The television was never a revered thing in my family. It was actually a shining quintessence of hypocrisy. Back from our bloated Onida television days, I was always told that TV was a bad thing. Although the rest of the family had excused themselves to watch it at their own whim; I could only watch it at designated hours. My mother saw to it that I also saw designated channels. Fresh from the heydays of Doordarshan and a weather-beaten Prannoy Roy covering news in the World This Week program, India had forayed into the era of twenty cable channels. Including Discovery Channel. Deer running around. Lions roaring. Close-ups of pollen grains sticking to bees. A space shuttle with a small American flag on the side floating in the dark universe. Some westerner in beach clothes buying oranges from a smelly vegetable market in some forlorn Asian country. All these, my mother thought were integral in conjuring up the grand quizmaster of a child that she intended to rear. The less ambitious child however was drawn to the more banal, trite and materialistic pleasures of Cartoon Network that clearly had a narration style less monotonous than that of Discovery Channel; and save some lame competition from Doordarshan, had an absolute monopoly over animated characters on erstwhile television. Conflict, I’ve come to learn has always been a constant feature of my life and ultimately it was a question of giving into Cartoon Network, but also show some flickering loyalty towards Discovery Channel. So whenever my mother would turn back to the kitchen...flick...the hapless deer in the jaws of the lion would be replaced by Scooby Doo howling Scooby Dooby Doooooo. Ofcourse, the operation was less than perfect, and very often my mother would notice me flicking from cartoons back to the now almost finished deer and yawning lion, the moment she would enter the living room. “I know what you were watching” she would say in a tone heavy with reproach; not knowing that cartoons would most probably figure as the least controversial in the long list of reproachable things that her guarded son would grow up watching hidden from her sight.
Still she did manage to look the other side; occasionally give me the moral jab if she felt that my homework was being neglected. By the time I reached the penultimate years of my school life; soap serials blitzkrieged on the unassuming, emotionally unbalanced, excitement-starved Indian housewife. The revolution brought about by Balaji Telefilms soon engulfed women of all ages and social strata; and with them their husbands. I still remember the day the chocolate boy favourite protagonist, Mihir was made to die in a freak accident, and all of India maintained a day of national mourning. Which I should mention, also included our then housemaid who discussed with great lament with my mother, the futility of it all. Soon he was made to come back to life miraculously and the audience clapped, sighed and lapped it all up in one avaricious slurp.
The maelstrom hadn’t spared me. As usual, a serial of two mascara laden women spitting venom at each other was hardly the kind of upbringing my parents had envisaged for their strapping son. But unfortunately for them, my grandmother would watch these serials fascinated, and I could easily sneak up behind her lying on the floor to catch the show in between my studies. So much was I entwined with the plot and the characters, that whenever the orchestra would rise in announcement of a confrontation; I would rush from my study room to the living room to catch a glimpse of the action!
Parents grow up to become ace lawyers. They perfect the art of quoting obscure, forgotten chapters from your life in an effort to embellish their scolding. My weight today is still criticized in reference to karate classes they enrolled me in when I was maybe ten years old. Not surprisingly; my supposedly clandestine trips to the make-believe world of Balaji Telefilms also came under eloquent coverage whenever test scores looked bad; or answers were not memorised to punctuation perfection or the teacher had something disappointing to say about me.
The proverbial dam essentially broke with the conclusion of my academic life and the start of the professional one. With the looming spectre of exams and homework and revision and cramming formulae and understanding problem sets...all reduced to folklore; there was for a change nothing to stop me from watching television. The pent-up demand that was till now crudely obscured under rules and norms and discipline, gave an orgiastic leap towards the seductively undressed, enticing mistress of a television. I watched like a man possessed. The local cable man, who would come with a yellow piece of cardboard record every month to collect cable TV fees, was now replaced by set-top boxes. And what more; there was even a button on the remote to get a short synopsis of the program or the film that was going on, or what was scheduled to come up.
I would sit perched on my parents’ bed, still wearing that stinky vest I opted for in the morning and immediately dial 341 on the remote. The recently acquired 42 inch flat television(dhamaka Diwali Exchange Offer only at EZone!) told me that I was right in time for the nine-o-clock movie on Star Movies. Then I would visit HBO, followed by Zee Studio, WB and UTV World movies. Weigh my options. Followed by a quick reconnaissance of what was happening on Star World, Zee Cafe, BBC entertainment and FX. In synopsis, I had transformed into an English television addict. I started finding out dirty secrets of these channels. About how once any of the channels got hold of a decently popular movie, they would endlessly repeat it across clocks and days. Your Saturday night movies would be reinstated in the Sunday morning schedule. The much advertised Sunday movie blockbuster, premier in the evening that you would rather die than miss would be playing without the hype and celebration across weekdays. Independence Day celebrations played the Steven Spielberg Avataar with such violent bout of diarrhoea that I’ve lost all interest in the problems of the Navi tribe to last me for a lifetime. I realised that the censor board in English television was actually a more draconian version of its counterpart in movie theatres. For instance, Basic Instinct received such brutal censoring that they ended up editing the story too and ultimately in an effort to erase out the explicit scenes, irrevocably confused the plotline. In Indian television, Bond prefers to have sex behind closed doors and Austin Powers only likes staring at bikinied girls; not necessarily doing anything with them.
English channels in India for some reason carry with them English subtitles. I noticed that I started reading from them meticulously; so much so that I could tell when the guys in the Indian studio had missed out on parts of the dialogue being mouthed by the character. **** on the subtitle would be accompanied by a censorious beep in the dialogue and you had to carefully study the actor’s mouth to figure out if he or she started off with a ‘f’ or a ‘b’. However the poor censor board would often be at its wits end as to how to tackle dialogues like, “I am going to wipe my shit on your face” or “I will screw you in the ass”. So the subtitle is often something blessed and haloed like, “I will cause you a lot of pain”! And whenever somebody says, "Oh, I thought you were gay"; the subtitle reads "Oh I thought you weren't straight". Censorship plus subtitling - deadly combination!
I had reached a stage where I could tell the season of Friends or How I Met Your Mother or Scrubs or Simpsons, just by a single glance of the scene. I realised that I liked to watch repeated episodes of them, even though I knew what was coming next. When I was a child, one of my elder friends had told me how every time you watch an episode of Friends, you discover something new that you missed previously. Bit like unearthing the aura of Mona Lisa. I could now appreciate the depth of his statement.
“Its twenty six running”. “Nooo...I am twenty five, yaar”! I corrected my friend, irritated that he had increased my age by one. The truth of the matter was that I felt like time was fleeing by. I was seated in a coffee shop in a mall at 10:30 on a Sunday morning. I was actually in the mall since around ten. It had a peculiar moist warmness inside it with the air conditioning still not switched on, rendering a distinct greenhouse discomfort. I found myself in the scurried company of uniformed shop assistants all disappearing rapidly in unknown nooks and crevices of the mall en-route to behind the counter before the shutters opened. It was a Sunday morning when I didn’t know what to do, apart from most definitely getting out of home. The emptiness in the mall, I hadn’t anticipated. Thankfully the Cafe Coffee Day franchise decided to take a head start in matters of opening shop, and I thought it would be really European and bohemian to be solitarily sipping a froth-embroiled Cappuccino in a coffee shop till my friend was meant to join me.
My parents had become older; although somehow they always looked constant-aged to me. Now they nagged less about specific failures and had a more generalised context to it. “So, are you going out with her today?” my mother asked caustically while I was flipping through the channels. “And which ‘her’ are you talking about?” I shot back not taking my eyes from the screen. “What exactly is the matter with you?” I asked. “Do you have a problem if I go out with a girl? Is that what this is all about?” My mother retreated into the bathroom. A minute later she emerged out, “I don’t know what the problem is. You are lying here the entire day watching movies...some friend calls you any time of the day and you just leave...you eat out every second day and come back late at night. Staying at home means for you, watching television. The wall in the living room has been leaking. Have you done anything about it? I am hearing for over a month that you need to have the computer repaired. On Independence Day you didn’t even go down to the flag hoisting ceremony. Kulkarni uncle was asking why you hadn’t come.” “Kulkarni uncle!” I looked at her surprised. “What on earth is his problem with me?” “Look at you...” my mother screamed at my insolence. “For heaven’s sake there is a revolution happening there with young people like you participating in Anna Hazare’s protests.” she said pointing her hand towards the TV. “Even the Lokpal Bill got passed! And look at you...still watching Star Movies, eating out and doing nothing. How much potential you had...” she stormed out of the room.
Sipping coffee all by myself in that empty mall, I was wondering whatever had happened. Had the Roman Empire indeed fallen into hedonistic decadence? Life had become a shuttlecock between office and home. I remembered how some junior had once asked me how I selected my career and job. Inspite of my rattling verbosity before the impressed junior; I knew deep inside that it could be the other way round – my career chose me; and I on my part chose to simply drift in the direction where the wind was favourable. Between a gruelling schedule at office and the 42 inch mistress television at home, I felt like a ship that was going nowhere and was just trying to keep itself afloat on choppy waters. Life that was so meticulously planned and guided through exams, expectations, a fattening certificates file, and poetically cooing resumes...suddenly was finding itself sans coordinates.
Was I coming to realise that some things were just not meant to happen in my life ever? Like being a singer or actor maybe? Flying a small plane for pleasure. Or having bulging muscles, contributing to a picturesque scene in say a rock climbing expedition? What about the changing-the-country dream that emanated from endless debates where I furiously waved my hands in school and college days? The hypothetical next woo-the-world face? Maybe there was a world out there. A world full of potential. May be off the conventional route that I was treading now. So why wasn’t I going there? Was I simply scared? Scared of thinking big? Scared to get out of my protected, insured world? Scared to imagine what kind of wheels I could possibly set in motion? Scared to make it large?
And was it all this fear that was making me hide behind the television? Where I did not need to do a single thing apart from command the remote and watch characters prance on the screen; numbing any other aspiration, fear, emotion...like a drug? Would the television and its endless tirade of episodes and movies be finally converting me into that overweight uncle who in parties would be regaling kids around him as to how he too had once collected a lot of trophies, crooned a lot of songs, had a distinct sex appeal and was earmarked for bigger things. After the party he would ruefully tell himself on the drive back home that at fifty, all of it seemed so arrogantly wasted, and it was time to admit that it was too late. Would I be looking at a bright eyed, intelligent looking boy in the group and telling to him in my mind, “Please do not do the same mistakes I ended up doing.”
Midway between Jason Bourne’s confrontation with his contract killer hired by the CIA; I switched off the television. The television snapped off in a flash, as if confused at this abrupt unscheduled stop. In Greek mythology, Odysseus and his men had come across the land of lotus-eaters where the inhabitants would eat lotuses and be in an eternally drugged, indolent state; happy and content munching lotuses. The lotus eating had to stop. I dragged my laptop out of the bag. It was time to write.
Wednesday 31 August 2011
Thursday 25 November 2010
Back to you, Barkha...
I work as a humble economist in a corporation, entrusted with the work of forecasting various economic variables for the next few years. By humble, I do not necessarily mean being completely oblivious of my CV. By humble, I mean a suitably nincompoop, irrelevant existence. In around December every year, my colleagues and I sit around a table; discuss endlessly about where GDP or inflation or interest rates are projected to grow; and in the process significantly deplete the pantry’s inventory of tea, coffee and biscuits. We discuss on and on as to how mining is projected to perform; how domestic demand will pan out; is Pranab Mukherji serious about a 10% plus growth next year, how many infrastructural projects are to come out.......or, maybe we could simply telephone Ms Nira Radia. If we weren’t such a ‘humble’ entity; then perhaps the maverick lobbyist cum PR agent who has enough muscle to shape governments; could also pull some strings at the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI; yes they have a ministry by that name!) to oblige us with figures close to our forecasts.
But what hurts me today is not that my ambitious numbers of GDP for the next three years will most probably be rubbished by the official figures when they come out. I am hurt because Ms Radia has effectively rubbished the sanctity of the average Indian’s intellectual icons. A middle-class Indian battles through endless exams, trials, tribulations, degrees and jobs – all to one day add a dash of education to his or her opinions, when an occasional spare ear pops up. Even then, the average ruminating opinionated Indian remains incoherent in expressing itself. Listen to the audiences at talk shows - people who raise their hand for the mike (and ultimately get it) mostly seem to be groping for the exact words and the precise opinions. In some part of the sentence, they tend to lose the plot. It seems more like they are saying things aloud to themselves, in an effort to understand clearly what they had thought of in the first place.
