Jack and Jill by NDTV

Jack and Jill by NDTV

Here is how the Indian TV news channel
NDTV 24x7 would report the Jack and Jill nursery rhyme. All names (except those
of Jack and Jill), are fictitious.

Prashant - TV Anchor
Two persons have been injured in a freak climbing
accident. Jack and his companion Jill had gone up a hill to fetch a pail of
water when Jack fell down and broke his crown. Jill came tumbling after. Live
from the hill, our reporter, Amrita Shah, takes up the story.
Amrita Shah

Thank you Prashant. Well, as you say, two persons - Jack and Jill - had gone
up a hill to fetch a pail of water. Suddenly, Jack fell down and broke his crown
and Jill came tumbling after. Prashant.
Prashant
Thank you Amrita. What
do we know about the hill?
Amrita
Not too much. Jack was going up the
hill to fetch a pail of water when he fell down and broke his crown. Jill came
tumbling after
[Headline appears at the foot of the TV screen: "hill breaks
crown of pail-boy Jack"]
Prashant
What news of Jack and Jill?
Amrita

Prashant, it seems that Jack had gone up the hill to fetch a pail of water.
We know nothing about the pail, or how heavy it was but it seems that Jack fell
down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after. I have here with me, an
eyewitness to the accident, Mr Shahid Trivedi. Mr Shahid, tell us what you saw.

Shahid Trivedi
Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.
[Headline
appears at the foot of the TV screen: "Boy and girl tumble down hill. Water
spilled"]
Amrita
Jack and Jill. What do we know about them? Are they
brother and sister? Are they married? Just what were they doing on the hill
together?
Shahid Trivedi
Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail
a water.
Amrita
And what happened next?
Shahid Trivedi
Jack fell
down and broke his crown
Amrita
Go on.
Shahid Trivedi
And Jill
came tumbling after.
Amrita
Prashant, there you have it. Two people
innocently going about their business to fetch a pail of water when one of them
falls down, breaks his crown, and the other comes tumbling after. Back to you in
the studio Prashant.
[Headline appears at the foot of the TV screen: "Water
errand ends in tragedy"]
Prashant
I have with me in the studio now,
Professor Chandrashekar Belagare from the Indian Institute of Applied Hill
Sciences. Professor: a hill; Jack; Jill; a pail of water. A tragedy waiting to
happen?
Professor
Well that depends on the hill, the two persons, the
object they were carrying and the conditions underfoot. Let us look at the
evidence so far.
Jack and Jill
Went up the hill
To fetch a pail of
water.
Jack fell down
And broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling
after.
Clearly, one would suspect that if Jack’s fall was severe enough to
break his crown then the surface of the hill must have been slippery or
unstable. But I think we’re overlooking something quite fundamental here. Who
was carrying the pail? Jack fell down and broke his crown and – this is the key
– Jill came tumbling after. If Jack and Jill had been carrying the pail
together, would they not have fallen at the same time? The fact that Jill came
tumbling after suggests that Jack lost his footing first and perhaps knocked
Jill over as he slipped.
Prashant
Professor thank you very much. So
there we have it, two persons – Jack and Jill – went up the hill to fetch a pail
of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after. Later
in the programme, Osama bin Laden captured in Afghanistan , President Bush says
rent-boy menage-a-trois was "just a brief lapse of judgement", and Pakistan
launches nuclear warheads against key Indian cities. But next up, join us after
the break for a studio discussion about hills, boys and girls and whether
water-fetching trips should be supervised. We’ll be right
back...