26/11 I Will Never Forget the Day

For a small group of people they were ‘heroes’, for us they were terrorists. Their heroes killed our heroes.

A few new heroes emerged.

Some heroes from the bigscreen became zeros overnight.

The same set of words, pictures and videos were used by media in as many combinations as they could have. But why?

The real criminal — a failed political, and intelligence system — went scot-free, after making a dozen promises.

Tears gave way to anger, to frustration, more frustration and to tears again.

The Earth has come a full cycle, so have we. But we will never forget will we? We shouldn’t, because nothing has changed.

#2611neverforget

A Tweetup and My Identity Crisis

I was at the recent tweetup with Shashi Tharoor in Bangalore, and I need to say it was one of the most enjoyable blogger/twitter meets I’ve been to. I wrote about the event in @DNA already, you can read it here and here. So the subject here is not Mr Tharoor who shares his first name with my father, but my identity crisis.

When I’m at one of these tech/social media events I feel like a double agent who is supposed to keep both sides happy. On one hand, I need to write a story about the event or spot a trend which could lead to a story; on the other hand, I’m required be my usual self, tweet-tweet at the event and interact with people I have met and those I have interacted online.

How do I prioritise? Editorji, can I take a day off today and just attend the event as a normal human being? I don’t think I can ever ask that question ever, it’s just not that simple.. never. How would it look if the sports desk takes a day off to watch ManU or Sachin (not cricket)?

Well there I was at the tweetup hearing Tharoor speak… I wrote as fast as I could, please do understand that me, pen and paper don’t get along well these days, thanks to my affair with computer. It took a while to get my hand to coordinate with paper and pen, I tried. I wrote a lot of notes, tried to write every word he spoke (big mistake!) and ended with a tired hand and aching fingers at the end of the day.

Now that’s what I ended up doing, what I really wanted to do was sit back, chill out, smile and join Manu and Nikhil as they cracked PJ after PJ and commented on every question and answer. Sheesh now that sounded nasty, trust me they weren’t nasty in any way. It was just  good humour.

Some say I’m lucky because I get to write about things I’m interested in. Really? Am I? Sure, it’s easier for me, but does that mean it’s good? I’ve heard of coders who code for fun and met a few who hate to code when not at work. I think in journalistic sense I’ll come in the latter category. Can I let my interested remain interests and my work remain my work. Because when both are mixed, at times, it becomes a heady cocktail that ends up giving me a bad hangover.

They say don’t mix business with pleasure, but it’s just the opposite when it comes to journalism and entrepreneurship. Can a film critic watch a movie without having to review it; can a sports correspondent watch cricket and not worry about all the adjectives that needs to be used in the final copy. (I think sports copies use way too many adjectives.. I’m not complaining, makes an interesting read); can a sub-editor read a newspaper without worrying about the typos and the stories missed; and finally can and would a photographer want to take a picture without worrying about perfection? The answer will be no for all these people, because that’s part and parcel of being a journalist, just like the coke ad which said eat cricket, sleep cricket, drink only coca-cola, it’s passion that drives this industry. No passion, no interest, no beat, no news.

I can’t stop writing about things that I write about as of now, because I don’t know what else I’ll write about. Is there a middle path? Any point in following it? I don’t know. But life’s an adventure, if this path doesn’t take me anywhere, I’ll clear the jungle and create a new one. In other words it’s not necessary to take the one not taken by others, you can always create your own. Just make sure it’s a 8-lane highway.

Please get these people on Sach Ka Samna

I watched one or two episodes of Sach Ka Samna and I found it to be as good as the original (Moment of Truth) in terms of production and equally controversial with the questions. They have only invited celebrities till now in the show, but I have a few recommendations. Here goes:

Politician

(Nothing like a populist and corrupt politician to bring up the TRPs)

Q: Sirjee do you have black money or not

A: Bilkul nahi (Absolutely not)

Machine: Ye jawab galat hai (wrong answer)

Bangalore Auto Driver

(Been a while since I cribbed about auto guys. But there was this recent incident which I have to blog about. Will post it tomorrow)

Q: Do you take double of metre charge even in broad day light

A: Eh ya (Some of them are shameless you see)

Machine: Ye jawab sahi hai (answer’s right)

Host: Congratulations for winning 1,00,000 but shame on you for charging double rate.

@Ev

(Founder of Twitter)

Q: Do you think you will ever make money from Twitter

A: Can I tweet about this?

Host: No!