In this regular confusion, anger, incoherence and frustration of expression and communication, emerge people like Barkha Dutt, Prannoy Roy, Rajdeep Sardesai, Javed Akhtar, Aamir Khan, Chetan Bhagat, Suhel Seth, Arnab Goswami (coherent?) or Vir Sanghvi, to name a few. These people happened to frame the right sentences in the right tone in front of the right medium and at the right time. They were deft with words, looked convincing on the screen, had good make-up artists and were friends with cameras. Suddenly the muddled-up opinionated masses heard an articulate pronunciation in the cacophony. An evening show, an odd movie, a well-written book or a small stormy media event; and these people got catapulted to the thrones of demigods in the fairy tale world of media. People started watching their shows, reading their editorials, quoting how successful they were......and most disturbingly using their opinions to shape their own.
So when in the recent transcripts of Ms Radia with Vir Sanghvi, I realise that she is almost dictating his editorial piece; I am rudely shocked. This is the man who recounts fond journalistic stories of valour and has now retired into a ‘Travel and Living’ existence, writing fancy reviews of five-star hotels. Consider the transcript below between the two, that is out:
VIR: What kind of story do you want? Because this will go as Counterpoint, so it will be like most-most read, but it can't seem too slanted, yet it is an ideal opportunity to get all the points across.
RADIA: But basically, the point is what has happened as far as the High Court is concerned is a very painful thing for the country because what is done is against national interest.
VIR: Okay.
RADIA: I think that's the underlying message.
VIR: Okay. That message we will do. That allocation of resources which are scarce national resources of a poor country cannot be done in this arbitrary fashion to benefit a few rich people.
RADIA: That's right.
VIR: Yeah. That message we will get across, but what other points do we need to make?
RADIA: I think we need to say that you know it's a lesson for the corporate world that, you know, they need to think through whenever they want to look at this, whether they really seriously do give back to society.
VIR: So I will link it to the election verdict. The fact that there has been so much Narega, that Sonia has committed to including everybody, that it should be inclusive growth. It shouldn't just benefit the few fat cats. It shouldn't be cronyism. It shouldn't be arbitrary. That's how the message for this five years of Manmohan Singh should be that you have to put an end to this kind of allocations of scarce resources on the basis of corruption and arbitrariness at the cost of the country, otherwise the country will not forgive you.
RADIA: Yeah, but Vir, you have to keep in mind that he has been given the gas field by the Government to operate. He spent ten billion dollars on it.
VIR: Okay.
RADIA: Anil Ambani is getting the benefit without spending a cent on it ¦
VIR: I'll make those points, no?
RADIA: Yeah.
VIR: So I'll make those points. The people, because the system is so corrupt and open to manipulation, by manipulating the system, by not paying anybody you can get hands on resources. Therefore the only way Manmohan Singh hopes to survive is to get a handle on the resources and have some kind of way of allocating them that is transparent, fair and perhaps done by him.
RADIA: But there you will be attacking Mukesh only, no.
VIR: Why, why, why, explain that.
RADIA: You see, because a resource has been allocated to Mukesh in this case.
VIR: So, what point do you want me to make?
RADIA: The point I'm making is that here, the point is limited to the fact that you cannot have a High Court deciding on this. You cannot have a tribunal deciding on this.
VIR: What about ministers?
RADIA: Even ministers.
VIR: Spectrum and co is ministers, no?
RADIA: Yeah, even ministers. You want to really look at, maybe there's an EGoM [Empowered Group of Ministers] that got set and is looking at the pricing issue, and natural resources should be decided not by any of this arbitrary mechanism. It has to be one for the country. And there should be some sort of a formula that Manmohan Singh has to...
VIR: Yeah, that is the message, you know. There should be a formula by which resources will be allocated in a transparent, non-arbitrary sort of way. That has to be a message, no?
RADIA: Yeah. And also, you know, going to court.
VIR: That the people want resources, they have to be back to society. They have to pay the Government. They have corporate social responsibility. They have to care about the people who are going to be displaced, the people who are going to lose things. You can't just go ahead and rape the system.
RADIA: Yeah. But you want to say that you know, more importantly that here a family MoU has taken precedence over national interest, and what the judge has done. I mean you'll have to attack the judge here because the judge has, what he's done, he's given preference to an MoU. He has held on to the MoU and said, 'Okay, this had to be implemented.' But he has forgotten what's good, that's why it raises a bigger constitutional issue.
VIR: Which is?
RADIA: Which is natural resources is really a constitutional issue. It has to do with the country and the nation.
VIR: It's not between two brothers and their fight.
RADIA: It's not and therefore the judge's interpretation of an MoU
VIR: Yeah.
RADIA: It cannot be the basis of the way how we can proceed on these sorts of issues. I mean, you have to attack the fact that the judge has only gone into the MoU. His entire judgment is on the basis of the MoU.
VIR: Yeah.
RADIA: And therefore a judgment between two family members cannot be how you decide the future.
VIR: Okay. Let this Rohit come, let me explain to him, and I'll talk to you and tell you what line I'm taking.
RADIA: Okay. And you'll do it for next Sunday, is it?
VIR: No, no tomorrow
So the editorial I would have read on the ill-fated ‘tomorrow’ with the sagacious snapshot of the illustrious journalist, Mr Vir Sanghvi on the top of the page; was nothing more than Mr Mukesh Ambani’s publicist’s press statement. All of a sudden I feel like a classic idiot. How many of such op-eds and intelligent points of views had this person pedalled at the behest of vested interests? So when I tune in to listen to a Barkha or some other ‘intellectually’ articulate media friendly face making a point vociferously, gesticulating and asking seemingly pointed questions; they are no more than petty models, modelling somebody’s interests. In the transcripts of Barkha with Radia; it almost seems as if the duo were deciding on behalf of the nation who gets to be in the cabinet. A power broker is what has become of the once outspoken journalist on the Kargil front. Hand in glove, with so many vested interests; speaking out for her as of now would prove to be quite a career-threatening move.
A friend of mine who was in the media industry until recently; had a more sympathetic view of this entire revelation. She reasoned, “Why are people so shocked? Why does everyone suddenly have to take a high moral stand? This is how the media industry works. You need to humour lobbyists to find out the internal news. Or else how would they get to know what is happening of political parties and corporate houses? It happens all the times.” She took a breath and the erstwhile dormant intellectual rattled on, “All these people who are shocked....come on, everybody takes a bribe, doles favours, etc. Its just that the spot light is not on them and its quite convenient to sully somebody’s good name.”
True. But aren’t these media moguls the same people who immediately run to high moral ground while reporting a scam? Don’t they all assemble with their serious faces asking the ‘Shouldn’t this’ and ‘How could this’ and ‘What was the role...’ prefixed questions? Aren’t they all screaming out “I’m first, I’m first’ whenever an Adarsh society or a CWG comes by?
Or should we simply conclude that the poor victim taking the beating was simply the guy who had a lazy, incompetent PR agent?
Perhaps my friend is right. It’s how business may pragmatically happen in a TRP hungry, insecure industry. And that I may be a foolish novice to believe in everything that a Barkha, Vir, Chetan and Amir churn out. But I also happen to believe in the CBI and ED. I have faith in the courts of the country. I have faith that the Reserve Bank of India governors are out there protecting the interests of the common man through their monetary policy. I believe in the fact that despite thousands of grafts running in this country at this very moment; I am not residing in a banana republic. But tomorrow if a CBI officer is found corrupt, a Supreme Court judge tainted or a minister cheating the exchequer of crores of rupees where India regularly overshoots its budget; I feel vulnerable. My tomorrow will not drastically change with the editors of top media houses compromised. I would still be in that conference room, developing acidity from endless cups of coffee and doing my job. It’s just that all this makes me feel vulnerable.
Somehow, the statement, ‘Back to you, Barkha’ charms me no more......
But what hurts me today is not that my ambitious numbers of GDP for the next three years will most probably be rubbished by the official figures when they come out. I am hurt because Ms Radia has effectively rubbished the sanctity of the average Indian’s intellectual icons. A middle-class Indian battles through endless exams, trials, tribulations, degrees and jobs – all to one day add a dash of education to his or her opinions, when an occasional spare ear pops up. Even then, the average ruminating opinionated Indian remains incoherent in expressing itself. Listen to the audiences at talk shows - people who raise their hand for the mike (and ultimately get it) mostly seem to be groping for the exact words and the precise opinions. In some part of the sentence, they tend to lose the plot. It seems more like they are saying things aloud to themselves, in an effort to understand clearly what they had thought of in the first place.
In this regular confusion, anger, incoherence and frustration of expression and communication, emerge people like Barkha Dutt, Prannoy Roy, Rajdeep Sardesai, Javed Akhtar, Aamir Khan, Chetan Bhagat, Suhel Seth, Arnab Goswami (coherent?) or Vir Sanghvi, to name a few. These people happened to frame the right sentences in the right tone in front of the right medium and at the right time. They were deft with words, looked convincing on the screen, had good make-up artists and were friends with cameras. Suddenly the muddled-up opinionated masses heard an articulate pronunciation in the cacophony. An evening show, an odd movie, a well-written book or a small stormy media event; and these people got catapulted to the thrones of demigods in the fairy tale world of media. People started watching their shows, reading their editorials, quoting how successful they were......and most disturbingly using their opinions to shape their own.
So when in the recent transcripts of Ms Radia with Vir Sanghvi, I realise that she is almost dictating his editorial piece; I am rudely shocked. This is the man who recounts fond journalistic stories of valour and has now retired into a ‘Travel and Living’ existence, writing fancy reviews of five-star hotels. Consider the transcript below between the two, that is out:
VIR: What kind of story do you want? Because this will go as Counterpoint, so it will be like most-most read, but it can't seem too slanted, yet it is an ideal opportunity to get all the points across.
RADIA: But basically, the point is what has happened as far as the High Court is concerned is a very painful thing for the country because what is done is against national interest.
VIR: Okay.
RADIA: I think that's the underlying message.
VIR: Okay. That message we will do. That allocation of resources which are scarce national resources of a poor country cannot be done in this arbitrary fashion to benefit a few rich people.
RADIA: That's right.
VIR: Yeah. That message we will get across, but what other points do we need to make?
RADIA: I think we need to say that you know it's a lesson for the corporate world that, you know, they need to think through whenever they want to look at this, whether they really seriously do give back to society.
VIR: So I will link it to the election verdict. The fact that there has been so much Narega, that Sonia has committed to including everybody, that it should be inclusive growth. It shouldn't just benefit the few fat cats. It shouldn't be cronyism. It shouldn't be arbitrary. That's how the message for this five years of Manmohan Singh should be that you have to put an end to this kind of allocations of scarce resources on the basis of corruption and arbitrariness at the cost of the country, otherwise the country will not forgive you.
RADIA: Yeah, but Vir, you have to keep in mind that he has been given the gas field by the Government to operate. He spent ten billion dollars on it.
VIR: Okay.
RADIA: Anil Ambani is getting the benefit without spending a cent on it ¦
VIR: I'll make those points, no?
RADIA: Yeah.
VIR: So I'll make those points. The people, because the system is so corrupt and open to manipulation, by manipulating the system, by not paying anybody you can get hands on resources. Therefore the only way Manmohan Singh hopes to survive is to get a handle on the resources and have some kind of way of allocating them that is transparent, fair and perhaps done by him.
RADIA: But there you will be attacking Mukesh only, no.
VIR: Why, why, why, explain that.
RADIA: You see, because a resource has been allocated to Mukesh in this case.
VIR: So, what point do you want me to make?
RADIA: The point I'm making is that here, the point is limited to the fact that you cannot have a High Court deciding on this. You cannot have a tribunal deciding on this.
VIR: What about ministers?
RADIA: Even ministers.
VIR: Spectrum and co is ministers, no?
RADIA: Yeah, even ministers. You want to really look at, maybe there's an EGoM [Empowered Group of Ministers] that got set and is looking at the pricing issue, and natural resources should be decided not by any of this arbitrary mechanism. It has to be one for the country. And there should be some sort of a formula that Manmohan Singh has to...
VIR: Yeah, that is the message, you know. There should be a formula by which resources will be allocated in a transparent, non-arbitrary sort of way. That has to be a message, no?
RADIA: Yeah. And also, you know, going to court.
VIR: That the people want resources, they have to be back to society. They have to pay the Government. They have corporate social responsibility. They have to care about the people who are going to be displaced, the people who are going to lose things. You can't just go ahead and rape the system.
RADIA: Yeah. But you want to say that you know, more importantly that here a family MoU has taken precedence over national interest, and what the judge has done. I mean you'll have to attack the judge here because the judge has, what he's done, he's given preference to an MoU. He has held on to the MoU and said, 'Okay, this had to be implemented.' But he has forgotten what's good, that's why it raises a bigger constitutional issue.
