Yeah! I have conceded/ acquiesced/ whatever to the requests and comments made by the avid readers (who by the way number less than the atomic number of beryllium) and will try and write about something which is actually good.
Its very natural for a person to get adjusted to a place when he/ she has lived there for a considerable time. It is a law of nature. If animals and plants can do it..we are humans after all. But what if you fall in love with a place the very first day you enter it and that love only keeps increasing? Its one of those satisfying relationships where you discover a new facet of your partner with each passing day and you also love each of the ones which have been bared in front of you.
This is a place which was ideal for me when I was missing my college. Lots of greenery around, well laid roads, everything within reach and most importantly the weather here is awesome. Its always cool at nights, so cool that in the month of May, I actually had to use my sheets to keep myself warm!!
There is a school nearby which was founded by the earlier management of the company where the children of the employees can study. It is undescribable, the feeling that you get when you are leaving for work and the children come dressed in colourful attire for their annual sports day, when their parents come to collect the report cards or the everyday thing of parents coming to the school to drop or pick up their kids.
There is also a small scale industry here where the wives of the employees can work and become independent. They make all kinds of stuff here…pickles, masalas, papads and even make small relay systems that are used in our products!! But the silent winner of all is the chapati centre, where women make an average of 2.5 lakh chapatis per day which go the canteens of our company as well as 15 others around here. Now that my friend is called CSR. And all of this was started before CSR became a cool word for companies to throw about.
About 20 minutes walk from here is the famed lake house. It is said that you can actually see peacocks here in this season if you are awake at around 4 am. The beauty of the lake house can be summed up in a single fact. Every year, thousands of migratory birds come here to pune and most of them settle at the lakehouse. It has been claimed that the birds haven’t left this place in the last 3 years because of the weather and the continual feeding that the horticultural department ensures (yes people, there is a horticultural department!!).
The room where I live in is a nice cozy little one on the first floor of a building which is located bang in the middle (geographically) of this place. But inspite of living here close to 2 years I cannot claim to have seen everything here. There are still nooks and crannies of this place where ive never been to..sometimes due to shear fear and most times because I was just doing my routine. Almost reminds me of the lines “What is this life full of care…no time to stand and stare….” Written by a poet whose name I cannot recall now.
But one thing which has grown over the time is my love for this place. Now, its almost like I have become this Telco Colony!!
PS- I know I should have uploaded some pics…but I guess if you want to see something badly..you are never ever satisfied by just the photographs!!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
The Music That Maketh Me
An old saying has been modified as “a man is defined by the type (called ‘genre’ by the GenY) of music he listens to.” I haven’t heard nor read this quote anywhere so I can safely assume that this is my creation. And there are reasons enough for my creation..
Back in college, there were three basic categories of people.
Type A- People who listen to hip-hop, death metal, punk or thrash or crap or garbage metal which the average Indian male would not even know the name meant.
Type B- People who listened to hindi songs almost 99.97% of their time. The only English songs they knew were sing by Celine Dion (or) Bryan Adams (or) Linkin Park (Now you know what songs these were, right!!)
Type C- These guys were completely undecided- they would listen to Kumar Sanu, Pink Floyd, Sonu Nigam or the countless number of Punjabi songs that they could lay their hands on.
The type A guys were the ones who were considered the hippest guys in college. These guys had long hair, facial fur ranging from a stubble to the infinitely outrageous and wore jeans that were at the tipping point ,that is to say a small shove could land them in a huge trouble. The type A guys ruled when it came to getting the best girls in college because ‘arey yaar! Do you know, he listens to Dimmu Borgir! Isn’t that cool!!!!’ or ‘He plays such beautiful guitar. He just sang a soulful rendition of Eminem’s Slim Shady just for me!!!” kind of responses were elicited for them.
The type B guys were just plain losers in the eyes of the A-listers. “Chee! He listens to Manna Dey! He’s light years away from being modern” or “ Wo to aise gaane sunta hai jo truck driver log chalaate hai”. These guys would just roam about in the hostel lobbies playing the song in full volume and presenting shaayaris from these and getting the customary “Waah! Waah! 's” from equally “Medieval” guys. They got girls who were mostly local and whose expectations from their boyfriend being a show off material was quite low. For these girls, having a boyfriend in itself was enough of an achievement!!
The type C guys were well- to put it mildly- nothing. They did not create any flutter..neither in the guys or the girls. They ended up lonely in their rooms with people similar to them or would go about their routine life as if nothing ever mattered. They were equally at ease in the eastern as well as western section in the Music Nite at Bitotsav. And yes- they got nothing.
