Don't trust the Indian Media!

Uncle M pulls a fast one

2009-11-10T18:10:00.001+05:30

You have to love Uncle M. Just because he could not convince Google to fork over more bribe money like they did with MySpace, he wants his newspapers to stop being indexed on Google. Now, I don’t quite buy into Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ philosophy. Any organization where people can have the food that Google offers along with unlimited Red Bull has to be doing something evil. I mean, I’m convinced Uncle M is fearful of them as The Emperor was of Luke, only this is a double-headed Luke. OK, this is going nowhere is it?
The problem is that Uncle M is treated as a God by several media moguls in India, even though he cannot understand why FDI isn’t allowed in newspapers. The future of the net and how content will be distributed online is an area where Indian media groups are hopelessly behind the West and they don’t have a frikkin’ clue either. The argument is not a easy one, there is a serious issue of ‘content stealing’ that happens in India. Citizen Journalism, other than the occasional lucky video is nothing more than wild opinions masquerading as journalism, or is that Times NOW? Most ‘Citizen Journalism’ is nothing more than second or third hand reporting. Anyone who followed Twitter during the events of last November in Mumbai would know that.
Listen I am not defending traditional journalism, I still maintain that most journalists in India are either dumb or lazy, sometimes a horrible mix of the two. I can’t honestly say that I do not fit into either category, even though chances are another editor will make a third category for people like me – ‘fat’. Back to the point, there have been far too few discussions on how the internet will change journalism in India. Do I know? Nope, I have no clue, but I can pretty much assure you that journalism will be drastically different even by the time my father retires (if he does), let alone ten years time.
I don’t know if I want to poll blog readers for opinions, because I’m afraid much of it as usual will be vitriol directed towards me. And I will give people more and more reason to hate me even more soon enough. Alongside my image of a seriously mentally disturbed potential psycho-killer, I am quite hatable! As for being a 'jealous hater', yes, I do not like certain people, but 'jealousy' is an attribute that I don't think I have unless it concerns women.
And for the record, why on earth would I want to suck up to (an evidently suit-hating) Suku? And the first comment on the last post mentioned, I genuinely enjoy where I currently work because I get to do things I love doing, I possibly have more fun on the job than any peer of mine. Sure, I’ve never worked for the money, but I can run a blog like this. Why would I want a strait-jacketed job which I would want to leave at the first opportunity I got to leave. I believe the secret to good journalism is a happy journalist. You might or might not agree with me, but I don’t give a flying eff!

Exodus

2009-11-09T16:49:00.001+05:30

Will someone please explain what the heck is going on in The Economic Times? For those of you not aware, in the past two weeks there has been an exodus of sorts from the country’s largest business newspaper. And the exodus is limited to overpaid editors but some of the papers best reporters, who would rather commit what some of us consider career suicide rather than continue in ET. I can see the grin on Sukumar’s face!
By career suicide, I mean FE – I know some of the guys joining FE are loyalists of the new FE Editor MK Venu, but honestly that paper only exists for the tender adverts, it is not bad or anything but ask yourself (if you are not in PR or in the Indian Express group) when was the last time you read FE for a sustained period of time. I just about manage to glance through it in office. That said, I wish the new team in FE all the best towards achieving the ‘high profile’ that Shekhar Gupta wants, but Mint won the ‘profile’ wars long ago. That said, I just wonder how many people are ‘parking’ themselves to break the ridiculous and anti-employee ‘no-poaching’ pact between BCCl and HTMedia.
Some of the seeds of chaos were sown by the concept of an integrated newsroom but differential pay structures for print and TV. My reporter friends in ET have expressed their displeasure with this over and over and they were just waiting for an uptick in hiring to jump ship. But I laughed this away, a couple of people of people here and there, the scale of this desertion is mind-boggling. But then again, I have to admit a couple of Editors I have worked with saw this coming, along with the plunging ratings – which isn’t surprising when they send a vapid but pretty face to interview the CEO of a company that Robert Noyce founded.
Admittedly the business news space is more robust than general news, but the attendant chaos is limited to the second floor of 7, BSZ Marg and not the third floor. Puzzling, or maybe because ToI staffers aren’t jealous of Times NOW staffers as ET staffers seem to be of ET NOW staffers. Maybe people in ToI just take a look at Arnab’s zeal for war with China and/or Pakistan and thank their lucky stars!
Oh yes, and an apology for not writing over the past few days, I’ve acquired a new Editor and he has been flogging this slightly thinner reporter. And I’ve been enjoying myself quite a bit at work.

On another note.

2009-10-29T15:42:00.004+05:30

I just love this line.