VIR: Which is?
RADIA: Which is natural resources is really a constitutional issue. It has to do with the country and the nation.
VIR: It's not between two brothers and their fight.
RADIA: It's not and therefore the judge's interpretation of an MoU
VIR: Yeah.
RADIA: It cannot be the basis of the way how we can proceed on these sorts of issues. I mean, you have to attack the fact that the judge has only gone into the MoU. His entire judgment is on the basis of the MoU.
VIR: Yeah.
RADIA: And therefore a judgment between two family members cannot be how you decide the future.
VIR: Okay. Let this Rohit come, let me explain to him, and I'll talk to you and tell you what line I'm taking.
RADIA: Okay. And you'll do it for next Sunday, is it?
VIR: No, no tomorrow
So the editorial I would have read on the ill-fated ‘tomorrow’ with the sagacious snapshot of the illustrious journalist, Mr Vir Sanghvi on the top of the page; was nothing more than Mr Mukesh Ambani’s publicist’s press statement. All of a sudden I feel like a classic idiot. How many of such op-eds and intelligent points of views had this person pedalled at the behest of vested interests? So when I tune in to listen to a Barkha or some other ‘intellectually’ articulate media friendly face making a point vociferously, gesticulating and asking seemingly pointed questions; they are no more than petty models, modelling somebody’s interests. In the transcripts of Barkha with Radia; it almost seems as if the duo were deciding on behalf of the nation who gets to be in the cabinet. A power broker is what has become of the once outspoken journalist on the Kargil front. Hand in glove, with so many vested interests; speaking out for her as of now would prove to be quite a career-threatening move.
A friend of mine who was in the media industry until recently; had a more sympathetic view of this entire revelation. She reasoned, “Why are people so shocked? Why does everyone suddenly have to take a high moral stand? This is how the media industry works. You need to humour lobbyists to find out the internal news. Or else how would they get to know what is happening of political parties and corporate houses? It happens all the times.” She took a breath and the erstwhile dormant intellectual rattled on, “All these people who are shocked....come on, everybody takes a bribe, doles favours, etc. Its just that the spot light is not on them and its quite convenient to sully somebody’s good name.”
True. But aren’t these media moguls the same people who immediately run to high moral ground while reporting a scam? Don’t they all assemble with their serious faces asking the ‘Shouldn’t this’ and ‘How could this’ and ‘What was the role...’ prefixed questions? Aren’t they all screaming out “I’m first, I’m first’ whenever an Adarsh society or a CWG comes by?
Or should we simply conclude that the poor victim taking the beating was simply the guy who had a lazy, incompetent PR agent?
Perhaps my friend is right. It’s how business may pragmatically happen in a TRP hungry, insecure industry. And that I may be a foolish novice to believe in everything that a Barkha, Vir, Chetan and Amir churn out. But I also happen to believe in the CBI and ED. I have faith in the courts of the country. I have faith that the Reserve Bank of India governors are out there protecting the interests of the common man through their monetary policy. I believe in the fact that despite thousands of grafts running in this country at this very moment; I am not residing in a banana republic. But tomorrow if a CBI officer is found corrupt, a Supreme Court judge tainted or a minister cheating the exchequer of crores of rupees where India regularly overshoots its budget; I feel vulnerable. My tomorrow will not drastically change with the editors of top media houses compromised. I would still be in that conference room, developing acidity from endless cups of coffee and doing my job. It’s just that all this makes me feel vulnerable.
Somehow, the statement, ‘Back to you, Barkha’ charms me no more......
Thursday 7 October 2010
Mohenjodaro, Mujhe Dil Se Utaaro
Robo ko coco mat kaho……..
My first Rajnikant movie. Till date I had only known Rajni as the guy who believed in splitting bullets into multiple fractions. He was in stark contrast with my school maths teacher’s hero, Amitabh Bacchan. We were told, “Multiplying two matrices is like an Amitabh Bacchan fight sequence. There may be a lot of bad guys around him at a given point of time, but he finishes them one by one.” Surely Rajnikant’s idea of kicking one bad guy who like billiard balls floors five other bad guys- would have thrown his golden rule of matrix multiplication in utter doldrums. So Rajnikant lived in my imagination as the guy who visualized Physics the way perhaps Stephen Hawking did- except that the latter had a thing for mathematical proofs. Infact I had never really got down to see any south-indian movie as a matter of fact. I lived with the generally accepted notions that the hero would be overweight, the heroine uncomfortable in the bosom department and all the villains were amateur rapists. The heroine’s arm was up for grabs in every alternate scene.
Robot, Rajnikant’s latest ‘blockbuster’ cost me two hundred and fifty rupees to sit in a packed multiplex. We had reached around fifteen minutes late; and as I slid into the PVR seat, Rajni had already taken centre stage. It was exactly as I had thought. Huge tuft of hair that suggested lack of moisturizing shampooing. Three piece suit. Alternately casuals in a shocking cocktail of colours. And a guy who looked distinctly out of depths in any scene where he had to say non-confrontational dialogues.
Within the first thirty minutes, Aishwarya Rai breaks into the first of the innumerable dance sequences that her contract with the producers must have specified. Rajnikant is now sitting on a hammock in a desert (wearing a red outfit I think), walking on the sand and strumming a guitar while Aishwarya does a worm-like wriggle on repeat mode. Fifteen minutes late, and it seemed we had missed nothing. Hell, I think I could now visit the loo that I had ignored in the rush to get to the film. This was a really nice, accommodating film indeed. No pressure to be on time. Didn’t require you to stare mystically at a spinning top wondering what level of inception the movie was talking of. Simple dance-incident-fight-dance-incident-fight-dance sequence.
Which is why there didn’t happen to be too many dialogues. Verbal communication had been kept to its parsimonious minimum- just enough to jerk the plot ahead or justify a dance or fight in the next scene. No fancy poetry, no emotional brouhaha. Coherent one line instruction-like dialogues. “Oh no, iske andar khatarnaak red chip lagaya gaya hai.’ ‘The internal electromagnetic field attacks the neutrons which diffuse the gamma rays. SO THIS ROBOT IS SAFE.” Or “Maine tumko banaya hai. Mita bhi sakta hun kabhi bhi.”
See; really simple. No unnecessary drama before the sentence. Only bullet-like delivery.
Oh, and I almost forgot; the android. The beauty of the scheme is that in the guise of a robot, all the actions of Rajnikant seem justifiable under the tenants of technology. He can twist his head by 360 degrees, break buildings, fire bullets from his fingers, negotiate with mosquitos…….you get the picture don’t you! There is an evil avatar of the robot; and it seems like the discerning audience in the south want villains who have a touch of Ravana in them. So every now and then after the intermission; ‘He He Haw Haw’ is roared out whenever the villainous robot is planning on his next move.
And yes, bad guys are all…….molesters. Aishwarya Rai in a tight kurta seems to be the ultimate pornographic crescendo for the sinister villains. Most of them have a fetish for swords, daggers, chains, sickles- basically any thing that gleams in light and has potential for a very gory confrontation. Evidently the idea of leaving a forensic trail is lost upon these merciless mercenaries. There must be atleast three scenes where Aishwarya is wriggling herself out of a potential rape scenario with all of them crowding her. And yes, even in this movie; Rajnikant refers to all of them with his priceless- ‘Rascalas’.
Ah, and finally humour. There is a wide spectrum ranging from pulling the bad guys’ pants down to beating up a sidekick with a shoe. But the real comedy was in those dance sequences. I never thought I would ever be atop a hill with dancers all in a horizontal line vigorously gyrating with the hero in front of them, and the heroine at a distance blushing and worm-wriggling. The last time I saw something close must have been some defunct Hindi movies in the nineties where a Juhi Chawla or Raveena Tandon would dance with the dancers led by a Saif Ali Khan (the pre-Dil Chahata Hai version that outperformed himself out of the market), or Ajay Devgan (the silly-smile version, please). But here I was on a Rs 250 seat wondering what plot could possibly generate a dance every fifteen minutes.
But it’s the last twenty minutes that really tests the limits of your imagination. The special effects chase scene would keep Godzilla at bay and match any other monster-rampage scene in English movies. Twenty minutes; and we are left battling a huge serpent, giant ball, cylindrical barrel and a huge giant- all assembled of mini human robots. As robotic as you can get!
Two fifty rupees; entirely vasooled. No film had ever made me feel that way. This was a film where Rajni tells you, “Listen, I know that is very hard-earned money. So I am going to make every rupee work hard for you. I am going to sing, dance, fight, laugh, decapitate monsters, seduce girls, collide trucks and smash villains to pulp…so that you feel that you have got your money’s worth. No wonder they have huge posters of Rajnikant back in the south. It’s a value proposition!
Will I go to see another Rajnikant movie again? Currently I think I have already overstuffed myself in the buffet. I also had Dabang before this, and though that seemed like a school play in front of Robot; that had a sound dosage of incredibility to it. Anjaana Anjaani was plain unpalatable though the initial garnishing looked good. But enough of these heavy lunches. Give me some light, continental Aparna Sen for a change. Perhaps some tossed Chinese Aamir noodles? Or how about some art film salad? 'What do you suggest...what's today's special?' I ask, shutting the menu card.
My first Rajnikant movie. Till date I had only known Rajni as the guy who believed in splitting bullets into multiple fractions. He was in stark contrast with my school maths teacher’s hero, Amitabh Bacchan. We were told, “Multiplying two matrices is like an Amitabh Bacchan fight sequence. There may be a lot of bad guys around him at a given point of time, but he finishes them one by one.” Surely Rajnikant’s idea of kicking one bad guy who like billiard balls floors five other bad guys- would have thrown his golden rule of matrix multiplication in utter doldrums. So Rajnikant lived in my imagination as the guy who visualized Physics the way perhaps Stephen Hawking did- except that the latter had a thing for mathematical proofs. Infact I had never really got down to see any south-indian movie as a matter of fact. I lived with the generally accepted notions that the hero would be overweight, the heroine uncomfortable in the bosom department and all the villains were amateur rapists. The heroine’s arm was up for grabs in every alternate scene.
Robot, Rajnikant’s latest ‘blockbuster’ cost me two hundred and fifty rupees to sit in a packed multiplex. We had reached around fifteen minutes late; and as I slid into the PVR seat, Rajni had already taken centre stage. It was exactly as I had thought. Huge tuft of hair that suggested lack of moisturizing shampooing. Three piece suit. Alternately casuals in a shocking cocktail of colours. And a guy who looked distinctly out of depths in any scene where he had to say non-confrontational dialogues.
Within the first thirty minutes, Aishwarya Rai breaks into the first of the innumerable dance sequences that her contract with the producers must have specified. Rajnikant is now sitting on a hammock in a desert (wearing a red outfit I think), walking on the sand and strumming a guitar while Aishwarya does a worm-like wriggle on repeat mode. Fifteen minutes late, and it seemed we had missed nothing. Hell, I think I could now visit the loo that I had ignored in the rush to get to the film. This was a really nice, accommodating film indeed. No pressure to be on time. Didn’t require you to stare mystically at a spinning top wondering what level of inception the movie was talking of. Simple dance-incident-fight-dance-incident-fight-dance sequence.
Which is why there didn’t happen to be too many dialogues. Verbal communication had been kept to its parsimonious minimum- just enough to jerk the plot ahead or justify a dance or fight in the next scene. No fancy poetry, no emotional brouhaha. Coherent one line instruction-like dialogues. “Oh no, iske andar khatarnaak red chip lagaya gaya hai.’ ‘The internal electromagnetic field attacks the neutrons which diffuse the gamma rays. SO THIS ROBOT IS SAFE.” Or “Maine tumko banaya hai. Mita bhi sakta hun kabhi bhi.”
See; really simple. No unnecessary drama before the sentence. Only bullet-like delivery.
Oh, and I almost forgot; the android. The beauty of the scheme is that in the guise of a robot, all the actions of Rajnikant seem justifiable under the tenants of technology. He can twist his head by 360 degrees, break buildings, fire bullets from his fingers, negotiate with mosquitos…….you get the picture don’t you! There is an evil avatar of the robot; and it seems like the discerning audience in the south want villains who have a touch of Ravana in them. So every now and then after the intermission; ‘He He Haw Haw’ is roared out whenever the villainous robot is planning on his next move.
