Nothing propels the headline ticker faster than a lie exposed, and this morning it’s spooling so fast you have to wait for it to come round in order to make sense of the damn thing. Oh, shoot, there, it’s gone again! What was it, what was it, something to do with Norway…?

“No! Can’t be!” I put down my coffee and place a hand on my open mouth, then slump on the bed. Yes, I’ve been hood-winked, and short-changed, and double-crossed, and all the rest of the double-barrelled equivalents that describe a well-fed ass staring blankly at the screen.

For those of you who live on another planet, the story doing the rounds, literally, concerns the ‘merciless kidnapping’ of two Indian toddlers by the Norwegian Child Care Services, on the pretext that their parents – two middle-class, well-educated, happily-married Indians – hadn’t cared for their children adequately, and so according to the ‘draconian,’ ‘blatantly racist’ rules, the children shall remain in Norwegian custody till they reach the age of wisdom, or eighteen, whichever comes earlier. That’s pretty much it, except that this ‘pretty much’ has laid complete siege to my time and senses for the past month. Consequently, I now know a little about this tiny, extremely rich country, and I know quite a lot about the kind of people who live in this tiny, extremely rich country, i.e. the Norwegians.

You see, till this very moment, Norwegians for me were fat racist pigs not evolved enough to be able to fashion rice-balls out of their suppers with bare hands. I admit: to me their females were blonde and blue-eyed pootnas and hidimbas who abandon their little angels every night in barred and foreboding cribs so they can stretch comfortably on their king-sized beds. I Acknowledge: I thought them evil and heartless Vikings who’d rather present a delinquent with a chocolate éclairs than a crisp ulte-haath-ka.

Well, it’s not looking all that rosy now, is it! All that joyous stereotyping, those TV debates on ‘clash of cultures’ (ours ancient, theirs primitive), all those screaming and yelling panelists – ‘cutting across party lines’ – that I was fed to the teeth by the media this past month, now makes me suddenly hungry for the truth, the real truth, and nothing but the truth! Sorry, won’t get it.

Mind you, when the story broke a month ago I did wonder about its plausibility for a day, perhaps two, in any case longer than my wife who wanted nothing else but to grab the nearest kitchen knife and set sail to conquer the Fjords, so enraged was she at the pitiful sight of the protesting grandparents. But a man can take only so much, and my cloud-parting moment came when I witnessed our Napoleonic leader of the opposition, Ms. Sushma Swaraj, grasp and shake the grandparents with the kind of grit and resolve Napoleon would’ve been proud of. Ms. Brinda Karat followed suit, equally resolute, with her outside support.

That did it. When responsible aunties tuck their pallus in their petticoats and come out on the streets – and obviously they would do so only after they’ve checked and double-checked the veracity of the story – what was I doing hiding behind my loongi, hain?!

Ever since then, I’ve done little else but follow the story, on TV, in print, on radio, on Facebook. I have devoured yard-upon-column yards that have portrayed Norway with the sort of image Bergman would approve: “…Dark as a Scandinavian winter…” (Hindustan Times, February 21), or “…small…distant…cold…” (Business Standard, March 3).

TV was even better, with panel discussions becoming little more than collection points for all those willing to lay down their lives for their Motherland’s honour and prestige. As a result, everything short of a rath yatra from Somnath to Oslo was accomplished. Children came out in their numbers holding neatly printed placards their mothers had spent hours on. Rallies were held in all major cities, including of course Kolkata, where even the normally reclusive Didi materialised and threatened dire consequences if the children weren’t returned. Suddenly, a full-fledged movement was concocted, an India Against Norway movement.

Amid this entire hullabaloo, the conscience keepers of the nation forgot to send a reporter to that dark and distant land. Had they done so, the fellow would have sniffed around, contacted the rival parties, asked them pointed questions, and got to the truth. But no! The truth could wait; the ticker doesn’t like it; the evening panel hates it.

Well, it has come out now, stumping all and sundry with – forget doosra – a teesra! Turns out the Norwegian authorities were in the know of some personal matters between the parents, and were justifiably worried for the two kids. The husband has now admitted that he lied about the goings on in the family. The Indian Government is trying to wash its hands off the whole thing, calling it a personal matter. The uncle of the two children doesn’t want anything to do with the affair. The media meanwhile, red-faced, has delivered an outrageous spin to the whole thing – nothing short of chautha, if such a thing exists! It now says the Government was all this while aware of the marital problems between the lying husband and the mentally ill wife. Yes, the Government is to blame! That’s breaking news, is it not! The tickers are alive!

At one point in Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road, the crying April says to her husband: “No one forgets the truth, Frank. They just get better at lying.”

One wonders how long before Justice Katju’s gavel comes down hard on the heads of our forgetful anchors and editors, so we can go back to admiring the soft-spoken, kind, hospitable, and compassionate Norwegians again.

This article first appeared in newslaundry on Mar. 22, 2012.