Mumbai citizens light candles at a vigil in memory of the victims of the terror attacks across the city. (AFP)

Ah! So in response to a nationwide request, you wore white to your workplace on Monday, did you? Wah! At night, in mesmeric answer to another SMS, you honoured the brave soldiers by lighting a candle in your window. Clap, clap. At the Jethro Tull concert, did you not observe a hangdog one-minute silence for conscience appeasement, all the while in anticipation of a phoonk of Locomotive Breath? And some of you even took a little time off to do a solidarity show-up on the streets, where the media could capture your forlorn visage.

Oh yes! The very same media, which has been receiving a constant battering at your hands because they were sensationalist? Did you not stay transfixed to your television sets and pored like research scholars over the daily newspapers in the last few horrifying days?

It is time to do our thanksgiving to all those fearless media professionals who were at the forefront, risking their lives, staying up hostile hours, and garnering every possible detail and eking out every poignant story to convey it to their hungry readers and viewers. Not one of them balked at being in the line of fire.

As we mourned the passing of those whom we knew as friends, or as professional colleagues — like Ravi Dara, a lovely woman who has been part of the corporate PR scene for decades, and who perished in the attacks — I received and responded to many emails from my counterparts. Grieving can be one aspect, but at some stage we need to do something more about it. Which is why I was heartened to get this email from Professor Ujjwal Chowdhury, who has been dynamically taking mass communication to new dimensions. As director of the Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, which periodically hosts awareness seminars for potential students in this field all over India, he told me on the phone that the whole of 2009 will be focussed on Combat Terror Communication Campaign across all possible media, with the theme of Youth Against Terrorism. He has already made the announcement in his programmes in Bangalore, Indore, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar, in the past few days.

But the rest of the year will see the generation of a national campaign with partners in online, offline, on-air and on-ground media. Obviously, all proposals like this will be made more attractive by the creation of merchandise — caps and headbands and T-shirts. The practical aspects will be to get fresh students who are applying for the course to speak out on the combat terror issues.

so in the pipeline are short film contests with an anti-terrorism theme, the signing up of important personages to support the campaign, and constant activity throughout next year. He has requested me to be in Pune early next year to talk to students, keeping the fight against terrorism through communication as a major focus. I feel inadequate at the moment to take on such a subject, but at the same time, am inspired about proposals like Chowdhury’s which are ongoing, not one-off.

For the actionable elements, we turn our hopes to a more happening intelligence network, which should transcend the callous mirrors held under our cars as we zoom into five-star hotels for business as usual.

Do you think communication can be used to combat terror? Tell t2@abpmail.com