And yes, bad guys are all…….molesters. Aishwarya Rai in a tight kurta seems to be the ultimate pornographic crescendo for the sinister villains. Most of them have a fetish for swords, daggers, chains, sickles- basically any thing that gleams in light and has potential for a very gory confrontation. Evidently the idea of leaving a forensic trail is lost upon these merciless mercenaries. There must be atleast three scenes where Aishwarya is wriggling herself out of a potential rape scenario with all of them crowding her. And yes, even in this movie; Rajnikant refers to all of them with his priceless- ‘Rascalas’.
Ah, and finally humour. There is a wide spectrum ranging from pulling the bad guys’ pants down to beating up a sidekick with a shoe. But the real comedy was in those dance sequences. I never thought I would ever be atop a hill with dancers all in a horizontal line vigorously gyrating with the hero in front of them, and the heroine at a distance blushing and worm-wriggling. The last time I saw something close must have been some defunct Hindi movies in the nineties where a Juhi Chawla or Raveena Tandon would dance with the dancers led by a Saif Ali Khan (the pre-Dil Chahata Hai version that outperformed himself out of the market), or Ajay Devgan (the silly-smile version, please). But here I was on a Rs 250 seat wondering what plot could possibly generate a dance every fifteen minutes.
But it’s the last twenty minutes that really tests the limits of your imagination. The special effects chase scene would keep Godzilla at bay and match any other monster-rampage scene in English movies. Twenty minutes; and we are left battling a huge serpent, giant ball, cylindrical barrel and a huge giant- all assembled of mini human robots. As robotic as you can get!
Two fifty rupees; entirely vasooled. No film had ever made me feel that way. This was a film where Rajni tells you, “Listen, I know that is very hard-earned money. So I am going to make every rupee work hard for you. I am going to sing, dance, fight, laugh, decapitate monsters, seduce girls, collide trucks and smash villains to pulp…so that you feel that you have got your money’s worth. No wonder they have huge posters of Rajnikant back in the south. It’s a value proposition!
Will I go to see another Rajnikant movie again? Currently I think I have already overstuffed myself in the buffet. I also had Dabang before this, and though that seemed like a school play in front of Robot; that had a sound dosage of incredibility to it. Anjaana Anjaani was plain unpalatable though the initial garnishing looked good. But enough of these heavy lunches. Give me some light, continental Aparna Sen for a change. Perhaps some tossed Chinese Aamir noodles? Or how about some art film salad? 'What do you suggest...what's today's special?' I ask, shutting the menu card.
Wednesday 4 August 2010
Idiots in the Box
One train rushed into another. The aftermath looked exactly borrowed from a child’s imagination when two of his toy trains are made to collide with each other. I remember having created many macabre mass catastrophes as a child with my arsenal of aeroplanes, cars, trucks and trains. One wagon is flattened; the other is thrown twenty five feet in the air, crashing onto an overhead bridge; the rest of the wagons jerked out of the tracks tilted in agony. ‘If God were a child, this is one hell of a tantrum’, I thought as I looked on aghast at the images of Uttarbanga Express crashed onto the Vananchal Express on the news.
I came to know of this accident after I returned home from office. My mother usually develops a dramatic touch the moment she has gathered all the facts and figures with regard to a piece of news; so her depiction is usually replete with pauses, gesticulations, adjectives, conspiracy theories and opinions. And she would say all of it, calmly seated on the sofa; relating the story in a piece meal fashion, as if blurting out all the information in one go would demean her reputation as an effective raconteur.
To expedite the entire process, I switched on the news. Consider some of the options that the Indian press gave me in lieu of my mother’s ace reporting. A Hindi news channel. Their reporters somehow feel that a salt and pepper beard helps lend them a Clint Eastwood charm and makes the issue at hand look as grave as a Clint Eastwood movie. So this reporter ventures into one of the smashed compartments, raises his left hand towards the ceiling of the train and says (in Hindi), “So as you can see, this compartment has been completely destroyed. All the seats and windows have been smashed. The scene looks terrible......”, looking around briefly wondering what else evident things he could extract out of that debris. “Imagine you were sitting in this compartment”, he suddenly said as if a brainwave had just struck him “Imagine what would have happened to you!”
I actually took a moment to reflect what the reporter had just suggested me to think. What would have indeed happened if I were in a compartment that was reduced to pulp? ‘I don’t know, let me see...I think I would have died, you ass’! I screamed internally.
Click, next channel. I get an animation movie here. The entire catastrophe is now presented like a case study, with one cartoon train rushing into another cartoon train. And a red flash and bang! One bogey flies up and hits an overbridge above. The sequence is then again repeated for the people who missed any particular second of this self-explanatory analysis. Meanwhile a person in the background is busy dissecting the one sentence statement issued by the rail minister; discussing with gusto the minister’s career plans henceforth.
Click, next channel. ‘Ah, NDTV’, I think relieved. ‘Atlast some decent stuff to look forward to.’ A senior reporter is on the scene with her fashionably faded kurta and distraught look. She spoke in a condolence filled tone, “What has happened here is truly tragic. People are frantically searching for their loved ones. I have with me one of the villagers..... ‘ Kya aapka koi kho chuka hai’ (have you lost anyone)?”, she asked switching from English to affected Hindi.
“Humra bhateeja huspataal mein hai. Taang tut gaya. Baanki to log honge andar.” (My nephew is in the hospital with a broken leg. There must obviously be others inside still)
Not satisfied with the nature of this villager’s personal calamity, she again tried. "Aur aap”, thrusting the mike before another bemused villager. Before he could complete his sentence (which did not seem to be having much potential for sensational grief), the reporter nodded her head vigorously and snatched the mike back. “As you can see, people here are frantically searching for their relatives. This is a very painful situation indeed. How long will this ordeal last? This is..... reporting. Thank you (pause, glance, pause) very much.” she finished as if she was on stage. And then suddenly turning to the villagers, added hastily; “Asha hai aap logon ko sab mil jaata hai” (Hope you all manage to find everything); as if they were out there searching for lost marbles.
And finally came my personal favourite- Arnab Goswami, and his media circus on Times Now where he invites every night half a dozen guests as audience to listen to him talk. As a viewer, it looks a bit confusing with seven passport size photos all talking at one go, and from the centre Arnab Goswami bellowing like a raging bull. “What happened to the anti-collision devices? What is wrong with Mamata? Are you trying to tell me that the rail minister has nothing to do with this? No, no, no...this is not done...” Ultimately one or two of the guests have to take the onus to calm down the moderator to prevent him from suffering a mini stroke on the sets. On one of the windows, Suhel Seth with his grey dishevelled hair gives company to Arnab in his Mad Hatter’s Party. Pronouncing his English words with an erudition that suggested that he had ultimately fallen in love with his own voice, Suhel Seth went on and on in an orgasm born out of eloquence; not realising that with every passing sentence he was making even lesser sense. By the time Mr Seth stopped to take a breath, it sounded like unadulterated nonsense to me. Why Times Now was making me listen to an adman’s commentary on accidents, politics and safety devices....remained entirely lost on me.
In this cacophony of the irrelevant and the ridiculous, my mother brought me my dinner and in my mind I quietly awarded her the best journalist award. Going to the TV in search of crispier news was perhaps too ambitious of me to expect. Indeed if we were on the look out for the best way to desensitise any disaster in India, I strong believe that the press owns very capable hands. The only channel that could be exempt from this dubious reputation is perhaps ‘Lok Sabha News’, which in pursuit of its own sensibility; was showing a snapshot of Delhi’s Commonwealth plans while other news channels had their cameras trained on the mangled steel remains at Sainthia.
Moral of the story – mom’s always the best. Well, usually atleast!
I came to know of this accident after I returned home from office. My mother usually develops a dramatic touch the moment she has gathered all the facts and figures with regard to a piece of news; so her depiction is usually replete with pauses, gesticulations, adjectives, conspiracy theories and opinions. And she would say all of it, calmly seated on the sofa; relating the story in a piece meal fashion, as if blurting out all the information in one go would demean her reputation as an effective raconteur.
To expedite the entire process, I switched on the news. Consider some of the options that the Indian press gave me in lieu of my mother’s ace reporting. A Hindi news channel. Their reporters somehow feel that a salt and pepper beard helps lend them a Clint Eastwood charm and makes the issue at hand look as grave as a Clint Eastwood movie. So this reporter ventures into one of the smashed compartments, raises his left hand towards the ceiling of the train and says (in Hindi), “So as you can see, this compartment has been completely destroyed. All the seats and windows have been smashed. The scene looks terrible......”, looking around briefly wondering what else evident things he could extract out of that debris. “Imagine you were sitting in this compartment”, he suddenly said as if a brainwave had just struck him “Imagine what would have happened to you!”
I actually took a moment to reflect what the reporter had just suggested me to think. What would have indeed happened if I were in a compartment that was reduced to pulp? ‘I don’t know, let me see...I think I would have died, you ass’! I screamed internally.
Click, next channel. I get an animation movie here. The entire catastrophe is now presented like a case study, with one cartoon train rushing into another cartoon train. And a red flash and bang! One bogey flies up and hits an overbridge above. The sequence is then again repeated for the people who missed any particular second of this self-explanatory analysis. Meanwhile a person in the background is busy dissecting the one sentence statement issued by the rail minister; discussing with gusto the minister’s career plans henceforth.
Click, next channel. ‘Ah, NDTV’, I think relieved. ‘Atlast some decent stuff to look forward to.’ A senior reporter is on the scene with her fashionably faded kurta and distraught look. She spoke in a condolence filled tone, “What has happened here is truly tragic. People are frantically searching for their loved ones. I have with me one of the villagers..... ‘ Kya aapka koi kho chuka hai’ (have you lost anyone)?”, she asked switching from English to affected Hindi.
“Humra bhateeja huspataal mein hai. Taang tut gaya. Baanki to log honge andar.” (My nephew is in the hospital with a broken leg. There must obviously be others inside still)
Not satisfied with the nature of this villager’s personal calamity, she again tried. "Aur aap”, thrusting the mike before another bemused villager. Before he could complete his sentence (which did not seem to be having much potential for sensational grief), the reporter nodded her head vigorously and snatched the mike back. “As you can see, people here are frantically searching for their relatives. This is a very painful situation indeed. How long will this ordeal last? This is..... reporting. Thank you (pause, glance, pause) very much.” she finished as if she was on stage. And then suddenly turning to the villagers, added hastily; “Asha hai aap logon ko sab mil jaata hai” (Hope you all manage to find everything); as if they were out there searching for lost marbles.
And finally came my personal favourite- Arnab Goswami, and his media circus on Times Now where he invites every night half a dozen guests as audience to listen to him talk. As a viewer, it looks a bit confusing with seven passport size photos all talking at one go, and from the centre Arnab Goswami bellowing like a raging bull. “What happened to the anti-collision devices? What is wrong with Mamata? Are you trying to tell me that the rail minister has nothing to do with this? No, no, no...this is not done...” Ultimately one or two of the guests have to take the onus to calm down the moderator to prevent him from suffering a mini stroke on the sets. On one of the windows, Suhel Seth with his grey dishevelled hair gives company to Arnab in his Mad Hatter’s Party. Pronouncing his English words with an erudition that suggested that he had ultimately fallen in love with his own voice, Suhel Seth went on and on in an orgasm born out of eloquence; not realising that with every passing sentence he was making even lesser sense. By the time Mr Seth stopped to take a breath, it sounded like unadulterated nonsense to me. Why Times Now was making me listen to an adman’s commentary on accidents, politics and safety devices....remained entirely lost on me.
In this cacophony of the irrelevant and the ridiculous, my mother brought me my dinner and in my mind I quietly awarded her the best journalist award. Going to the TV in search of crispier news was perhaps too ambitious of me to expect. Indeed if we were on the look out for the best way to desensitise any disaster in India, I strong believe that the press owns very capable hands. The only channel that could be exempt from this dubious reputation is perhaps ‘Lok Sabha News’, which in pursuit of its own sensibility; was showing a snapshot of Delhi’s Commonwealth plans while other news channels had their cameras trained on the mangled steel remains at Sainthia.
Moral of the story – mom’s always the best. Well, usually atleast!
Retirement Benefits
I am retired. Retired of studies. I will be remembered by maximum two generations of juniors, after which I will join the crowd of unknown faces and names. Or, I might also become somebody really successful some day and be heralded as a case study in my institutions’ career prospectus brochure. I talk benevolently of days that have passed, to anyone who cares to stop by. Or doesn’t care much, but has been unwittingly trapped in a situation where the only way out is to hear my rambling days of the yore. I talk of those tough courses I had taken. Of professors. Of friends. Of foes. Of exams. Of results. Of ranks. It’s all part of a proud album now.