Several movies I saw recently put this startling fact to light. In one of these movies, a character lambasts at Konkona Sen-Sharma’s character that she did not understand what true music really was! The peace and the solitude one could find in Jazz was unmatched. And Konkona Sen Sharma – a typically type C girl was left speechless.
Are people who listen to Mohd Rafi or Kishore Kumar fools or ignorants? Are people listening to “Cradle Of Filth” just the best that nature has to offer? In what way are they any better than the type C guys? Why is memorizing a song in a language one barely understands and singing it with a voice that’s not your own so cool? And why is dressing up like a total ‘Gangbanger’ hip? Why should people be looked down upon just because they do not like Metallica and/or have not even heard of it?
I want to say this now, we are as good as the type A guys if not better. We who belong to the type B and type C categories do not feel such pain as the type A guys do (since they claim to relate to these songs which only talk about pain). Please do not judge us from the kind of songs we listen to. If given a chance, we can beat the type A guys at their own game.
PS- if you have not already guessed, I belong to type C and have my own choices when it comes to listening. I listen and respond equally well to a Telugu song as I do to the ones sung by Pink Floyd.
Back in college, there were three basic categories of people.
Type A- People who listen to hip-hop, death metal, punk or thrash or crap or garbage metal which the average Indian male would not even know the name meant.
Type B- People who listened to hindi songs almost 99.97% of their time. The only English songs they knew were sing by Celine Dion (or) Bryan Adams (or) Linkin Park (Now you know what songs these were, right!!)
Type C- These guys were completely undecided- they would listen to Kumar Sanu, Pink Floyd, Sonu Nigam or the countless number of Punjabi songs that they could lay their hands on.
The type A guys were the ones who were considered the hippest guys in college. These guys had long hair, facial fur ranging from a stubble to the infinitely outrageous and wore jeans that were at the tipping point ,that is to say a small shove could land them in a huge trouble. The type A guys ruled when it came to getting the best girls in college because ‘arey yaar! Do you know, he listens to Dimmu Borgir! Isn’t that cool!!!!’ or ‘He plays such beautiful guitar. He just sang a soulful rendition of Eminem’s Slim Shady just for me!!!” kind of responses were elicited for them.
The type B guys were just plain losers in the eyes of the A-listers. “Chee! He listens to Manna Dey! He’s light years away from being modern” or “ Wo to aise gaane sunta hai jo truck driver log chalaate hai”. These guys would just roam about in the hostel lobbies playing the song in full volume and presenting shaayaris from these and getting the customary “Waah! Waah! 's” from equally “Medieval” guys. They got girls who were mostly local and whose expectations from their boyfriend being a show off material was quite low. For these girls, having a boyfriend in itself was enough of an achievement!!
The type C guys were well- to put it mildly- nothing. They did not create any flutter..neither in the guys or the girls. They ended up lonely in their rooms with people similar to them or would go about their routine life as if nothing ever mattered. They were equally at ease in the eastern as well as western section in the Music Nite at Bitotsav. And yes- they got nothing.
Several movies I saw recently put this startling fact to light. In one of these movies, a character lambasts at Konkona Sen-Sharma’s character that she did not understand what true music really was! The peace and the solitude one could find in Jazz was unmatched. And Konkona Sen Sharma – a typically type C girl was left speechless.
Are people who listen to Mohd Rafi or Kishore Kumar fools or ignorants? Are people listening to “Cradle Of Filth” just the best that nature has to offer? In what way are they any better than the type C guys? Why is memorizing a song in a language one barely understands and singing it with a voice that’s not your own so cool? And why is dressing up like a total ‘Gangbanger’ hip? Why should people be looked down upon just because they do not like Metallica and/or have not even heard of it?
I want to say this now, we are as good as the type A guys if not better. We who belong to the type B and type C categories do not feel such pain as the type A guys do (since they claim to relate to these songs which only talk about pain). Please do not judge us from the kind of songs we listen to. If given a chance, we can beat the type A guys at their own game.
PS- if you have not already guessed, I belong to type C and have my own choices when it comes to listening. I listen and respond equally well to a Telugu song as I do to the ones sung by Pink Floyd.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Emosanal Atyachaar!!
I want to kiss the hands of the poet who coined this term. Seriously!! This guy should get the nobel prize for literature for inventing a word which captivates the mind of a billion people today and has become the new ‘in’ word to say after a very long reign of the f word.
