Lost?

Once upon a time, I had a dream. Of travelling to Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Vietnam, among other places, as a war journalist. Covering international battles as a reporter, documenting the stories of those on the other side of the conflict, those with no voices and silent eyes pleading for mercy and relief. I wanted to be out in the front, not as a soldier (I don't have perfect 20/20 vision, so that was ruled out), but as a chronicler of everything that is wrong with war. With a powerful Canon around my neck, shooting photographs of broken walls and dilapidated houses, governments that promised development and relief and change but only brought about more violence and apathy. With a trusted voice recorder that would record for posterity tales of deprivation and horror. With a small notepad and pen tucked inside my pocket in case the recorder failed (or the batteries died out). With a bottle of water in my bag, packets of biscuits, a few maps and a well-thumbed diary of the local dialect. I was young, naive and idealistic. I wanted to travel to the conflict zones, change the world through my stories and writing. I wanted to see the effects of war for myself -- how it displaced millions of people, tore apart families, left children orphaned and the elderly unsupported, how the soldiers fighting for the bigger nations saw it (maybe) as a "necessary evil". Maybe how their lives changed, far removed from the love of their families back home -- a wife, twin daughters, a dog called Bruno, maybe even a mother who worried for the soldier. I wanted to be the one telling their stories through my camera and my pen. I wanted to be courageous.

Here I am now, writing a 300-word news report about Saina Nehwal losing in the early stages of yet another international tournament. Trying to analyse, in 350 words, how women's tennis has changed over the past decade. And filling up reams of pages with meaningless drivel that, at the end of the day, no one really cares about. After all, it is just sport, not life and death. And war. Even something like politics that might seem banal at first but is surely more important than covering sport. Virat Kohli leading India to another WC T20 final is hardly of any importance in the grander scheme of things, particularly when someone is being shot, at this very moment, in Syria.... or being tortured in one of the many prisons across my country. But Sunday will arrive soon and I will think of a football match, if Liverpool have the nerves to win and keep their title hopes well and truly arrive. The war will be relegated to the background, to that small corner of my mind that pricks me from time to time. At 27, I am too old and jaded (in journalistic terms) to think of change, to contemplate moving out of my safety zone. The dream has died. Leaving me to wax eloquent about a well-taken free kick or a perfect hattrick.

RIP, Anja Niedringhaus.... may you inspire many more women to take up the camera and look through the lens.

Song of the Day: "Shattered Dreams" (The Offspring)