Somewhere in this album is a photo with my parents standing in the background beaming at their son. Somewhere there will also be tucked a photo of my father’s disgruntled face over a botched entrance exam. Somewhere else my mother would be explaining to some ever-inquisitive ‘aunty’ how her dear son is not actually lost in life; but is actually completing a brilliant secret science project underground. Somewhere in that album, my father would be juggling before me words like CA, CFA, MSc, BTech, MBA with unnerving adroitness. And somewhere in that album is a picture of my parents inviting all their friends over to celebrate their son’s first campus placement.
Which brings to my current state; having encapsulated atleast six years of textbook toil in the past two paragraphs. Now I go to office daily. Sit in a cubicle. Open my laptop; an instrument that had stopped looking dashing after my very first week at work. Attend meetings. Work against deadlines. Occasionally if things go right, I receive a pat on the back (literally, and no more!). If things go wrong, you go back home licking your wounds, being philosophical about life as a whole and the world as a globe. At the end of every month, a pay cheque comes- usually enough for me to watch new film releases, dine expensively and buy myself a monthly gift. But still it is dimunitive enough for my father to still nod his head disappointedly and say, “You can do better”!
People like my parents, and probably yours, and probably thousands and millions of others who expect a race horse out of a child…..come under the butt of a lot of idealistic disdain. Movies are made denouncing their mentality. Newspapers columns bemoan the poor child. ‘If the child wants to paint, let him’ ‘It looks like with the child, parent is also studying’ ‘Why make your child join the rat race’…….are things that are regularly intellectually hurled across to the average middle-class parent in India.
I had joined a theatre workshop recently. These are the kind of things that I’ve realized bored corporates often catch fancy for. It joins right in the category of salsa, pottery, guitar, piano, cha cha cha or yoga. Whenever some colleague gave me a questioning look on spotting me running in jogging gear from the office restroom; I reply quickly saying ‘theatre workshop’ and the person nods his head understandingly as if to say, “It’s okay, this too shall pass!”
“Hi, I am actually a…….model”, a pretty face sitting to my right said. “I have done print ads mostly. And yup, I am interested in acting”, she ended with a smile that carried from one end of her petite face to the other.
Others went on introducing themeselves; and I ended up nodding my head in acknowledgement to an array of actors, models, air hostesses, choreographers. Finally eleven pairs of eyes finally rested on me and I gauchely replied, “Hi, my name is Aurodeep. I am an Economist.”
‘Haanh?’, an audible hush went around the circle. “Wow”, the instructor finally said as if summarizing the group’s sentiments. “So why acting?”
“Imagine that the person is standing opposite you”, the instructor said in a droning voice as we all stood facing the wall. “Suppose you are mad at the person in front; how would you say this dialogue? Come on, shout.” Twelve people started barking like a pack of rabid dogs at the wall. “You are angry”, she continued, raising her voice and moving behind us like those really agitated coaches do in American movies while addressing a defunct basket ball team or an army unit. “You are very angry. That guy in front of you is your enemy. Come on more louder, Louder, LOUDER”
“Aurodeep”, she yelled as she came near me. “Be more fierce. More angry, I can’t see it in your face”, she ranted as I was increasingly failing to draw inspiration from a blank wall.
Additionally I was quite disturbed by the others. Pack a room full of people gesticulating and shouting their lungs out at the walls, and the end product looks sickeningly disconcerting. But on the top of everyone’s voices, one voice bellowed with great intensity, “Arrghhhhh, Mera aur main kaha baanki bancha hai !”, he screamed with theatric extravagence. He was a tall guy; handsome built, deep, resonating voice, a hero-like swagger. I looked around the room; and realized that there were actually quite a lot of my classmates who, like him had turned red and flushed in their faces, fuming and puffing at the wall. I looked back once again to my strip of the wall and muttered under my breath, “Sorry but I can’t offer you anything better.”
On the last of the six days, owing to incessant rains, I decided to share a taxi with four others in the group who were also going in the same direction. It wasn’t exactly a physical impossibility, since the other four with their showbiz aspirations had kept themselves conveniently thin to accommodate any such contingency. So I got seated in the front seat with the rest fitting themselves in the back. The guy with the vehemence and swagger was also in the group.
“Arre, koi contacts de na”, C asked him. “I want some serial roles.” R quite matter-of-factly pulled out his cell phone and announced as if he was giving dictation, “Duggu….93******. Then there is Aki. Aki; runs an event management company. Accha and take this number too…..you need to pester him a bit, but strong contacts hai uska”. The girl who had by now recovered from the frenzied typing on the mobile asked curiously, “You know so many people, man….how many years have you been in Mumbai?”
“Two. This September would make it two.”
“Wow, so any assignments?”
“I did a small role in a serial. My ad with Nokia will be coming out soon. And I am currently shooting one for a garments’ company. Arre you just need to be in the right place at the right time. Bas. Life is set. You know the guy who starred in Udaan? The lead role. He was a no one before that. One ad film. The director noticed him, and bas….I am doing theatre now to work on my acting. If you are a good actor, some day or the other, you will get the break.”
“Where do you exactly stay?”
“Evershine, Lokhandwala.”
“PG?”
“No, five of us have rented a flat.”
“My parents in Allahabad still think that I am doing hotel management.”
“Even me!”, another girl chimed in. “My father strictly told ‘no’. In our family everyone has studied something or the other. I didn't feel like doing MBA. I have auditioned for some plays, but getting into professional theatre is tough though. Mostly there are these close knit groups; there is hardly any scope for auditions. You need to be really good.”
"Auditions, na", another girl joined. “Does any one of you know how auditions for films work. Tried so many. Abhi tak kuch hua nahi (nothing has worked out yet),
For quite some while, having no such experience to contribute to the conversation, I continued to look ahead at the road and listen to transition plans of an airhostess into a model; a model into a hero; a choreographer to a model and a theatre artist to a film actor. All of them spoke fervently- of dreams, of aspirations, of hope and latently of desperation.
In an effort to be more social, I twisted my body and looked at the back seat packed with pretty people.
“Hey, what is your job like,” one of the models asked, as if in cognizance of my stunt.
“Well its basically understanding and forecasting economic variables. Forex and interest rate modeling. We give economic intelligence to companies- regarding growth prospects, industrial production, inflation…..”
As I went on, alarmed at how intellectual and heady I was sounding even to myself, it suddenly dawned on me why the tall guy was executing every instruction in that workshop with such aggressive meticulousness. Why others would look pained the moment the instructor would say that she expected better. Why most of them would shout, scream, jump, cry, breathe in, blow out…..all in a do-or-die fashion.
What was hobby to me, was profession to them. For me the workshop was a recreation. For them, it was a flight of stairs to another set of stairs, up a seemingly infinite staircase. A six day workshop had got over. ‘What would they be doing tomorrow morning’, I wondered. Call up some regulars for work? Scan newspapers for an odd audition? Preen themselves up for some forgettable shoot? Go for an appointment with a photographer, or a shady modeling coordinator, or beautician?
What would I be doing tomorrow?
Going to office.
I might like gallivanting from theatres to movie to workshops. I might enjoy reading plays throughout the day. I think I would love to play Hamlet. But waiting for a big break, seeking material salvation; I don’t think I would have liked to be in their shoes. I would not like to not dispense off with a nice, monthly pay cheque. I would not like to do a mental calculation before servicing any expensive desire.
They are indeed very brave people to have embarked on that path. Of uncertainty and personal calling. But somehow the coward in me is satisfied under the garb of a company ID. For all the tyranny that I faced from the education and social system; I think it atleast spared me of the war that I would otherwise have to fight on the street daily. I am glad that my parents stuck to their guns, put their weight behind me and pushed me up. I am glad that I burnt the midnight’s oil behind some excruciating exam. I am glad to have been beaten, and in turn beaten some in that conventional rat race. And I am glad that somewhere all that pressure and unambiguous communication of academic aspirations that an average Indian child receives dictation of; somehow worked in my favour.
In conclusion, I am glad to have lived the life of a slogging student.....and comfortably retired now! Making anything beyond office seem so much like an idyllic post-retirement cruise!
Somewhere in this album is a photo with my parents standing in the background beaming at their son. Somewhere there will also be tucked a photo of my father’s disgruntled face over a botched entrance exam. Somewhere else my mother would be explaining to some ever-inquisitive ‘aunty’ how her dear son is not actually lost in life; but is actually completing a brilliant secret science project underground. Somewhere in that album, my father would be juggling before me words like CA, CFA, MSc, BTech, MBA with unnerving adroitness. And somewhere in that album is a picture of my parents inviting all their friends over to celebrate their son’s first campus placement.
Which brings to my current state; having encapsulated atleast six years of textbook toil in the past two paragraphs. Now I go to office daily. Sit in a cubicle. Open my laptop; an instrument that had stopped looking dashing after my very first week at work. Attend meetings. Work against deadlines. Occasionally if things go right, I receive a pat on the back (literally, and no more!). If things go wrong, you go back home licking your wounds, being philosophical about life as a whole and the world as a globe. At the end of every month, a pay cheque comes- usually enough for me to watch new film releases, dine expensively and buy myself a monthly gift. But still it is dimunitive enough for my father to still nod his head disappointedly and say, “You can do better”!
People like my parents, and probably yours, and probably thousands and millions of others who expect a race horse out of a child…..come under the butt of a lot of idealistic disdain. Movies are made denouncing their mentality. Newspapers columns bemoan the poor child. ‘If the child wants to paint, let him’ ‘It looks like with the child, parent is also studying’ ‘Why make your child join the rat race’…….are things that are regularly intellectually hurled across to the average middle-class parent in India.
I had joined a theatre workshop recently. These are the kind of things that I’ve realized bored corporates often catch fancy for. It joins right in the category of salsa, pottery, guitar, piano, cha cha cha or yoga. Whenever some colleague gave me a questioning look on spotting me running in jogging gear from the office restroom; I reply quickly saying ‘theatre workshop’ and the person nods his head understandingly as if to say, “It’s okay, this too shall pass!”
“Hi, I am actually a…….model”, a pretty face sitting to my right said. “I have done print ads mostly. And yup, I am interested in acting”, she ended with a smile that carried from one end of her petite face to the other.
Others went on introducing themeselves; and I ended up nodding my head in acknowledgement to an array of actors, models, air hostesses, choreographers. Finally eleven pairs of eyes finally rested on me and I gauchely replied, “Hi, my name is Aurodeep. I am an Economist.”
‘Haanh?’, an audible hush went around the circle. “Wow”, the instructor finally said as if summarizing the group’s sentiments. “So why acting?”
“Imagine that the person is standing opposite you”, the instructor said in a droning voice as we all stood facing the wall. “Suppose you are mad at the person in front; how would you say this dialogue? Come on, shout.” Twelve people started barking like a pack of rabid dogs at the wall. “You are angry”, she continued, raising her voice and moving behind us like those really agitated coaches do in American movies while addressing a defunct basket ball team or an army unit. “You are very angry. That guy in front of you is your enemy. Come on more louder, Louder, LOUDER”
“Aurodeep”, she yelled as she came near me. “Be more fierce. More angry, I can’t see it in your face”, she ranted as I was increasingly failing to draw inspiration from a blank wall.
Additionally I was quite disturbed by the others. Pack a room full of people gesticulating and shouting their lungs out at the walls, and the end product looks sickeningly disconcerting. But on the top of everyone’s voices, one voice bellowed with great intensity, “Arrghhhhh, Mera aur main kaha baanki bancha hai !”, he screamed with theatric extravagence. He was a tall guy; handsome built, deep, resonating voice, a hero-like swagger. I looked around the room; and realized that there were actually quite a lot of my classmates who, like him had turned red and flushed in their faces, fuming and puffing at the wall. I looked back once again to my strip of the wall and muttered under my breath, “Sorry but I can’t offer you anything better.”
On the last of the six days, owing to incessant rains, I decided to share a taxi with four others in the group who were also going in the same direction. It wasn’t exactly a physical impossibility, since the other four with their showbiz aspirations had kept themselves conveniently thin to accommodate any such contingency. So I got seated in the front seat with the rest fitting themselves in the back. The guy with the vehemence and swagger was also in the group.
“Arre, koi contacts de na”, C asked him. “I want some serial roles.” R quite matter-of-factly pulled out his cell phone and announced as if he was giving dictation, “Duggu….93******. Then there is Aki. Aki; runs an event management company. Accha and take this number too…..you need to pester him a bit, but strong contacts hai uska”. The girl who had by now recovered from the frenzied typing on the mobile asked curiously, “You know so many people, man….how many years have you been in Mumbai?”