Was watching this program on TV, actually two programs which were running. One was the program whose name I have maligned intentionally in the title to avoid trademark issues and the other was a program whose aim was to solve relationship issues between couples.
I, being the highly imaginative person that I am, I ‘lagech’ derived several conclusions and observations after only 10-15 mins of watching this crap.
Let me just start with the first program whose name is phonetically similar to the title. There is a guy and a girl. They have been going out for quite some time.Everything is rosy, the guy claims to love nothing in this world but the girl and the girl claims to have had wet dreams about this guy. Butt (pun intentional), there is the Hindi movie twist to this story. The boy is ‘gareeb’ ghar ka ladka with no ‘gharana’ to speak of and the girl is filthy rich whose father confesses to have bought 500 pairs of shoes just because the daughter wouldn’t wear them a second time. There is every chance that the guy or the girl are actually cheating on each other?????? This is where the program comes in as a life saver. Oh! What if the program had never been there? The girl could never have known that the guy was actually after her ‘daulat and jaaydaat’ . The guy was actually in love with the ‘tapri’ wala’s daughter but since he had no cash to support her, he used this rich girl as the source of steady income.
The second program asks people to send their relationship issues and the host and the hostess (who are no authority on relationships btw, the girl is just another girl in a mini skirt and the guy’s Bollywood career is defined by a single movie in which he played the role of a sidekick!!) solve their problems in matter of micro seconds. There was a complaint from a housewife saying that her husband had off late begun to ignore her and the root cause was she found out that she thought she was gaining weight and was pestering him with this constant question everyday “is dress me main moti to nahi lag rahi hun” or its thousands of manifestations. Then there was a query asking the hostess “ I am a 22 year old guy and am in love with a 26 year old woman? Can this relationship survive? “ to which the hostess gave a very ‘mod’ answer that what mattered was whether you two guys love each other, age is just a number, blah blah and more blah!!
These and similar other programs which are currently now on air or have been aired in the past, are actually most watched by the single and hopeless guys like yours truly!!
I wonder, which guy who is in a relationship with a girl actually wants to conduct a loyalty test on her. And he doesn’t stop at that. The test and its gory results are made public. The public which by now has had more than its share of bullcrap laps it up like vada pav!! Same goes for the second category of programs!
People and Channel walas, let us normal people live the way we are. Please don’t teach us how to maintain relationships. That is the last thing we want to learn abour after ‘Artificial Neural Networks’. We have enough headaches of our own apart from these relationship fundas that u smother on our faces.
People who think that a particular relationship is important to them, maintain it at all costs. They call each other, they message each other and they also go sometimes and meet each other. We know what it takes to make a relationship work. Our parents have done that for ages. We do not want your advice/ help on whether our girlfriend will like us more if we wear crotch-tight jeans let alone checking where her loyalties lie.
PS- at the risk of sounding..very 'not me'. i have experimented with my writing style. I guess only time and comments will show if it was any good!!
Was watching this program on TV, actually two programs which were running. One was the program whose name I have maligned intentionally in the title to avoid trademark issues and the other was a program whose aim was to solve relationship issues between couples.
I, being the highly imaginative person that I am, I ‘lagech’ derived several conclusions and observations after only 10-15 mins of watching this crap.
Let me just start with the first program whose name is phonetically similar to the title. There is a guy and a girl. They have been going out for quite some time.Everything is rosy, the guy claims to love nothing in this world but the girl and the girl claims to have had wet dreams about this guy. Butt (pun intentional), there is the Hindi movie twist to this story. The boy is ‘gareeb’ ghar ka ladka with no ‘gharana’ to speak of and the girl is filthy rich whose father confesses to have bought 500 pairs of shoes just because the daughter wouldn’t wear them a second time. There is every chance that the guy or the girl are actually cheating on each other?????? This is where the program comes in as a life saver. Oh! What if the program had never been there? The girl could never have known that the guy was actually after her ‘daulat and jaaydaat’ . The guy was actually in love with the ‘tapri’ wala’s daughter but since he had no cash to support her, he used this rich girl as the source of steady income.
