Yesterday, I read about Colonel Neeraj Sood, commanding officer of the 18 Rashtriya Rifles, who was killed in a terrorist encounter in Jammu & Kashmir. Reports say Colonel Sood took a bullet in his head and died in hospital.

It took me back to an interview I had done with Anuradha Gore, the mother of captain Vinayak Gore, who was killed in J&K 15 years ago. He too, had taken a bullet to his head, his mother had said. Anuradha, who was speaking to me just before Mother's Day had said that her son used to tell her, promise me that you will never cry. You are a captain's mother and you should never cry. Anuradha had said proudly that she had kept her promise and had not cried when news of his death came in or, after that.

Anuradha had also said there were at least 20 families in Mumbai who had or have a family member fighting in J&K. Every time, she says they hear about a death in the J&K, they think one of theirs has gone. They share the pain with the family, who lost their own. She also stated that the soldiers from her son's unit treat her like their mother and look after her.

Anuradha also accused the media of downplaying the sacrifices of all our defence forces and giving space and mileage instead to less worthy news. Since she was talking to a media person, she was not so blunt but the message was clear: cut the song and dance celebrity crap, focus on real issues and do let the people know the sacrifices our armed forces are making every day in the valley or elsewhere.

In other words, do not waste newsprint and airtime, giving humungous coverage to celebrities cutting cakes on their birthdays, gifting their moms cars worth Rs one crore or more, or even business honchos buying cricket teams and actors babbling on about what they have for breakfast or what they do to have bodies like that.

Occasionally, journalists find a message or two in their e-mail inboxes, which may be a chain mail screaming something like this: You stupid journalists, who only write about celebrities and actors do you know that Capt. (a name there) was killed fighting in J&K and nobody is bothered to write about this. You people should be ashamed of yourselves ufffd"
Yes, we should.