“Two. This September would make it two.”
“Wow, so any assignments?”
“I did a small role in a serial. My ad with Nokia will be coming out soon. And I am currently shooting one for a garments’ company. Arre you just need to be in the right place at the right time. Bas. Life is set. You know the guy who starred in Udaan? The lead role. He was a no one before that. One ad film. The director noticed him, and bas….I am doing theatre now to work on my acting. If you are a good actor, some day or the other, you will get the break.”
“Where do you exactly stay?”
“Evershine, Lokhandwala.”
“PG?”
“No, five of us have rented a flat.”
“My parents in Allahabad still think that I am doing hotel management.”
“Even me!”, another girl chimed in. “My father strictly told ‘no’. In our family everyone has studied something or the other. I didn't feel like doing MBA. I have auditioned for some plays, but getting into professional theatre is tough though. Mostly there are these close knit groups; there is hardly any scope for auditions. You need to be really good.”
"Auditions, na", another girl joined. “Does any one of you know how auditions for films work. Tried so many. Abhi tak kuch hua nahi (nothing has worked out yet),
For quite some while, having no such experience to contribute to the conversation, I continued to look ahead at the road and listen to transition plans of an airhostess into a model; a model into a hero; a choreographer to a model and a theatre artist to a film actor. All of them spoke fervently- of dreams, of aspirations, of hope and latently of desperation.
In an effort to be more social, I twisted my body and looked at the back seat packed with pretty people.
“Hey, what is your job like,” one of the models asked, as if in cognizance of my stunt.
“Well its basically understanding and forecasting economic variables. Forex and interest rate modeling. We give economic intelligence to companies- regarding growth prospects, industrial production, inflation…..”
As I went on, alarmed at how intellectual and heady I was sounding even to myself, it suddenly dawned on me why the tall guy was executing every instruction in that workshop with such aggressive meticulousness. Why others would look pained the moment the instructor would say that she expected better. Why most of them would shout, scream, jump, cry, breathe in, blow out…..all in a do-or-die fashion.
What was hobby to me, was profession to them. For me the workshop was a recreation. For them, it was a flight of stairs to another set of stairs, up a seemingly infinite staircase. A six day workshop had got over. ‘What would they be doing tomorrow morning’, I wondered. Call up some regulars for work? Scan newspapers for an odd audition? Preen themselves up for some forgettable shoot? Go for an appointment with a photographer, or a shady modeling coordinator, or beautician?
What would I be doing tomorrow?
Going to office.
I might like gallivanting from theatres to movie to workshops. I might enjoy reading plays throughout the day. I think I would love to play Hamlet. But waiting for a big break, seeking material salvation; I don’t think I would have liked to be in their shoes. I would not like to not dispense off with a nice, monthly pay cheque. I would not like to do a mental calculation before servicing any expensive desire.
They are indeed very brave people to have embarked on that path. Of uncertainty and personal calling. But somehow the coward in me is satisfied under the garb of a company ID. For all the tyranny that I faced from the education and social system; I think it atleast spared me of the war that I would otherwise have to fight on the street daily. I am glad that my parents stuck to their guns, put their weight behind me and pushed me up. I am glad that I burnt the midnight’s oil behind some excruciating exam. I am glad to have been beaten, and in turn beaten some in that conventional rat race. And I am glad that somewhere all that pressure and unambiguous communication of academic aspirations that an average Indian child receives dictation of; somehow worked in my favour.
In conclusion, I am glad to have lived the life of a slogging student.....and comfortably retired now! Making anything beyond office seem so much like an idyllic post-retirement cruise!
Wednesday 28 October 2009
R (unning) B (ehind) I (nflation)? NOT YET!
“Do you have any idea what potato prices have become....it’s now twenty three rupees a kilo! It’s hard to imagine that they used to once come for eight to ten rupees!” my father commented while trying to balance the plate passed on to him during dinner. Now I am not quite sure what small talk the RBI governor D Subbarao indulges in during dinner time, but I am quite confident that he too must be sharing my father’s concern for that rising CPI graph that refuses to be tamed!
Not surprisingly the run-up to the much touted Second Quarter Review of the RBI’s monetary policy was occupied by discussion on how it planned to tackle inflation. The famous debate in economics between growth and inflation once again claimed limelight. Would the RBI increase interest rates to quell inflation? RBI’s answer this time was, “No, but we have it in mind.” Much to the relief of industry captains, the key policy rates remained unchanged at previously benign levels while the SLR requirement was nudged back to its pre-crisis level of 25%. The other policy decisions taken by RBI (like doing away with refinance facilities) were similarly cosmetic in nature; all indicating that the RBI was shying away from any affirmative roll-back of its monetary prodigality this time around; but was signalling of stiffer action to come.
But why did RBI have to increase SLR? Well of course it is a step towards containing liquidity, but the fact remains that most banks are currently satisfying their SLR requirement comfortably; as a matter of fact they are exceeding it. A minor rectification of this ceiling is really not of much consequence to them. One might argue that it is a signalling device for tougher policy later. But again, why does the RBI need that? The moot question is: What would have happened if the RBI had not indulged in these token policy measures now, and directly attempted to target inflation by raising policy rates later?
The crucial missing piece of the jigsaw is that the RBI is really not interested in targeting inflation now. What the RBI is really concerned about in this review; is ‘expected’ inflation. And there is an important reason behind this concern. If people perceive a lethargic central bank that does not seem to worry about inflation, they would revise their expectation of inflation upwards in the coming months. This would in turn lead to the hoarding of commodities since people would expect prices to escalate. However paradoxically, this very action would lead to an upward spurt in the spot prices of commodities. Hence ultimately the same inflation that people ‘expected’ to materialise in a few months would in turn end up haunting them immediately.
Hence the RBI understands that howsoever superficial may be its policies in this review; some good marketing is necessary! People need to have cause to believe that the RBI is going to take proactive action, and that there is not going to be the case of a runaway inflation. And this feeds into a virtuous cycle since the RBI in turn requires this perception for its policies to succeed. Or else it would be grappling with inflation on a week-to-week guerrilla basis!
However the larger question is that instead of indulging in this charade, why didn’t the RBI in the first place increase key policy rates in this quarter itself. After all there were many allusions in the media of Israel and Australia hiking their rates. It can also be argued that monetary policies come with a lag and with WPI already nearing 6% and the base effect disappearing, there is certainly a case for urgency. Secondly, huge liquidity in the market leads to a potential for an asset price escalation. This compounded by large capital inflows could lead to bludgeoning asset prices. Infact in some ways, RBI has attempted to address this issue in the current review by hiking provision requirements for loans to commercial realty (which in my opinion can backfire since developers would pass on the increase in cost of funds to the buyers, and if demand refuses to be daunted there could be another rally of real estate price hike)
Finally some could argue that even if the RBI increased interest rates or upped the CRR; it need not have necessarily translated into higher costs for borrowers. This is because credit growth in India remains quintessentially weak, and banks would be hesitant to extinguish any demand for loans by increasing lending rates. And if their assets are not growing, banks would have no incentive to chase liabilities by providing higher deposit rates. So even tampering with policy rates would be akin to a token gesture.
However with the look of things, RBI is certainly not willing to let its growth objectives be hijacked by the whims of banks deciding whether to change their deposit and lending rates in response to RBI’s rate hike, or to demand and supply conditions in the market. Secondly a reversal in monetary policy would lead to increased yields on government bonds which in turn could thrust interest rates upwards and hence affect consumption and investment demand negatively.
But in my perspective the primary reason why the RBI refused to compromise on growth in this quarter, is because 60% of the Indian populace is employed in agriculture and the drought situation threatens to hit their disposable incomes badly. This drought promises not only to accentuate inflation, but also create a huge growth deficit. Which is why emulating Israel’s or Australia’s rate hikes may not be the best alternative for us. Finally an increase in interest rates could also lead to further capital inflows; which apart from inflating asset prices, would also be putting pressure on the rupee to appreciate.
The RBI seems to have got the trade-off right this time; but I doubt if tough choices are going to excuse themselves any time soon! It is indeed time for the tiger prowling on its emblem to prove its mettle. This quarter it has just growled; next time, get ready for its roar!
Not surprisingly the run-up to the much touted Second Quarter Review of the RBI’s monetary policy was occupied by discussion on how it planned to tackle inflation. The famous debate in economics between growth and inflation once again claimed limelight. Would the RBI increase interest rates to quell inflation? RBI’s answer this time was, “No, but we have it in mind.” Much to the relief of industry captains, the key policy rates remained unchanged at previously benign levels while the SLR requirement was nudged back to its pre-crisis level of 25%. The other policy decisions taken by RBI (like doing away with refinance facilities) were similarly cosmetic in nature; all indicating that the RBI was shying away from any affirmative roll-back of its monetary prodigality this time around; but was signalling of stiffer action to come.
But why did RBI have to increase SLR? Well of course it is a step towards containing liquidity, but the fact remains that most banks are currently satisfying their SLR requirement comfortably; as a matter of fact they are exceeding it. A minor rectification of this ceiling is really not of much consequence to them. One might argue that it is a signalling device for tougher policy later. But again, why does the RBI need that? The moot question is: What would have happened if the RBI had not indulged in these token policy measures now, and directly attempted to target inflation by raising policy rates later?
The crucial missing piece of the jigsaw is that the RBI is really not interested in targeting inflation now. What the RBI is really concerned about in this review; is ‘expected’ inflation. And there is an important reason behind this concern. If people perceive a lethargic central bank that does not seem to worry about inflation, they would revise their expectation of inflation upwards in the coming months. This would in turn lead to the hoarding of commodities since people would expect prices to escalate. However paradoxically, this very action would lead to an upward spurt in the spot prices of commodities. Hence ultimately the same inflation that people ‘expected’ to materialise in a few months would in turn end up haunting them immediately.
Hence the RBI understands that howsoever superficial may be its policies in this review; some good marketing is necessary! People need to have cause to believe that the RBI is going to take proactive action, and that there is not going to be the case of a runaway inflation. And this feeds into a virtuous cycle since the RBI in turn requires this perception for its policies to succeed. Or else it would be grappling with inflation on a week-to-week guerrilla basis!
However the larger question is that instead of indulging in this charade, why didn’t the RBI in the first place increase key policy rates in this quarter itself. After all there were many allusions in the media of Israel and Australia hiking their rates. It can also be argued that monetary policies come with a lag and with WPI already nearing 6% and the base effect disappearing, there is certainly a case for urgency. Secondly, huge liquidity in the market leads to a potential for an asset price escalation. This compounded by large capital inflows could lead to bludgeoning asset prices. Infact in some ways, RBI has attempted to address this issue in the current review by hiking provision requirements for loans to commercial realty (which in my opinion can backfire since developers would pass on the increase in cost of funds to the buyers, and if demand refuses to be daunted there could be another rally of real estate price hike)
Finally some could argue that even if the RBI increased interest rates or upped the CRR; it need not have necessarily translated into higher costs for borrowers. This is because credit growth in India remains quintessentially weak, and banks would be hesitant to extinguish any demand for loans by increasing lending rates. And if their assets are not growing, banks would have no incentive to chase liabilities by providing higher deposit rates. So even tampering with policy rates would be akin to a token gesture.
However with the look of things, RBI is certainly not willing to let its growth objectives be hijacked by the whims of banks deciding whether to change their deposit and lending rates in response to RBI’s rate hike, or to demand and supply conditions in the market. Secondly a reversal in monetary policy would lead to increased yields on government bonds which in turn could thrust interest rates upwards and hence affect consumption and investment demand negatively.
But in my perspective the primary reason why the RBI refused to compromise on growth in this quarter, is because 60% of the Indian populace is employed in agriculture and the drought situation threatens to hit their disposable incomes badly. This drought promises not only to accentuate inflation, but also create a huge growth deficit. Which is why emulating Israel’s or Australia’s rate hikes may not be the best alternative for us. Finally an increase in interest rates could also lead to further capital inflows; which apart from inflating asset prices, would also be putting pressure on the rupee to appreciate.
The RBI seems to have got the trade-off right this time; but I doubt if tough choices are going to excuse themselves any time soon! It is indeed time for the tiger prowling on its emblem to prove its mettle. This quarter it has just growled; next time, get ready for its roar!
Sunday 18 October 2009
The Ghost
Dear Sir/Madam (How anti-feminist indeed.....if it’s a lady reading this, she might prefer Madam/Sir)
I would like to apply for the position of.......