The second program asks people to send their relationship issues and the host and the hostess (who are no authority on relationships btw, the girl is just another girl in a mini skirt and the guy’s Bollywood career is defined by a single movie in which he played the role of a sidekick!!) solve their problems in matter of micro seconds. There was a complaint from a housewife saying that her husband had off late begun to ignore her and the root cause was she found out that she thought she was gaining weight and was pestering him with this constant question everyday “is dress me main moti to nahi lag rahi hun” or its thousands of manifestations. Then there was a query asking the hostess “ I am a 22 year old guy and am in love with a 26 year old woman? Can this relationship survive? “ to which the hostess gave a very ‘mod’ answer that what mattered was whether you two guys love each other, age is just a number, blah blah and more blah!!
These and similar other programs which are currently now on air or have been aired in the past, are actually most watched by the single and hopeless guys like yours truly!!
I wonder, which guy who is in a relationship with a girl actually wants to conduct a loyalty test on her. And he doesn’t stop at that. The test and its gory results are made public. The public which by now has had more than its share of bullcrap laps it up like vada pav!! Same goes for the second category of programs!
People and Channel walas, let us normal people live the way we are. Please don’t teach us how to maintain relationships. That is the last thing we want to learn abour after ‘Artificial Neural Networks’. We have enough headaches of our own apart from these relationship fundas that u smother on our faces.
People who think that a particular relationship is important to them, maintain it at all costs. They call each other, they message each other and they also go sometimes and meet each other. We know what it takes to make a relationship work. Our parents have done that for ages. We do not want your advice/ help on whether our girlfriend will like us more if we wear crotch-tight jeans let alone checking where her loyalties lie.
PS- at the risk of sounding..very 'not me'. i have experimented with my writing style. I guess only time and comments will show if it was any good!!
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
The company of ‘giants’
Pathetic title this. Even more pathetic is the thought process that is going on in my mind right now.
Fyi.The title is actually taken from a quote by Jack Welch, the ex- CEO of GE.
When I joined this place where I now work, all of us were equal or so it was made out to be. But in the past three years everything has changed. Everything except me. I still am at the lowest rung in the management ladder. Had the misfortune of getting a below average appraisal and while everyone around me kept moving on. I stayed back. Most of the times on purpose and the other times, I was just plain unlucky.
How wrong was I? What was I thinking all this time? These thoughts come and haunt me now. The worst questions are yet to come. But I have this ability to run away from things I don’t want to face. So, safe for now.
In the final year of my college, I joined a CAT prep course, and I did not attend even a single lecture, did not appear for any of the mocks and took a loan from a friend so that I could go to Jamshedpur to write the exam. I of course, spent a major chunk of that cash on liquor.
My thoughts at that time were simple. I am in the final year of one the best periods of my life. Should’nt I be enjoying this with my friends? Why waste this period studying for MBA? And so year one was down. And I joined this company.
I joined this company and I thought, since I have joined, I should atleast stay for one year and gain some experience. And worked like a maniac, when my friends came home early and started preparing. I always told myself, this is work. I need the experience. I need to become a man now before joining an MBA. And year two was down.
In the third year, I was shifted to one of the worst places I could have been, I thought this should teach me a lesson, and I started studying but a little too late and a little too less. Nothing happened. I mean of course, if you see the end result, I still was at the same place. And so passed year three.
Now in the fourth year, when I was just thinking that it couldn’t get any worse, a torpedo, the intra company selection of the crème-de- la- crème happened. And I didn’t appear once again, thinking I was not ready yet. Not now. But the selection happened and I still am at the same place. year four down.
I read a quote written by Fyodor Dostoevsky sometime back. It offered a solace, yes. But, it was not to be there forever. If it had been, I wouldn’t be writing this piece now. Would I?
All the people who were with me during this period have now gone on to become giants. And here I am. Lurking in the darkness called ‘routine’ which is consuming me by the minute and now it feels even I don’t want to face the light of the day.
The worst questions have now been asked. And I shall do now what I have always done... Run away.
P.S- pls do not offer your sympathies. This was written because I wanted to accept the mistakes I have made.
Fyi.The title is actually taken from a quote by Jack Welch, the ex- CEO of GE.
When I joined this place where I now work, all of us were equal or so it was made out to be. But in the past three years everything has changed. Everything except me. I still am at the lowest rung in the management ladder. Had the misfortune of getting a below average appraisal and while everyone around me kept moving on. I stayed back. Most of the times on purpose and the other times, I was just plain unlucky.
How wrong was I? What was I thinking all this time? These thoughts come and haunt me now. The worst questions are yet to come. But I have this ability to run away from things I don’t want to face. So, safe for now.
In the final year of my college, I joined a CAT prep course, and I did not attend even a single lecture, did not appear for any of the mocks and took a loan from a friend so that I could go to Jamshedpur to write the exam. I of course, spent a major chunk of that cash on liquor.