At their heart, most pseudonymous identities are collaborations between the author, who provides the outline of a persona, and the audience, which fills in the blanks. The result is a sort of virtual superhero, an oracle more accurate than any mortal could hope to be. Compared to the elusive mastermind of the collective imagination, the real author inevitably disappoints.

From this month’s Wired.

Back to regular programming now. Which over here usually means clearing up masses of spam comments placed by guys who run Search Engine Optimisation firms. Other than that what news? Well, some Undies have been left out to dry as Undie is getting rid of Imagine – which should actually be known as the Sameer Nair family show (with Rakhi Sawant on the side). With Turner exiting Real, effectively the second flop channel after Peter and Indrani Mukerjea’s INX whatever, they’ve decided to get into used Undies. Not that I watch much of what are termed as General Entertainment Channels, though I must admit I did see a bit of Rakhi’s show and I will watch bits and pieces of ‘Who wants to be beaten up by an abusive husband?’ where Rahul Mahajan fritters away whatever little is left of his father’s legacy.
But good for him, everybody has the right to make money. And abuse substances. Even Andre Agassi. Listen the guy did drugs at a low-ebb of his life and I don’t know why the entire contrite moral brigade – hypocrites that they are – are condemning him. I actually found myself agreeing with Rick Reilly’s assessment of Agassi on his blog and I will buy the book. I liked Andre Agassi as a kid, his was a player with heart and not like a robot – both the one Agassi played against and the other one today. The robots are good but dull. And Agassi is the one that married Steffi Graf!
In other news, well it seems that the media’s horrible tradition of personal life destruction continues. And we stick with the same network, I’m not surprised at marriages breaking up and the fascination for older people, but the cast involved sometimes baffles me. To take a guess, there is a reason why some people call the evening prime time talking-head shows on NDTV (other than the 9PM news itself) the ‘boyfriend’ shows. I won’t be a hypocrite and pass comments on the lack of stability in people’s lives, but the sooner that both media bosses and HR inside the companies realize that, particularly their ace reporters/anchors, in both print and television do not have healthy and/or steady personal lives, that is a problem. This is worse than alcohol, well and in many cases it is pretty much responsible for alcohol abuse.
People can call journalists names, accuse us of biases and you know what, we all have biases. I try my utmost to not let my opinion of something affect something I’m working on, but any journalist, even the dumbest ones would be lying if they said that their biases did not impact them. The fact that some of us have been brought up the way we have comes through in the way we write or present. The fact remains that this is a job, and if you are good at what you do, and this is the sad part, you are usually asked to do more than you can handle simply because you are good.
The fact is that most journalists in most organizations would be what club football calls squad players, average for lack of a better word. If you are ‘an International’, and sorry for the football analogies here, you life is destined to be a horrible one. Yes, you will enjoy great professional success, meeting some really important people and your phone-book will bulge, or in some cases your mobile is so full of numbers that it pretty much stops functioning properly. It is a great feeling believe me, but man that completely screws up your sense of priorities and in many cases your life, because above all else it gives you a tremendously inflated opinion of yourself and sometimes you just can’t see clearly of who does matter. This is not about cracking a sale or becoming a General Manager, you really have access to power.
I should know, believe me. Thankfully, most of those closest to me in this profession, other than one notorious hold-out have managed to piece together their lives. Somewhat. But, honestly unless some action is taken, and taken soon things will only get worse. And the action should start from an organisation that needs it more than any other. The one in a disused cinema hall.

2009-10-23T16:16:00.003+05:30

So who would you rather win tonight? The soul cricketers from T&T or the cricket machines from NSW. I’m not biased against the Aussies, I think their ruthless efficiency and Simon Katich’s captaincy has to be learnt from. New South Wales is the winningest domestic team of all time and has always been the heart of Australian cricket. But I really do want Trinidad and Tobago to win. This has possibly been at the same time, the most interesting and most pointless cricket tournament of all time. Then again, it also proved that the IPL is a bit a blunderbuss tournament, and the sight of Lalit Modi waving the Trinidadian flag was quite a bizarre one.
Enough cricket, and for that matter enough sport for now. Some people would gleefully be looking at yesterday’s election results and feeling rather pleased with themselves. Other than ordinary Maharashtrians (and Bhupinder Hooda) I’m sure. The Maharashtrian voter might have rejected the Shiv Sena, but the fact remains that one of the most inept state governments in India outside the Communist ruled states has been re-elected.
Unlike Bengali’s who had a clear death-wish for their state (and still do, by backing the Whacky Mammy!), Maharashtrians I guess had to choose between the Devil and Deep Blue Sea, pardon the cliché. Some voters struck Faustian deals and gave Raj Thackeray quite a few seats, but I sincerely hope that one of India’s great states finally gets good government with good policies. And not suffer five more years of suicides and power-blackouts and what not. I’m not saying that the SS-BJP combine should have come to power in Maharashtra, they had no clear policies in place and did not deserve power. But, Maharashtrians just had to look at the other end of NH-6 to see what years of constant power does! Change if it must happen, has to start now and not a few months before the election and to give credit to Raj Thackeray, he did (aided by the Hindi channels in particular – who demonized him to the extent that he became the victim) build an organization.
OK, another weekend has come about and I’ve had a rather fruitful week I must admit. I’m feeling hungry right now, so I am leaving with a little-wittle link to a rather interesting blog. I have no idea who runs it, too much detail for a journalist, I think it is a money man of some sort. But extremely interesting nonetheless. Do read it.
Or you could read this. Only if you want. Don’t blame me, I warned you.
Have a great weekend.