I have recently completed my MBA from London Business School; previously MSc Economics from LSE, and graduation from....... (you better be reading this very carefully- it took me over two freaking decades of my life to fill up this paragraph)
I am really interested in the Investment Banking profile of the job. It is something that excites me tremendously (oh yes, I have wild, rave dreams about companies in the night)
In support of my leadership qualities, I have been the (President of the United States), and also spent some very constructive time during my previous internship (where I found out that I had a rare talent for online stick cricket)
Please find my CV attached. I am sure I can value-add to your company (Oh, I so love this term)
Yours Sincerely (Pleadingly, Grovelling-ly, Begging-ly)
Arijit Sen (Have a heart!)
“And now, ‘Send’ “. The button mocked a push with a light click of the laptop touch-pad. Immediately to be sent across cities and oceans and mountains, to join other applications into the e-dustbin of another company’s HR office, Arijit thought . Would he be really awarded this time for his absurd stretch of imagination? “Well somebody should fall for it", he soliloquised.
“So, Arijit.....”, with special emphasis on the ‘so’, was usually the way any of his mother’s friends would begin a conversation with him, just as he tried to sneak out unnoticed. “So, Orijit; akhun ki korcho” (Arijit, what are you upto now). Arijit realised that till not so long ago, the name of an exalted university and an impending exam would be enough to shut all of them up with an impressed smile. This time, Swapna aunty gave a long slurp to the tea and with remarkable snugness went on, “Don’t worry. With your qualifications, there are lots of jobs out there”, pointing her tea cup towards the open expanse from his ninth floor window. “You just need to keep trying. You know, my daughter. See, now she is working with TCS. Ofcourse hers was campus placement. For you, you need some experience. Puchhh. It’s not easy. But don’t worry”
Arijit wondered if Swapna aunty with her versatile daughter was infact his greatest worry; with his sordid condition of inaction being treated by her as biscuits to be moistened with her tea. “I need to go, aunty”, he replied, standing up abruptly,and giving a sweet smile that could have easily landed him a job of a butler at a five star joint. "Doesn't she have anything else to do?", Arijit rumbled under his breath
It’s been roughly two months. Two months since he came back from London. And reformed the contact details on his CV. And though every HR personnel had become intensely ‘Dear’ to him in cover letters, none bothered returning his affections. Some did, and then an odd interview would occur and then everything would again go deathly quiet between the company and him as if the subject of jobs was too taboo a topic to be discussed.
Back at home, his father would brew tea in the morning with an Armageddon look on his face. “Why don’t you apply to Analytics jobs? There are so many of those”.
“But Baba, I am not interested in those...”, Arijit would say wondering why there wasn’t a faster way to have tea than by luxuriously sipping it.
“What do you mean, not interested? Not interested. Job is job”. After a while, “Then government?”, Baba would explode with renewed energy. “Why not government services? Give an exam, clear it....”
“And then sit on a table and clear files”, Arijit mentally completed Baba’s sentence. In the big, cruel, cold world out there, his father still had admirable resolve in the behemoth Government sector to tuck his son in with paternal benevolence.
Arijit discovered that tea could be had faster when it grew a bit colder. One gulp and he earned his salvation from the living room that had turned into a career-counselling clinic.
“Yaaaaar, what are you doing today, man”? Arijit never really managed to give a coherent answer to that ebullient question of Rohit. In response to his mumbling, Rohit would quickly drown it by saying, “Chal yaar, movie pe chalte hai”.
Rohit was Arijit’s friend, who had risen from slumdog existence. Unknown colleges, unspoken grades, rocking parties.......an oblivious speck in the world of insecure toppers. When he started off with a job, he looked bit like a pet Labrador being thrown into a pack of street dogs to spend his life with them. Two years hence, and Rohit had transformed himself into a deft street-fighter. Into marketing and sales, he could churn out industry jargon in conversations as if it were being sprayed from machine guns.
At the mall, Rohit went on mindlessly chattering how he was marked for crucification next week, for not generating enough sales figures. “Arre, arre....please, I will pay”, Rohit stopped his monologue to prevent Arijit from taking out his wallet at the ticket counter. On the way up the escalator to the top floor where the multiplex was located, Rohit completed his interrupted oral sales report, and then asked, “So, wassup with you, dude? How’s the job search coming along?” Arijit’s summary lasted for barely one floor of the escalators’ ascent. As they handed the tickets to the usher, Arijit decided to summarise it with a ‘Chal raha hai, yaar. Let’s see.”
Back in McDonalds, after the movie got over, Arijit watched Rohit’s eyes move around with undercover stealth. Then suddenly in the middle of a bite of a burger, Rohit hissed “To your left, behind, in front of the glass wall, having a cold drink.” As Arijit attempted to turn around, Rohit stopped him saying, “What do you think you are doing! Turn slowly man; don’t turn like somebody is pointing out something to you!” Arijit this time turned with an orchestrated James Bond nonchalance to see a slim girl in a black dress sipping from a towering McDonald carton and staring out of the window. “Hot, na”? Rohit smirked with devilish intent. “Even she was staring at me.”
Arijit returned home tired. Normally he found Rohit’s newly acquired corporate sheen and his imaginary tryst with girls sitting a dozen tables away, quite amusing. But this time, he felt different. While he was tasting the new icecream-dipped-in-coke at McD’s, something that Arijit had immediately voted as one of the worst culinary innovations ever, and watching Rohit rattle alternately between sales figures and girls; he noticed a sense of pride and satisfaction in the guy. He was talking his heart out, as if he had earned the weekend. He was taking out his wallet with the relish of having worked for the notes ensconced in it. That girl by the window side was his affordable hobby because he was standing on his two feet. Arijit realised that he, on the other hand was standing on the red carpet of some exotic paper certificates. Pull the carpet, and he would be on the floor. Mentally Arijit told himself that any further movie with Rohit would have to wait.
Days inched by. Weeks crawled on. Diwali came. Amidst an outrageous cacophony of blasts that seemed to occur eternally outside, Arijit sat in his room with his laptop cradled on his legs. Nothing. No one. Yahoo mail tauntingly revealed no new mail, inspite of him refreshing the page with frustrating regularity. For the past half an hour, Arijit had been watching new status messages being posted in Facebook. “4 new posts”. After a while “1 new post”. Arijit felt like he was on National Geographic watching and recording when one lion would yawn and the other would sit down. Gtalk obviously had an array of red and green bulbs beside names of several of his friends. But nobody bothered dropping by for a chat. “Nobody really cares, do they”, he wondered. “I am after all the unshaven unemployed couch potato, writing flattering letters and boastful CVs, while all of you are leading smart lives in a smart jobs”. Arijit felt a kind of childish hostility against them all. “If they don’t bother chatting with me, SO WON’T I”.
Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen minutes. His Gandhian protest seemed to go unnoticed. “HELLO GUYS CAN’T YOU SEE ME”, Arijit felt like yelling. But each one seemed to be absorbed in their own parallel universes. Even if somebody did stop by, Arijit wondered if he really had any answer for the question, “How was your day”. The day was ............Arijit realised that he was decaying from inside. Nowadays if his mother would ask him to get something thing, he would idly stare at the object for some time wondering why it did not suddenly grow a pair of legs to walk past him. The ultimate shocker came to Arijit when he realised that he was watching FRIENDS....and wasn’t laughing at all. It was as if he was okay with the recorded laughter of the audience doing it for him. “I am going mad”, he told himself.
“Yaar, Wasssup”, Rohit’s enthusiastic voice came with the phone ring that suddenly flashed on Arijit’s mobile phone. “Hey listen, I need a favour man. It’s this babe, yaar. Met on the bus. And guess what, this one actually talks to me! So here’s the deal. I want to ask her out, but before that I want to sort of make her feel comfortable. So I thought that I would call her for dinner with my friends; you know just to make her feel as if I am not really dating her, or something..” Arijit decided that if there was indeed a low point of his dismal day; listening to Rohit make Bush-like plans to woo a girl, was most certainly it.
“So great, go ahead”, Arijit replied.
“That’s the problem, no one is free yaar.” Rohit replied as if waiting for the cue. “Why don’t you come along?”
“Hi, my name is Arijit”, Arijit replied to the slightly overweight girl at the side of Rohit. “Great, so let’s go then. There’s this really cool Chinese restaurant on the way. Let’s go guys.” Rohit suggested with orchestrated enthusiasm. “So what are you doing, Arijit?” Pooja asked over a glass of beer, once they walked into a plush restaurant that Arijit suspected would lighten Rohit’s pockets dearly once the bill came. “Well, actually nothing. Rohit here will tell you that I am even available for hanging his coat. But the answer to your question is that I am just out of LBS and LSE. Looking for a job.”
“Wow, that’s something, isn’t it? What do you need for getting into LBS.”
“Nothing much, actually; you need some profs who think that you are a prodigy. And some great essay writing”, Arijit replied.
At the end of the dinner, as they came out of the restaurant, Pooja gave him a rather penetrating stare as she said, “It was lovely meeting you, Arijit.”
“Bye, Pooja”, said Rohit.
Days later, Pooja Gupta’s friend request came on Arijit’s Facebook profile. There were three hundred and twenty nine faces lined up there already who did nothing more than just smile at him constantly. Another one could do no extra harm. “Just need to tell Rohit that she doesn’t seem his type”, Arijit thought as he accepted the request.
It was Diwali again. This time Arijit found himself in his office party wearing a rich sherwani, putting his life on the line for lighting a fire cracker. As he faked a laugh with some of his colleagues, he managed to efficaciously slide the paneer tikka off the serving-spoon onto his plate. Finding a quiet spot he seated himself, giving a royal brush to his sherwani to prevent sitting on it. Butchering the paneer into two neat halves, his thoughts flew to the evening last Diwali. Where he met Pooja. The only person who went on to poke him on Gtalk, saying “Hiya, how are you doing?” The one who turned out be his greatest support during those unshaven days when he had nothing to do but watch the screen for a mail to drop by. In all those days of inaction, she was the only one to reach to the phone to get his call, and return them back if she missed him. She was such a great friend.
But was he so absorbed in himself that he did not realise that she had actually fallen in love with him? Arijit would have perhaps never known. His new job started. Life suddenly picked up frenetic pace. Long philosophical conversations got converted into quick “Hw r u. Im fine” messages. New places, new people, new friends......without realising it Pooja faded to the background.
Arijit munched on the paneer piece as he remembered the day when in one phone call one evening Pooja admitted that she could no longer keep the crush to herself. Yes, she loved him. The words stung him like something he had never felt before. “I do like you”, was all he could cough out. In a fraction of a second, Arijit suddenly found himself delving into his own self like a person thrown off a cliff, wondering what he really felt for her.
“That’s ok”, came a gruff reply from the other side of the phone. “Hey listen Arijit, I need to go now.” Arijit could now feel Pooja’s pain float out pungently with her discretion. ‘Was I using her? Was I being selfish... But I never wanted to hurt her’, Arijit screamed out silently. Groping for words, he finally said, “Hey Pooja........I...” .“No probs Arijit” came a calm reply from the receiver; “ I wasn’t expecting it either. Good bye.”
Click. And then silence.
It was as if Pooja was there all though the darkness of recession, and then like a spirit disappeared theatrically when the first rays of recovery found its way into Arijit’s world.
Pooja never called after that. Neither did she answer calls. And Arijit had to accept the inconvenient truth that he was not doing bad at all. Yes, his good friend was lost. But several not-so-selfless ones emerged. Pooja was a small, itching blot on his conscience; the gnawing feeling of having let down a friend.
"Hi Ari", from the seat below, Arijit could only see a long expanse of legs till the skirt hit his view like a saving grace. "How are you doing? Aren't you the new guy who joined......."
Arijit forced a smile as the attractive lady sat beside him. "Have I seen you somewhere. I mean before this ofcourse. Would you be knowing....."
Arijit went on answering in his polite self. But in his mind there was a red flag that was billowing furiously. And he realised that he was giving guarded replies; smiling, but not laughing; conscious of an unease. Suddenly he found himself deeply analysing every word of the lady in the unknown recesses of his mind, wondering if they concealed anything more than what it seemed. It was as if something in the bottom of his mind rattled as if warning him of something dire.
The lady soon walked away, unimpressed by Arijit's muted and strange replies. "Rohit would have killed to be in my position five minutes back", Arijit chuckled.
But as he idly gazed at the slim hips of the lady oscillate off to another corner of the hall, Arijit knew exactly what was happening. Why he was behaving so charmlessly. Why he was being afraid of the unforseen circumstance of harmless flirting. What was stopping him from exploring anything else with anyone else.
It was the ghost of Pooja that was haunting him.
I would like to apply for the position of.......