My thoughts at that time were simple. I am in the final year of one the best periods of my life. Should’nt I be enjoying this with my friends? Why waste this period studying for MBA? And so year one was down. And I joined this company.
I joined this company and I thought, since I have joined, I should atleast stay for one year and gain some experience. And worked like a maniac, when my friends came home early and started preparing. I always told myself, this is work. I need the experience. I need to become a man now before joining an MBA. And year two was down.
In the third year, I was shifted to one of the worst places I could have been, I thought this should teach me a lesson, and I started studying but a little too late and a little too less. Nothing happened. I mean of course, if you see the end result, I still was at the same place. And so passed year three.
Now in the fourth year, when I was just thinking that it couldn’t get any worse, a torpedo, the intra company selection of the crème-de- la- crème happened. And I didn’t appear once again, thinking I was not ready yet. Not now. But the selection happened and I still am at the same place. year four down.
I read a quote written by Fyodor Dostoevsky sometime back. It offered a solace, yes. But, it was not to be there forever. If it had been, I wouldn’t be writing this piece now. Would I?
All the people who were with me during this period have now gone on to become giants. And here I am. Lurking in the darkness called ‘routine’ which is consuming me by the minute and now it feels even I don’t want to face the light of the day.
The worst questions have now been asked. And I shall do now what I have always done... Run away.
P.S- pls do not offer your sympathies. This was written because I wanted to accept the mistakes I have made.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
The ToI trilogy- Part 3- The Return Of The Kings (and Queen)
Today is Sunday, an ideal time to write this post. There are two reasons- one is that I am (sort of ) free and the other because it is the day when I suddenly start liking the paper, ….until tomorrow.
Swaminathan S Anklesariya Aiyar (uff!!) ,M J Akbar and publish their weekly columns today.
The first guy could be an Indian equivalent to Steven Levitt, the author of ‘Freakonomics’. His writing does not mask the sarcasm and the pure hatred for the foolishness that goes around in the world. Today he wrote a column about how the death toll caused by Mumbai suburban transport system is easily much higher when compared to that of the Bhopal Tragedy. No offence is meant here for those who lost lives and their kin in this one but the hue and cry raised over Bhopal is infinitely higher when compared to the ‘sighs’ one usually hears when a railway accident occurs. He has also given figures (actually collected!!) to support his view. His discourse on the upcoming Iran-Pakistan pipeline and many more before that have always kept me spell bound!! His columns are tight, no flowery words, no beating around the bush.
The other guy M J Akbar, normally writes about Muslims and other minorities and their hardships but occasionally does divert and yet produces splendid columns. His columns have their own style. He will first build a background to the problem and then start attacking it. His words are not as sharp as Swami but are words of a moderate guy who is just plain frustrated with the way things work when it comes to the bureaucracy. He is not a Ninja like Swami who kills everyone within reach but a saint who has had long penance and is yet to see the fruit of it.
Both these columns are the single most important reason I turn to the editorial page on Sunday. Else, my life would be equally unaffected if I was to read the comics and the fluffy Times Life supplements.
I am not including Chetan Bhagat or Shobhaa de in this list as they somehow are not upto the scratch when you compare them to these guys. Chetan Bhagat is a wannabe, Shobhaa de is too much page 3 compared to these rockstars!!
You must be now wondering, if Shobhaa de isn’t the queen, who is? My friends, it is another columnist called Bachi Karkaria. She is not so regular on the Sunday editorial but tidbits of her do appear on weakdays as well. She is the perfect woman you should go to if you have to know the proper usage of the words. She uses the perfect mix of English and Hindi (and Gujarati) which is fun to read. In the middle of all this fun, she talks about her issue which ranges from the very serious to the very frivolous.
Then there is a steward of this kingdom called Jug Suraiya. This guy although more popular than most of the writers I mentioned above, does fall short on content. He too, has a strong command of the language. His writing too is fun to read just like Bachi’s and gives you a very different outlook on the problems we face today as a nation. Be it potholes or Bofors, his writing style is very different from the others. But inspite of all this, the kings are kings!!
Well, I now come to the end of my trilogy. Hopefully, someday, I will be back again with the sequels to this trilogy. I just wish ToI does give me enough reasons to like it more. I hope that you, give me enough reasons to write more on ToI!!
“The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it”- Elizabeth Drew
Swaminathan S Anklesariya Aiyar (uff!!) ,M J Akbar and publish their weekly columns today.
