Who are you? I don't know

I was expecting it I guess. Sure, I was. Not that I wanted to, but it just seemed right.

Trackbacks are very common in journalism. People say stuff, and then deny it. As I write this, in a way, I think trackbacks are even generally very common. But that's besides the point.

Several trackbacks happen after a story is published. Either it's forgotten, just like the news the next day or the publication is taken to court, where not even a tape recorded version of the man saying what you claim he said is permissible.

What is?

The reporter's note pad. I don't know about Qatar, but at least in India, on defermation cases, the judge calls an expert on shorthand, who then decides if these notes, which the reporter might or might not have taken down while talking to the interviewee, are original or fabricated. They can apparently make out, rather accurately. Don't ask me how... I have absolutely no clue. Though, one expert, during a case against me (there have been several, FYI), told me off the record, while a person's taking down notes, he's not constantly writing every word the interviewee is saying. In between, when the person's talking crap, you'd probably scribble your name here and there, make a few random designs in the corner of the page etc etc, there are several more points which these experts look at.

Again, besides the point, but I never carried one - a notepad. At times, I do take notes, wherever, behind a piece of paper in my wallet, behind a visiting card... but while writing the story, I never really look at the notes, for, while the people are telling me something, instead of noting down everything like an idiot, I try to understand the story, I absorb it, and once you do, why in the world do you need notes, except of course to glance through the names you have to quote.

If I were to be sued for defermation, there is no way in hell I'd get away, because my notes are pointless. So how did I get away on at least seven of those instances, when people said something, I wrote them in a story, the story got published, had side effects, the man denied he ever said those things, and bang - a legal notice?

In Indian newspaper offices, these legal notices, come like every second day. The chief reporter or the editor wouldn't even open them. Dustbin, straight away, with a straight face.

To answer the question how I got away is really very simple. In five years of my experience in journalism, I have tried, and failed miserably to take 'proper' notes while people talk to me. Just doesn't happen. What I have been really succesful at is, making those notes, with all those scribbles here and there - a few signatures, a few designs of stars, a line here a line there - after I have finished writing my story.

Not the next day, or a week later, or when a legal notice is lying on your desk, because the experts can actually find out approximately when those notes were made. So it has to be immediately after you've written the story, that same day.

And all of my editors, who I worked with knew this about me. I never hid anything from them. They were supportive because they knew of my photographic memory, and that really, I wasn't doing anything wrong, in the right sense of the word. I wasn't writing something out of my own imagination. It's what had been said.

That's how it happens in India.

Whereas in Qatar, I am not really sure. But evidently, if you write something which pisses off the authorities, whether or not you have notes or eveidence, you're jailed for a day or two... or/and worse/better still, deported, being accompanied by cops till you clear your immigration at the airport. Then they wave goodbye. No one else can do anything to help you, be it your management or your boss.

And then there are trackbacks which happen even before the story's published. I witnessed my first such trackback, today.

On a story on Qatar's crackdown on illegals, I sensed, just an intuition, there's a way around the story without actually getting a first hand experience of the cops' illtreatement (basically bashing up black and blue) towards poor expats.

I traveled, walked all around the Salwa Industral Area, situated on the outskirts of Doha, where all these poor labourers stay. Talked to people, several of them. They told me everything (off the record, a phrase I don't believe in), and a few hours of walking, talking to people, looking in their eye to know if they knew more than they were saying, I met one man. The man I was looking for. A man who had seen it all. And not just seen it. Taped it all - a one minute long video of cops beating up innocent labourers and making them sit on the ground, exactly like an eye witness mentioned (like "lambs and goats") - on his cellphone.

I didn't react much to the tape when I saw it. I didn't want him to get overwhelmed. Instead, spoke to him very sweetly, sat in his shop, bought him a cup of tea, heard whatever he had to say, sympathised with him, hugged him, and walked away.

But I knew, I needed that recording. I knew I could only take it on a CD, which I'd have to return with the next morning and somehow convince him to give me the recording with a promise that his name shall not appear anywhere.

I had a feeling, a strong feeling, while being driven in a cab to Salwa this morning, it's not going to be as simple as that.

I was told by my news editor last evening people here are scared, "they don't want to get into any sort of controversy."

A shot it had to be, nevertheless, without which I woulnd't be able to get food down my throat.

Enter I, in his shop. The man, busy with his work.

"Asalaam Aalekhum," I wish, with a smile, and take off my sunglasses.

"Waalekum Salaam," he replied, staring at me, looking confused.

"Yesterday, I spoke to you, remember?" I said in Hindi.

"Yesterday? No No, I don't remember. Who are you? I don't know. Go away. Nothing here."

I knew it was now impossible to get that recording from him.

But I requested, anyway. The minute he heard me say the word video recording, the man reached out for his cellphone, and immediately deletes the footage in front of me. "Discussion over," he says. "Go away, now."

Really, the discussion was over. There was nothing more to ask, nothing more to know. I turned around and started to walk. The man spoke again. "Get one thing clear," he said. "If you are in Qatar to do all this, you're in it alone. Try as hard as you can, not a soul will help you."

"Shukran," I replied.

I can't blame him actually for not supporting me. They're poor people, whose families are back home in their country, and they're here trying to make a little money so that their families can have a good life. They don't want to get into any sort of controversy. Not even take a chance.

I sat in the cab, bound office-ward, and wondered how wrong it was when people said, "Oh, you're a journalist... it's easy for you to get information."

It's toughest for a journalist to get information, to get the real story. That man would have given that recording to a common man, not to a journalist.

Seems like, I'll just have to go ahead and get bashed up by the cops if that's what it would take for me to get this story. I don't really care if it's later published or not.

Finally, there's some thrill I see coming my way.

Welcome to Qatar.