These are the times of post-truth. Obviously, it is a logical sequel to the information age driven by data — cooked, invented and sometimes discovered. A scenario where the real is the surreal and the surreal is real. This is the post information society and media has become the instrument of awareness, information and education. From institutional media to social media to the cinema are all tools of information, agencies of information and instruments of change. The mechanism is story telling in all its myriad forms. But the dynamics of storytelling has changed. The media that was supposed to tell what is happening on ground zero or in other words report events and incidents is creating stories while the media that was supposed to create stories is reporting events and incidents with the help of stories. In other words reel news is real news and vice versa as cinema shows the truth through its screen plays while other forms of media are telling stories to camouflage truth. Thus the cinema stories are real while the media news are fake. Bollywood, the seat of Hindi cinema must be commended for its honest observation of the incidents and presenting the truth behind those incidents through its stories. In fact, it won't be a hyperbole to suggest that the cinema stories are more research based and objective than the so called researches in the social sciences that claim to be based on analysis of real time data. Though the stories of cinema are based on observation and insight they carry more valid interpretation of incidents and events. A case in point can be the film, an Irrfan Khan starrer, Madari released a couple of years back. The film is about a man who lost his son in a bridge collapse and seeks to take revenge from the government machinery that has been responsible for the construction of the substandard bridge. The protagonist kidnaps the home minister's son to bring the government to knees. In the last scene of the film there is the dialogue between him and the entire machinery of the government responsible for the bridge construction. The ministers, the contractors, the engineers and the administrators are all forced to come out as to what led to the collapse of the bridge. And what comes out appears to be the narrative that can describe any collapse. Including the recent one at Varanasi. It is not just one film. Film after film, the Bollywood has been telling the truth through its stories. It is only unfortunate that those agencies that were supposed to tell the truth are telling the stories. Even more unfortunate is the fact that the hitherto comparatively more objective print media has begun buying stories from the social media and has started presenting them as news. They are reporting from twitter handles and face book walls, though these may largely be the whims and fancies of the people posting them.  It seems as if the print media is committing hara-kiri. The people are not interested in knowing what a politician feels about other politicians or incidents or events. They are mere reactions, sometimes spontaneous and more often motivated. What people want is the truth, the real report from the ground zero. Faking has become the new normal and strategic reporting to suit interests and digress issues replaces truth. While falsehoods are means of information, information per se is coming out through stories.  

Pathak is a professor of management, writer, and an acclaimed public speaker. He can be reached at ppathak.ism@gmail.com