The first guy could be an Indian equivalent to Steven Levitt, the author of ‘Freakonomics’. His writing does not mask the sarcasm and the pure hatred for the foolishness that goes around in the world. Today he wrote a column about how the death toll caused by Mumbai suburban transport system is easily much higher when compared to that of the Bhopal Tragedy. No offence is meant here for those who lost lives and their kin in this one but the hue and cry raised over Bhopal is infinitely higher when compared to the ‘sighs’ one usually hears when a railway accident occurs. He has also given figures (actually collected!!) to support his view. His discourse on the upcoming Iran-Pakistan pipeline and many more before that have always kept me spell bound!! His columns are tight, no flowery words, no beating around the bush.
The other guy M J Akbar, normally writes about Muslims and other minorities and their hardships but occasionally does divert and yet produces splendid columns. His columns have their own style. He will first build a background to the problem and then start attacking it. His words are not as sharp as Swami but are words of a moderate guy who is just plain frustrated with the way things work when it comes to the bureaucracy. He is not a Ninja like Swami who kills everyone within reach but a saint who has had long penance and is yet to see the fruit of it.
Both these columns are the single most important reason I turn to the editorial page on Sunday. Else, my life would be equally unaffected if I was to read the comics and the fluffy Times Life supplements.
I am not including Chetan Bhagat or Shobhaa de in this list as they somehow are not upto the scratch when you compare them to these guys. Chetan Bhagat is a wannabe, Shobhaa de is too much page 3 compared to these rockstars!!
You must be now wondering, if Shobhaa de isn’t the queen, who is? My friends, it is another columnist called Bachi Karkaria. She is not so regular on the Sunday editorial but tidbits of her do appear on weakdays as well. She is the perfect woman you should go to if you have to know the proper usage of the words. She uses the perfect mix of English and Hindi (and Gujarati) which is fun to read. In the middle of all this fun, she talks about her issue which ranges from the very serious to the very frivolous.
Then there is a steward of this kingdom called Jug Suraiya. This guy although more popular than most of the writers I mentioned above, does fall short on content. He too, has a strong command of the language. His writing too is fun to read just like Bachi’s and gives you a very different outlook on the problems we face today as a nation. Be it potholes or Bofors, his writing style is very different from the others. But inspite of all this, the kings are kings!!
Well, I now come to the end of my trilogy. Hopefully, someday, I will be back again with the sequels to this trilogy. I just wish ToI does give me enough reasons to like it more. I hope that you, give me enough reasons to write more on ToI!!
“The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it”- Elizabeth Drew
Friday, June 11, 2010
The ToI trilogy- Part 2- The Two Columns
Turn to the editorial page of the ToI.
It is a page second most frequented by me (of course after the pune times).
Statutory Warning- If you for one second even compare it to the editorial of ‘The Hindu’, you are actually comparing Bappi Lahiri to Pink Floyd. So, don’t do it!!
If you bring your eyes to the lower side of the page, on the extreme left and the extreme right, you will find the columns which I’m talking about. One of them is a column written by every Tom, Dick and Harry which would make you think if this is really an editorial or is it a blog like this one, where everyone posts everything for millions to read!
On the right side you will find another column that calls itself ‘the speaking tree’. This one claims to bring the readers to a spiritual enlightenment and one of its many contributors was the ex-Swami Nityananda- whom you know better as the guy who was caught on video with a lot of naked women!!
These two columns are not mere columns, they are the pinnacles of stupidity to which a newspaper which has taken its readers for granted can reach.
The column on the left recalls stories of how a women now in her forties lost her pens frequently when she was at school, people of a colony getting the municipality to clean the garden in front of their houses just because “ooh! It stank so much…” or how a guy whose daughter was about to get married faced the difficulties in arranging for the ‘shamianas’ and catering. I sometimes feel like asking the editor, “Is there nothing better to write about in the whole world than the price of chingri maach or the number of calls one had to make to get his TV repaired just so he could watch the T20 world cup??”
People like us face these kind of situations every day, the only problem is that we are not ‘accomplished’ writers to figure in your editorial. We know how many calls it takes to ask the APSEB guy to come and fix the broken meter, how many applications one has to forward if he just has to get his house registered, how many potholes are present on which road and why they were created in the first place. What we want to know is what is happening in the country and how the country is being affected by it. We want to hear people considered learned enough to talk about the subjects they are good at, not an economist talking about religion.
