PatnaI was at my home last weekend and had the luxury to do things at my will – I thought watching TV was not a bad option. Not oblivious of the ‘World Cup’ fever, I watched a couple of decent contests. And then I followed news. News channels had their hands full – 'Bhopal Gas Tragedy’s verdict' and the subsequent events were keeping the '(breaking) news mongers' busy plus they had the added responsibility of covering the 'biggest sporting carnival'.

One thing that struck me was how media somehow misses small, yet important, news bites. To illustrate it with an example, I will guide you through a couple of news related to my native place Patna.

Patna was in news last weekend. For those who care - BJP was holding its national executive meeting in the city after a decade and half. It was a treat for the national media with every news channel of some worth giving this meet the 'desired attention. And to their delight, there was some 'masala' added with the outburst of CM Nitish Kumar over an ad depicting him alongside Narendra Modi. As I have already pointed out the entire event for two days received the 'desired' media attention. I personally do not have any qualms with the ‘extent’ of coverage of this 'big meet' – what irks me is the complete disregard for ‘non-sensational’ news by the media fraternity of our country.

Consider this – Place: Patna; Date: 27/05/2010 (Buddha Purnima); Event: Inauguration of ‘Buddha Smriti Udyaan’ by his holiness Dalai Lama and almost the entire national media gave it a miss.

Many would argue the logic of equating the inauguration of a park with the 'national executive meet' of the main opposition party. However, this is not just a park – here, kept in a 200 feet high 'stupa' are the remains of Lord Buddha donated by various Buddhist countries; the park also houses the saplings of the famous ‘Bodhi Tree’ - one from Bodhgaya and other from Sri Lanka. Further, I think even the regional media which covered the event missed the symbolic relevance of this park.

Located just outside the Patna railway station, in the heart of the city, this park helps in providing a new identity to Patna. With the coming up of this park, distinct symbols of three major world religions now lie within a radius of perhaps 25m. Just opposite to the park is the famous Hanuman Mandir with the distinction of having the second largest budget/revenue by any Hindu shrine in Northern India (behind Vaishno Devi). Not far away is the 'Jama Masjid' of Patna with its beautiful minarets. Together these three structures symbolically offer a humble lesson of 'co-existence' and 'brotherhood'. Dalai Lama offered the 'Stupa' and the park to the service of mankind and as a source to spread 'Peace' across the globe.

In today's difficult times such messages need to be propagated. Unfortunately, this time our national media missed the opportunity completely. I sincerely hope that from now onwards, media would give a little more respect to the 'spirit of human existence' in its coverage and would place it at least at par with the 'bickering of our political leadership'.