As long as your shoes didn't get wet…

An Indian TV reporter has been criticised for broadcasting from a flood-ravaged village - while sitting on the shoulders of a victim.

News Express journalist Narayan Pargaien was reporting on devastating floods in the state of Uttarakhand when he thought it would be a good idea to accept a local man's invitation to hop up on his shoulders.

As he has since found it, it wasn't, with the internet united in its derision of 'the man who wouldn't get his feet wet'.

(Allviralvids via YouTube)

It was Pargaien's first time broadcasting from a disaster area like this - which might go some way towards explaining things - and he's since admitted that it wasn't his finest hour.

"It wasn’t my idea to begin with, but there was this man who took me to his home and asked me to report the damage he had suffered," he said in an interview with News Laundry.

"We helped him with some food and some money and he was grateful to us and wanted to show me some respect.

"So while crossing the river he offered to help by carrying me on his shoulder, between which, I thought of reporting the flood.

"I have no problem getting my feet wet. But I was offered help and he was quite insistent so I complied."

One gets the sense he's not quite repentant, as he insisted the footage was supposed to have been shot from the chest up, only.

"This was entirely the cameraman’s fault, who, it seems, almost tried to sabotage my career by shooting from that distance and angle and releasing the video mocking this whole incident, and making me the villain," he added.

Somebody tell this guy he's doing a good enough job of sabotaging his career all by himself.