Coming to religion, we now take on the column on the right. This one talks about How doing pranayaams can help increase our life span, how the peace of mind is the only way to reach ‘moksha’. How we can only dissociate oneself from material gifts and be happy. C’mon guys, you need the material benefit that’s why you are running the paper. You need the material benefit and that’s why you print so many ads. You need the material benefit that’s why the world runs the way it does.
Just like Gordon Gekko said “Greed is good…all the greatest things achieved by men were achieved because they were fired by greed” and now just because you say so, do we give it up and become saints and go about our daily lives feeling nothing, earning nothing, living nothing? How relevant is your word in today’s world? There are people who lived for short life spans and achieved all the things people who led an uneventful 130 years!! Whom do you consider greatest? Whose legacy will be followed?
But then, there are reasons stronger than the irrelevance of these columns which force me to read this paper I just scorned..
It is a page second most frequented by me (of course after the pune times).
Statutory Warning- If you for one second even compare it to the editorial of ‘The Hindu’, you are actually comparing Bappi Lahiri to Pink Floyd. So, don’t do it!!
If you bring your eyes to the lower side of the page, on the extreme left and the extreme right, you will find the columns which I’m talking about. One of them is a column written by every Tom, Dick and Harry which would make you think if this is really an editorial or is it a blog like this one, where everyone posts everything for millions to read!
On the right side you will find another column that calls itself ‘the speaking tree’. This one claims to bring the readers to a spiritual enlightenment and one of its many contributors was the ex-Swami Nityananda- whom you know better as the guy who was caught on video with a lot of naked women!!
These two columns are not mere columns, they are the pinnacles of stupidity to which a newspaper which has taken its readers for granted can reach.
The column on the left recalls stories of how a women now in her forties lost her pens frequently when she was at school, people of a colony getting the municipality to clean the garden in front of their houses just because “ooh! It stank so much…” or how a guy whose daughter was about to get married faced the difficulties in arranging for the ‘shamianas’ and catering. I sometimes feel like asking the editor, “Is there nothing better to write about in the whole world than the price of chingri maach or the number of calls one had to make to get his TV repaired just so he could watch the T20 world cup??”
People like us face these kind of situations every day, the only problem is that we are not ‘accomplished’ writers to figure in your editorial. We know how many calls it takes to ask the APSEB guy to come and fix the broken meter, how many applications one has to forward if he just has to get his house registered, how many potholes are present on which road and why they were created in the first place. What we want to know is what is happening in the country and how the country is being affected by it. We want to hear people considered learned enough to talk about the subjects they are good at, not an economist talking about religion.
Coming to religion, we now take on the column on the right. This one talks about How doing pranayaams can help increase our life span, how the peace of mind is the only way to reach ‘moksha’. How we can only dissociate oneself from material gifts and be happy. C’mon guys, you need the material benefit that’s why you are running the paper. You need the material benefit and that’s why you print so many ads. You need the material benefit that’s why the world runs the way it does.
Just like Gordon Gekko said “Greed is good…all the greatest things achieved by men were achieved because they were fired by greed” and now just because you say so, do we give it up and become saints and go about our daily lives feeling nothing, earning nothing, living nothing? How relevant is your word in today’s world? There are people who lived for short life spans and achieved all the things people who led an uneventful 130 years!! Whom do you consider greatest? Whose legacy will be followed?
But then, there are reasons stronger than the irrelevance of these columns which force me to read this paper I just scorned..
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
The ToI trilogy: Part 1- The Fellowship Of Page 3
I had always wondered what the term Page 3 meant.
When I first heard the term, I used to look at the 3rd page of the main paper, which would generally consist of the local news. Powercut today in Shaniwarwada, Local boy abducts minor, MLA of the constituency at a grand opening of the new Sulabh Complex opening etc etc. I thought if these were ‘page 3’ guys, why was the term considered derogatory?.
That was until I chanced upon the supplement. When I opened the supplement called Pune Times here, the levers of my brain started unlocking and I found myself staring at the answer.
Celebrities, as most of the journos (or us) would call them come dressed to parties in clothes costing cash which could well be equal to the monthly salaries of middle class guys, all for one party!! And in most of the cases the dresses are never repeated!! Infact, it is an ‘original’ sin to wear the dress twice or if misfortune has it, seeing another person turn up in the exact same attire.
