete. And now I was told that the agent always carried a gun with him, but there was nothing to worry about. A team of five was right in the adjacent room. Suddenly I was paranoid. There were too many cameras. It was too easy to get caught. The bag with the camera had a lot of wires in it. Though the rest of the team had ensured me that the agent won’t bother looking inside the bag, I had insisted on being safe. Thus we had asked the big business man getting the sting done to give us 2 lacs in cash to cover the camera in the bag. Vengeance is sweet. And expensive. I still hadn’t gotten over the filmy style in which he got the money delivered to us. But then, this entire operation wasn’t anything normal. Even from the media perspective.
I had calmed myself down and gotten into character when the agent entered the room. After Vastu made the introductions, the agent began small talk. Vastu had the bag with the camera tucked under his right hand. Was I getting too paranoid or was the agent methodically scanning the entire room? And just when I had mentally reprimanded myself and reined in the horses of my imagination, the agent gestured towards the telephone and said, “They still have this make of telephones? Saar, this piece has taken my fancy. I’ll take it home with me saar. I’ll pay the hotel whatever compensation it needs”. My hands started sweating. I was struggling to keep the expression neutral on my face. The telephone had a camera fixed in it. If the agent went too close to the phone, our game would have been up in seconds. But I regained control and told him that trivial matters could wait as we had something more important to discuss. That silenced the agent but his expression seemed doubtful to me. Meanwhile, I and Vastu were getting rapid instructions on our discreet earpieces from the adjoining room. The angle of the camera hidden in the bag had to be adjusted to get a better shot and in attempt to do so, Vastu was fidgeting a bit too much for comfort. Suddenly the agent stood up, pointed at the bag and shouted, “What do you have in the bag? Why are you keeping it so close to you? Is there a camera hidden in the bag?”. I paled. Vastu paled. Suddenly I realized that it would take two seconds for the agent to pull out his gun and shoot us both. The entire crew in the next room won’t be much help. I could be dead in the next minute. I was frozen in my chair. I was only aware of the project incharge’s voice coming from the earpiece asking us to remain calm. He said the agent won’t shoot. I looked towards Vastu. He seemed to have recovered himself. He zipped open the bag and without moving the contents showed the layer of stacks of currency notes covering the camera. Vastu got up and shouted louder than the agent, “Are you mad, you jerk! This seems like a damned camera to you? We look like the media to you? Do you think any channel would pay a person enough to go to such lengths to catch hold of you? This was supposed to be advance money for you. And excuse me if I want to keep the money safe, close to me!”. I got the drift and shouted at Vastu in turn, “Who the hell have you brought to me? I can’t do business with these low minded cowards! I could have spent my money on any big college and you brought this dumb guy to me?”. I turned towards the agent. His face did not look very confident now. I pointed to the door and asked him to leave. Our cover could have blown off any moment. Our project incharge asked us to drop the operation here for now and continue tomorrow. We needed to win the agent’s trust. Hurrying through it would have been dangerous. A lot of money had been spent already and there was no scope for mistake. “Listen you jerk!” I shouted at the agent “If you don’t want to do business, don’t waste my time. You have ruined my entire day”. An authoritative tone was enough to make the agent wet his pants. It was obvious that he did not want to let a good party leave. In seconds his tone changed and he gave excuses for his behavior. Sting operations were too common these days and he had narrowly escaped a couple of them. Sadly, a journalist hadn’t. Thus, the revolver. I carried on my charade, “Look, I’m in no mood to work with you today. I would have to down extra pegs of whiskey to wash down your stupidity! Now get away from my sight. I’ll think about it tomorrow. And if you continue this moronic behavior of yours, rest assured that I won’t have the patience to give you another chance. Now scoot off”. Mumbling apologies and grateful words, the agent left. I could breathe normally again.
The next day. This time we were extra cautious. We were changing the setting of the cameras and the microphones again. The entire crew was in the first room, setting up. There were wires strewn everywhere. I was getting dressed. Vastu was the anchor for the entire programme and was recording a link right outside the room. Just then, the agent entered the corridor. It took him a minute to realize that the man standing with a gun mic in his hand wasn’t a middle man at all. That no deals were going to get finalized today. That it was a trap. It took us a minute to realize that our cover was blown. That the entire exercise, the money spent was wasted. That the agent could track us down and get us killed to keep his and his boss’s identity a secret.
The agent ran. We ran after him. This was no scene from a bollywood action movie. It was real. And it sucked! We drove after the agent as he dodged the traffic like a maniac. We finally overtook the agent’s Santro and skidded to a halt in front of him, blocking his way and forcing him to brake, right in the middle of the Teen Murti marg. Before the agent had the time to react and pull out his gun, we had pulled him out of the car and shoved him in our SUV’s backseat. He sat sandwiched between me and Vastu. I was panicking. What could we do now? We couldn’t have started afresh. His boss would have gotten careful. We could not have just let him go. He could have had us all killed. And had we come back without the sting, we might as well have said goodbye to our job. We were messed up. We parked the vehicle close to a police chowki at India Gate. It was very hot and I was sweating.
I called Pranay, another colleague. He was nearby and reached us in a little time. Pranay sat in the front passenger seat. Looked back and snarled at the agent, “Act smart if you don’t like to have two hands and legs.”. Now Pranay is a big guy, with bloodshot eyes. If he wanted, he could come across as a gangster. Seems like he wanted to. I felt the agent’s hands go cold in as Pranay coolly discussed what all we could do with him which broadly involved a lot of broken bones. The agent was shaking with fear. Pranay now directly threatened the agent, “I don’t have the patience for all this. Either you give us an on-camera confession of this admission racket with all the big names or I shoot you right here.” The funny thing was that amongst the five people in the car, the only person with a gun on him was the agent and he was the one being threatened. But the agent suddenly relaxed under my grip. He looked at Pranay with resolve and said, “Saar, shoot me please. If you won’t, he will do much worse than that. I am sorry. I can’t give you any byte or interview or confession. Please shoot me right now.”. He was sobbing uncontrollably. I shook him and said, “Look, we are not the bad guys here. We could hand you over to the police right now but I know your boss would fish you out and do much worse than what we or the police can do. So, co-operate with us. Just look into the camera, say whatever I ask you to and we can make sure you are safe. Surrender to the police and we’ll bail you out. We’ll send you to a new city, open up a new business for you, give you a new identity. No one would touch you. Your boss would probably be in jail after we broadcast your interview! You just have to cooperate.”. It took a lot of convincing and a few tight slaps from Pranay, but eventually the agent gave in. Not like he had a choice. He held the mic in his hand and delivered the lines we gave him perfectly. We drove him back to his car, which was still standing at Teen Murti marg, went back to work, edited the sting and put it on air. Well, the rest of the story can be rather controversial, even under the comforting blanket of anonymity.
Don’t feel sympathetic for the agent. Feel happy for me. I made it alive, and I still had my job. Of course I did not get promoted for it. But in this industry a “good job!” is as good as a medal. Maybe being a cricketer was a better option after all.