And today...

2009-10-19T17:11:00.002+05:30

The funny thing was the sniggering I heard from some journalists when they heard about America’s ‘Balloon Boy’ story. How could, they claim, the American media be taken up by something so patently untrue and then harp on it for hours on end? Evidently they don’t either watch or read what passes for news in this country, though that said, India TV and IBN 7 do take some beating for their alien abduction stuff. Thankfully, we were not subjected to too much ‘Balloon Boy’ in India but the hype did ensure that our channels forgot the fact that there is a low-intensity civil war going on in parts of the country. Then again, between the Americans, us and the British, you wonder who is plumbing the depths of trenches the deepest.
This is a country where a large percentage of the population scrapes by at under a dollar a day, but the gossip pages see fit to show pictures of Delhi’s money-swirling card parties – ‘Ohhh! look at my black money’. OK, I won't be too much of a hipocrite, I also played some cards but I lost money. For the cause of entertainment. So there! Before angry commentors pour scorn on my stupidity/hipocrisy/ass-licking whatever. generally, for me personally this was a arather subdued Diwali as my brother wasn't around, being in a phoren-land. And after my adventures with an old girlfriend, whom we shall call Gin and Tonic on Friday, I really couldn't drink that much the rest of the weekend without feeling sick. Or possibly that was from eating the expired foods that get packed up into Diwali gift-packs. Or breathing the fumes from poisonous Chinese firecrackers.
The only thing that was good this weekend was the Trinidad and Tobago T20 team. Man, they rock!

Happy Diwali

2009-10-16T18:52:00.003+05:30

Yes, the festival has become crass, at least in the richer parts of Delhi - a celebration of money and sulphur dioxide, even though I have to admit I do like to blow up a few (just a few) crackers every year, but, say what you will, it one of those things that just so Indian. Like poverty and rampant police brutality. OK, enough of the depressing tone, but if you do make some money while gambling this Diwali, or even if you don't please do give some money or some time to those less fortunate. I've not become a softy, and nor will I advocate social causes like some a businessman who is building the world's most extravagant mansion. I'm just saying Happy Diwali. Enjoy it and keep the inhalers close by!

Down, down, down...

2009-10-15T19:11:00.003+05:30

Well, circulation figures are down and unlike the constantly changing readership numbers, circulation numbers are slightly better audited. But 'slightly better' means what it does, these numbers do not include 'free' copies, but newspaper companies have for a long time managed to pass off free copies as paid copies, usually by discounting them to the extent that they became free. Things like the papers distributed at the airport - something that has ended, at least in Delhi thanks to a combination of high newsprint prices and GMR-DIAL's greed.
That said, the first point is possibly the biggest reason for the large drop in circulation for most papers - notice teh sudden absence of schemes like free shoes or what not along with papers. So the drop in circulation must also have led to a decline in the sale of cheap Reebok shoes - must check on that one. And in a weird sort of way, a decline in circulation is a good thing for everyone - prices of raddi paper completely diverged from each other as more and more newspapers flooded the market. The loss of pages also meant fewer crap stories got printed, not that crap stories have stopped in any which way but they're fewer of them. The downside is that the ads that promise clean male-to-male massages have become more prominent - sometimes I wonder if HT and ToI will survive without those ads? eriously, even the sex sites don't have such brazen adverts. Talk about 'family' newspapers.
Anyway, back to the point, even though things are picking up and there are signs of people movement all over again, I think the high-water mark was reached last year and subsequent floods will never be the same.