Initially, I used to wonder who these guys who get their photos eagerly snapped are. I am still wondering now as I write this. One of the page 3 ‘regulars’, I found out today was a director of some Serum Institute whereas in the past one year (since I had been following this guy), he would only turn up on the Race Course cheering for some horse. He would wear the best suits, the coolest hats and would invariably have either a glass of champagne or white wine in his hand. Never in my dreams could I imagine that this guy was actually a geek!
Of similar nature is another guy’s story. This one is not so ‘classy’. Whenever this guy attends a party, he is always wearing the same shirt which he had wore for the previous one and the caption reads ‘Honaji Sanas with a friend’. I thought, didn’t these friends think low of him as he had only one shirt and had come to show it off!! It is only 2 days ago, that I came to know he was a hotelier. Now you know how ToI is don’t you? The guy must be the owner of a vada pav tapri near Taj Blue Diamond considering his dress sense!
Imagine the pathos, I go to the same places these guys go (different days of course) and yet I have never gotten clicked!! There has been no photo till date with a caption reading ‘Sudhakar Kamath with a friend’.But when a girl turns up in a micro mini skirt with leopard prints…that makes page 3. The caption reads. ‘Beautiful girl enjoying the do’ ….
What do these guys do with these expensive clothes if they can only wear them once??? Do they throw them away? Do they mix and match? Do they donate it to some charity considering that is the ‘coolest’ thing to do? Or do these clothes turn up at auctions..saying ‘This is the saree which Dolly Thakore wore at Jackie Shroff’s Party’ and common people coughing up their hard (or not so hard) earned money to buy this priceless possession? Do they actually buy them or is there a store which rents out the latest in fashion may be at Rs. 15 an hour?
I cant even imagine seeing girls in these party dresses walking about on roads buying ‘aata dal’. Do they even know the current price of onions??
I put down the paper and start doing some other thing and these ramblings are put to pause; Until I read the Pune Times again next day……
When I first heard the term, I used to look at the 3rd page of the main paper, which would generally consist of the local news. Powercut today in Shaniwarwada, Local boy abducts minor, MLA of the constituency at a grand opening of the new Sulabh Complex opening etc etc. I thought if these were ‘page 3’ guys, why was the term considered derogatory?.
That was until I chanced upon the supplement. When I opened the supplement called Pune Times here, the levers of my brain started unlocking and I found myself staring at the answer.
Celebrities, as most of the journos (or us) would call them come dressed to parties in clothes costing cash which could well be equal to the monthly salaries of middle class guys, all for one party!! And in most of the cases the dresses are never repeated!! Infact, it is an ‘original’ sin to wear the dress twice or if misfortune has it, seeing another person turn up in the exact same attire.
Initially, I used to wonder who these guys who get their photos eagerly snapped are. I am still wondering now as I write this. One of the page 3 ‘regulars’, I found out today was a director of some Serum Institute whereas in the past one year (since I had been following this guy), he would only turn up on the Race Course cheering for some horse. He would wear the best suits, the coolest hats and would invariably have either a glass of champagne or white wine in his hand. Never in my dreams could I imagine that this guy was actually a geek!
Of similar nature is another guy’s story. This one is not so ‘classy’. Whenever this guy attends a party, he is always wearing the same shirt which he had wore for the previous one and the caption reads ‘Honaji Sanas with a friend’. I thought, didn’t these friends think low of him as he had only one shirt and had come to show it off!! It is only 2 days ago, that I came to know he was a hotelier. Now you know how ToI is don’t you? The guy must be the owner of a vada pav tapri near Taj Blue Diamond considering his dress sense!
Imagine the pathos, I go to the same places these guys go (different days of course) and yet I have never gotten clicked!! There has been no photo till date with a caption reading ‘Sudhakar Kamath with a friend’.But when a girl turns up in a micro mini skirt with leopard prints…that makes page 3. The caption reads. ‘Beautiful girl enjoying the do’ ….
What do these guys do with these expensive clothes if they can only wear them once??? Do they throw them away? Do they mix and match? Do they donate it to some charity considering that is the ‘coolest’ thing to do? Or do these clothes turn up at auctions..saying ‘This is the saree which Dolly Thakore wore at Jackie Shroff’s Party’ and common people coughing up their hard (or not so hard) earned money to buy this priceless possession? Do they actually buy them or is there a store which rents out the latest in fashion may be at Rs. 15 an hour?
I cant even imagine seeing girls in these party dresses walking about on roads buying ‘aata dal’. Do they even know the current price of onions??
I put down the paper and start doing some other thing and these ramblings are put to pause; Until I read the Pune Times again next day……
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