I have recently completed my MBA from London Business School; previously MSc Economics from LSE, and graduation from....... (you better be reading this very carefully- it took me over two freaking decades of my life to fill up this paragraph)
I am really interested in the Investment Banking profile of the job. It is something that excites me tremendously (oh yes, I have wild, rave dreams about companies in the night)
In support of my leadership qualities, I have been the (President of the United States), and also spent some very constructive time during my previous internship (where I found out that I had a rare talent for online stick cricket)
Please find my CV attached. I am sure I can value-add to your company (Oh, I so love this term)
Yours Sincerely (Pleadingly, Grovelling-ly, Begging-ly)
Arijit Sen (Have a heart!)
“And now, ‘Send’ “. The button mocked a push with a light click of the laptop touch-pad. Immediately to be sent across cities and oceans and mountains, to join other applications into the e-dustbin of another company’s HR office, Arijit thought . Would he be really awarded this time for his absurd stretch of imagination? “Well somebody should fall for it", he soliloquised.
“So, Arijit.....”, with special emphasis on the ‘so’, was usually the way any of his mother’s friends would begin a conversation with him, just as he tried to sneak out unnoticed. “So, Orijit; akhun ki korcho” (Arijit, what are you upto now). Arijit realised that till not so long ago, the name of an exalted university and an impending exam would be enough to shut all of them up with an impressed smile. This time, Swapna aunty gave a long slurp to the tea and with remarkable snugness went on, “Don’t worry. With your qualifications, there are lots of jobs out there”, pointing her tea cup towards the open expanse from his ninth floor window. “You just need to keep trying. You know, my daughter. See, now she is working with TCS. Ofcourse hers was campus placement. For you, you need some experience. Puchhh. It’s not easy. But don’t worry”
Arijit wondered if Swapna aunty with her versatile daughter was infact his greatest worry; with his sordid condition of inaction being treated by her as biscuits to be moistened with her tea. “I need to go, aunty”, he replied, standing up abruptly,and giving a sweet smile that could have easily landed him a job of a butler at a five star joint. "Doesn't she have anything else to do?", Arijit rumbled under his breath
It’s been roughly two months. Two months since he came back from London. And reformed the contact details on his CV. And though every HR personnel had become intensely ‘Dear’ to him in cover letters, none bothered returning his affections. Some did, and then an odd interview would occur and then everything would again go deathly quiet between the company and him as if the subject of jobs was too taboo a topic to be discussed.
Back at home, his father would brew tea in the morning with an Armageddon look on his face. “Why don’t you apply to Analytics jobs? There are so many of those”.
“But Baba, I am not interested in those...”, Arijit would say wondering why there wasn’t a faster way to have tea than by luxuriously sipping it.
“What do you mean, not interested? Not interested. Job is job”. After a while, “Then government?”, Baba would explode with renewed energy. “Why not government services? Give an exam, clear it....”
“And then sit on a table and clear files”, Arijit mentally completed Baba’s sentence. In the big, cruel, cold world out there, his father still had admirable resolve in the behemoth Government sector to tuck his son in with paternal benevolence.
Arijit discovered that tea could be had faster when it grew a bit colder. One gulp and he earned his salvation from the living room that had turned into a career-counselling clinic.
“Yaaaaar, what are you doing today, man”? Arijit never really managed to give a coherent answer to that ebullient question of Rohit. In response to his mumbling, Rohit would quickly drown it by saying, “Chal yaar, movie pe chalte hai”.
Rohit was Arijit’s friend, who had risen from slumdog existence. Unknown colleges, unspoken grades, rocking parties.......an oblivious speck in the world of insecure toppers. When he started off with a job, he looked bit like a pet Labrador being thrown into a pack of street dogs to spend his life with them. Two years hence, and Rohit had transformed himself into a deft street-fighter. Into marketing and sales, he could churn out industry jargon in conversations as if it were being sprayed from machine guns.
At the mall, Rohit went on mindlessly chattering how he was marked for crucification next week, for not generating enough sales figures. “Arre, arre....please, I will pay”, Rohit stopped his monologue to prevent Arijit from taking out his wallet at the ticket counter. On the way up the escalator to the top floor where the multiplex was located, Rohit completed his interrupted oral sales report, and then asked, “So, wassup with you, dude? How’s the job search coming along?” Arijit’s summary lasted for barely one floor of the escalators’ ascent. As they handed the tickets to the usher, Arijit decided to summarise it with a ‘Chal raha hai, yaar. Let’s see.”
Back in McDonalds, after the movie got over, Arijit watched Rohit’s eyes move around with undercover stealth. Then suddenly in the middle of a bite of a burger, Rohit hissed “To your left, behind, in front of the glass wall, having a cold drink.” As Arijit attempted to turn around, Rohit stopped him saying, “What do you think you are doing! Turn slowly man; don’t turn like somebody is pointing out something to you!” Arijit this time turned with an orchestrated James Bond nonchalance to see a slim girl in a black dress sipping from a towering McDonald carton and staring out of the window. “Hot, na”? Rohit smirked with devilish intent. “Even she was staring at me.”
Arijit returned home tired. Normally he found Rohit’s newly acquired corporate sheen and his imaginary tryst with girls sitting a dozen tables away, quite amusing. But this time, he felt different. While he was tasting the new icecream-dipped-in-coke at McD’s, something that Arijit had immediately voted as one of the worst culinary innovations ever, and watching Rohit rattle alternately between sales figures and girls; he noticed a sense of pride and satisfaction in the guy. He was talking his heart out, as if he had earned the weekend. He was taking out his wallet with the relish of having worked for the notes ensconced in it. That girl by the window side was his affordable hobby because he was standing on his two feet. Arijit realised that he, on the other hand was standing on the red carpet of some exotic paper certificates. Pull the carpet, and he would be on the floor. Mentally Arijit told himself that any further movie with Rohit would have to wait.
Days inched by. Weeks crawled on. Diwali came. Amidst an outrageous cacophony of blasts that seemed to occur eternally outside, Arijit sat in his room with his laptop cradled on his legs. Nothing. No one. Yahoo mail tauntingly revealed no new mail, inspite of him refreshing the page with frustrating regularity. For the past half an hour, Arijit had been watching new status messages being posted in Facebook. “4 new posts”. After a while “1 new post”. Arijit felt like he was on National Geographic watching and recording when one lion would yawn and the other would sit down. Gtalk obviously had an array of red and green bulbs beside names of several of his friends. But nobody bothered dropping by for a chat. “Nobody really cares, do they”, he wondered. “I am after all the unshaven unemployed couch potato, writing flattering letters and boastful CVs, while all of you are leading smart lives in a smart jobs”. Arijit felt a kind of childish hostility against them all. “If they don’t bother chatting with me, SO WON’T I”.
Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen minutes. His Gandhian protest seemed to go unnoticed. “HELLO GUYS CAN’T YOU SEE ME”, Arijit felt like yelling. But each one seemed to be absorbed in their own parallel universes. Even if somebody did stop by, Arijit wondered if he really had any answer for the question, “How was your day”. The day was ............Arijit realised that he was decaying from inside. Nowadays if his mother would ask him to get something thing, he would idly stare at the object for some time wondering why it did not suddenly grow a pair of legs to walk past him. The ultimate shocker came to Arijit when he realised that he was watching FRIENDS....and wasn’t laughing at all. It was as if he was okay with the recorded laughter of the audience doing it for him. “I am going mad”, he told himself.
“Yaar, Wasssup”, Rohit’s enthusiastic voice came with the phone ring that suddenly flashed on Arijit’s mobile phone. “Hey listen, I need a favour man. It’s this babe, yaar. Met on the bus. And guess what, this one actually talks to me! So here’s the deal. I want to ask her out, but before that I want to sort of make her feel comfortable. So I thought that I would call her for dinner with my friends; you know just to make her feel as if I am not really dating her, or something..” Arijit decided that if there was indeed a low point of his dismal day; listening to Rohit make Bush-like plans to woo a girl, was most certainly it.
“So great, go ahead”, Arijit replied.
“That’s the problem, no one is free yaar.” Rohit replied as if waiting for the cue. “Why don’t you come along?”
“Hi, my name is Arijit”, Arijit replied to the slightly overweight girl at the side of Rohit. “Great, so let’s go then. There’s this really cool Chinese restaurant on the way. Let’s go guys.” Rohit suggested with orchestrated enthusiasm. “So what are you doing, Arijit?” Pooja asked over a glass of beer, once they walked into a plush restaurant that Arijit suspected would lighten Rohit’s pockets dearly once the bill came. “Well, actually nothing. Rohit here will tell you that I am even available for hanging his coat. But the answer to your question is that I am just out of LBS and LSE. Looking for a job.”
“Wow, that’s something, isn’t it? What do you need for getting into LBS.”
“Nothing much, actually; you need some profs who think that you are a prodigy. And some great essay writing”, Arijit replied.
At the end of the dinner, as they came out of the restaurant, Pooja gave him a rather penetrating stare as she said, “It was lovely meeting you, Arijit.”
“Bye, Pooja”, said Rohit.
Days later, Pooja Gupta’s friend request came on Arijit’s Facebook profile. There were three hundred and twenty nine faces lined up there already who did nothing more than just smile at him constantly. Another one could do no extra harm. “Just need to tell Rohit that she doesn’t seem his type”, Arijit thought as he accepted the request.
It was Diwali again. This time Arijit found himself in his office party wearing a rich sherwani, putting his life on the line for lighting a fire cracker. As he faked a laugh with some of his colleagues, he managed to efficaciously slide the paneer tikka off the serving-spoon onto his plate. Finding a quiet spot he seated himself, giving a royal brush to his sherwani to prevent sitting on it. Butchering the paneer into two neat halves, his thoughts flew to the evening last Diwali. Where he met Pooja. The only person who went on to poke him on Gtalk, saying “Hiya, how are you doing?” The one who turned out be his greatest support during those unshaven days when he had nothing to do but watch the screen for a mail to drop by. In all those days of inaction, she was the only one to reach to the phone to get his call, and return them back if she missed him. She was such a great friend.
But was he so absorbed in himself that he did not realise that she had actually fallen in love with him? Arijit would have perhaps never known. His new job started. Life suddenly picked up frenetic pace. Long philosophical conversations got converted into quick “Hw r u. Im fine” messages. New places, new people, new friends......without realising it Pooja faded to the background.
Arijit munched on the paneer piece as he remembered the day when in one phone call one evening Pooja admitted that she could no longer keep the crush to herself. Yes, she loved him. The words stung him like something he had never felt before. “I do like you”, was all he could cough out. In a fraction of a second, Arijit suddenly found himself delving into his own self like a person thrown off a cliff, wondering what he really felt for her.
“That’s ok”, came a gruff reply from the other side of the phone. “Hey listen Arijit, I need to go now.” Arijit could now feel Pooja’s pain float out pungently with her discretion. ‘Was I using her? Was I being selfish... But I never wanted to hurt her’, Arijit screamed out silently. Groping for words, he finally said, “Hey Pooja........I...” .“No probs Arijit” came a calm reply from the receiver; “ I wasn’t expecting it either. Good bye.”
Click. And then silence.
It was as if Pooja was there all though the darkness of recession, and then like a spirit disappeared theatrically when the first rays of recovery found its way into Arijit’s world.
Pooja never called after that. Neither did she answer calls. And Arijit had to accept the inconvenient truth that he was not doing bad at all. Yes, his good friend was lost. But several not-so-selfless ones emerged. Pooja was a small, itching blot on his conscience; the gnawing feeling of having let down a friend.
"Hi Ari", from the seat below, Arijit could only see a long expanse of legs till the skirt hit his view like a saving grace. "How are you doing? Aren't you the new guy who joined......."
Arijit forced a smile as the attractive lady sat beside him. "Have I seen you somewhere. I mean before this ofcourse. Would you be knowing....."
Arijit went on answering in his polite self. But in his mind there was a red flag that was billowing furiously. And he realised that he was giving guarded replies; smiling, but not laughing; conscious of an unease. Suddenly he found himself deeply analysing every word of the lady in the unknown recesses of his mind, wondering if they concealed anything more than what it seemed. It was as if something in the bottom of his mind rattled as if warning him of something dire.
The lady soon walked away, unimpressed by Arijit's muted and strange replies. "Rohit would have killed to be in my position five minutes back", Arijit chuckled.
But as he idly gazed at the slim hips of the lady oscillate off to another corner of the hall, Arijit knew exactly what was happening. Why he was behaving so charmlessly. Why he was being afraid of the unforseen circumstance of harmless flirting. What was stopping him from exploring anything else with anyone else.
It was the ghost of Pooja that was haunting him.
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