rahul chittella

Director Kanu Behl’s film, Despatch, drops on Zee5, likely, in December, 2024. Why summarily introduce you to it now? Because, sometimes, you wanna be the one to say: you read it here, first! As it aptly should be, this time.  Despatch is evidently inspired by the life of slain crime & investigations editor, Jyotirmoy/J Dey (1955-2011), who worked in the same paper/newsroom (mid-day), I’m reporting this from!  Although the film’s lead character, Joy Bag, works for Despatch, alluding to the rival Mumbai-daily, Afternoon Despatch & Courier, that doesn’t exist anymore. The film will feel close to home for print journalists, in general, as it opens with a suitably unsexy newsroom. From the calendar, flying in the backdrop, you learn, it’s March, 2012. Which explains the advent of “digital first” approach to news—occasioning excitement as a managerial diktat, and sneer from purists.  To think of how only 12 years back can feel like a period film, in the context of media-technology, no? This is beyond observing ₹2,000 notes in circulation, or Blackberry for smartest phones, on the screen.  Let alone other challenges, including press freedom—just the fact of social media’s current primacy in the dissemination of opinion, news (fake, or otherwise), in 2024, could wholly alter the story of Despatch, set in 2012. Right?  Column link in bio.