A: Okay then yes

Machine: Ye jawab galat hai (wrong answer)

He moon-walked his way to death

Sorry for such a cheesy headline. After all, I am an Indian journalist, we end up churning out a dozen such headlines on a daily basis. So when such cheesy headlines turn up on my blog, I request you to classify it as an occupational hazard. Now, don’t put my poor/pathetic/lousy humour-sense under that category, that is just a manufacturing defect.

My parents tried their best to repair it by forcing me to watch mimics parade (video is in malayalam. Non-mallus please continue reading to avoid frustration) and by making me read Khushwant Singh’s Joke Book (which I enjoyed  a lot). But to my parents shock and dismay, none of them seemed to have any affect on my sense of humour, or non-sense of humour rather.

All right, I will get back to the original topic, Mr Michael Joseph Jackson, who passed away on June 25, Saturday. I was never a huuuge fan of the King of Pop, for I could never figure out the ‘words in his songs’. Come on, I was just a kid then and I could only speak Malayalam and Manglish. For the uninitiated, manglish is an amalgamation of Malayalam and English. The language is quite simple. Add an ing at the end of every malayalam verb and ta-da you can be a manglish professor like me!

So anyway, I could never understand his songs or rather the lyrics, so all that I liked about him was the way he moved on the stage. I guess, move is the wrong word, for he used to float. He could control every bone which combined together to form his back bone. Wow that guy was brilliant! But then there is this thing about my generation. We have very low attention span you see, so all they had to do was start showing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on TV and I had forgotten all about Mr Jackson.

His name no longer meant much to me. Of course, I did ooh and aah whenever someone talked about his dancing skills. But hey, the man did grab my attention again, but this time it wasn’t due to any public performance of his, it was due to err… a rather private one. He was accused of being a pedophile!

You know what’s ironical? In 1990 he featured in a SEGA game, in which he was rescuing children who were being held hostage. I think they were just trying to keep the kids away from him. Here is the gameplay video:

The rest of his life was spent between court cases and trying to revive his career. But just when it looked like he was reinventing himself, he suffered a heart attack and passed away in a hospital. May his soul RIP and not moonwalk around the graveyard.

(Don’t blame me for such a lame last line, I already justified myself in the first three paras!)

China is making a fool of themselves

I don’t understand China at times. Call it cultural gap/shock whatever you want, but they are just strange, just like Chailey goes aaagh about things here in India I suppose.

First, they decide to beat up/slaughter students in Tiananmen Square about 20 years back and then they try to white wash it by scaring witnesses and suppressing those who chose to speak out. A lot of time has passed since then, the country has gone from being an iron fisted closed one to one of the vibrant and fastest growing economies in the world. Yet they continue their attempt to hush up the past. Why? Can’t they just accept the past and move on into the future?

Apparently media lens is being covered by Chinese police dressed as civilians. You can find more photos of them here. Does China think it can change the way the world perceives them by coming up with something like that? They have only succeeded in intimidating the rest of the world with an act like that. Not that India is not already intimidated by them!

MUST READ: James Fallows’ (The Atlantic) Beijing report

A DNA reporter’s account in China

Journalism colleges to include shoe-throwing in syllabus

Embarrassed by the inability of journalists to hit a non-moving objects — on multiple occasions now — with a shoe, even from close ranges, International Journalists Assosication have decided to include shoe-throwing as part of the syllabus in all journalism courses. They will instruct all universities to make this change considering the crisis journalists around the world are going through.

Jason Pillai, Secretary of the Association blamed the situation on the lack of exciting stuff for media to report about. “At times journos are forced to pull off such stunts, because the world we live in, is not as exciting as it used to be. There is no Hitler, no more World wars, for god’s sake they even killed Saddam Hussain. The Bin Laden tapes don’t get as many TRPs as it used to –- Pakistan being an exception — and bomb blasts have become as common as price-rise in India. No one gives a damn about those things any longer.”

At this point chupchap was forced to remind him that he was going off the mark and that the actual issue was about this journo who missed the mark at such a short distance. Jason Pillai nodded his head and said that the new subject on Shoe-throwing will be 90% practical and 10% based on written exams. “Journalists will receive training by the respective military – from Taliban and freelance suicide members for journos in NWFP Pakistan. By the need of the course, they should be able to hit the ‘target’ from  range of 50 yards.”

In the written exams they will have questions pertaining to the history of such practice and a five page essay of the founder of the trend among others.

He also said that the association will contact Oxford dictionary to change the spelling of shooed away to shoed away considering the relevance of the latter.

PS: Aw crap, looks like someone already thought about the idea before me! Grrr

PPS: Okay yet another person (also working for DNA) wrote on a similar topic! Two DNA employees wrote on the same topic. Hmm… we do some sole-ful journalism you see! =P
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