Something black in the lentils

2009-10-14T19:07:00.003+05:30

We live in India, every second thing that happens has a degree of shadiness in it. But, this dude takes shadiness to the next level - all we know is that he is a dedicated Congressiya and a chela of Kamal Nath by his own admission and owns unspecified patents and might not even say the truth - his claim of Mongolian companies seems highly shady (Wikipedia is a wonderful thing - click on - ). I'm not going to a journalistic exercise, not even an armchair one, but some of the stuff he says sounds incredulous and a spin on existing technology - next generation networks with internet based access? That sounds like Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to me. Spending Rs 45,000 crore to build a chip fab in Rajasthan, a state apparently with loads and loads of water. Don't you just love it when people expose themselves publicly?
---------------------------------
Since I'm not exactly Mr Human Rights, may I suggest a quick-fire solution to Delhi's driving woes. Humiliate the city's worst drivers. People caught doing the stupidest things - such as driving on the wrong side of the road to save a 100 meter drive, not using indicators, generally driving like a complete moron and all Bajaj Chetak owners should be given a large 20-point sticker that simply says Main Chu*iya Hoon. No need for fines or anything like that. That might not stop blueline and RTV drivers driving like complete dicks but it will be start.
---------------------------------
And while I understand that Sasha Baron Cohen's new movie Bruno is an amazing social satire and makes people face their prejudices, it did mentally scar me. The guy has some balls (literally - no seriously, there is a lot of cock and balls in this movie) but I'm going to have nightmares for a few months and will willingly run into the arms of Mr Wand Mr Chivas, old friends of mine I had forgotten for a while.

You kidding me?

2009-10-12T20:28:00.003+05:30

For f***'s sake there are people dying in Naxal attacks, fighting militants and from sheer poverty and this takes up two columns in the national pages. So I guess the serious stuff goes to 'Crest' and the rest of the paper suffers. I don't know whats worse, silly stories about Twitter in news-magazines and supplements that have suddenly woken up or this. God help us!
So, I watched this to cheer up.

Back to being a Cynical B

2009-10-12T14:59:00.005+05:30

You don’t suppose the Nobel Committee will award the Ambani brothers the Nobel Peace Prize next year, in case they just decide to kiss and make up. Giving blow-jobs to the brothers on the air-waves/in print will become so much easier then. Not that it is particularly difficult right now. Heck, maybe the ‘Holy Calf’ should be given a Nobel Peace Prize for ‘cuddling’, can you possibly find a more peaceful activity than ‘cuddling’? Not that I can think of, even though I would rather cuddle a naked woman. Talking of naked women, I take this website to show evidence either of Darwin’s theory at work or hormones in our food – (it’s got most Playmates of the Month from 1958-2008, so its quite unsafe for work, but… so is listening to Pearl Jam’s Backspacer at volume - even though it is a kick-ass album).
Does anyone else have my peculiar Wikipedia fascination? Not that I'm fascinated by Wikipedia, but where I can spend hours just randomly surfing Wikipedia finding out bizarre things - yesterday I spent hours reading how whales evolved (and related articles, some having nothing to do with anything in general). Don't ask me why or even how I got there. Maybe the copious amounts of Kingfisher Blue I had drunk while Veeru and Dinesh Kartik were batting had something to do with it. But, despite the fact that I support Delhi - no I am not going to fall prey to parochialism and support KR - methinks they're missing AB deVilliers. But it is always good to get in a few games at Feroze Shah Kotla.
-----------------------------------------------------
A couple of answers to the last post, I have no idea where my friends mom is, I don't even know if she is alive. Sure, it won't be that difficult to find out, I'll have reactivate some contacts, maybe even some I would rather not, but it can be done I guess. Dealing with death is never easy, no matter what age you you have to stare it in the face. I guess I had to deal with it so up close and personal when I was young that I lost a bit of my, I won't call it innocence, but, I lost something.
Both those times I never attended the funerals, the first one I attended was a few weeks after I finished my Class XII boards when another school friend died in Uphaar fire. I won't forget the chaos and the horror of a mass funeral. It isn't as if I had not seen death close up otherwise, as a kid on a drive back from Chittorgarh to Udaipur we saw an accident scene, which let me assure you wasn't pretty. But then again, that wasn't someone close to me. Maybe, all these things helped me acquire that crazy detatched demeanour they say journalists need, call it cynical or whatever, it has to come from experience. Which is why I could pull off assignments like this without getting caught up in the human tragedy of it all, and avoid, for better or for worse, bleeding heart syndrome.
Which is why I cannot become a Naxal apologist like Arundhati Roy. That said, seeing how the sugar lobby has bled Maharashtra dry and the immense poverty in some parts of the state. Weirdly enough, in my 16-odd months as a reporter in Bombay I saw more of interior Maharashtra than I should have - and that is where my antipathy towards Indica's comes from. Yes, there is a dichotomy in India (two India's, maybe not), the rich, even some of the apologists have never seen how poor the dispossed actually are and what the problems really are.
But the fact remains, violence doesn't solve anything - as the Communists have shown in West Bengal - the oppressed can become the oppresser within a generation. And one worse than the previous oppressor ever was. There are solutions to these problems - it is not as if the Naxals are 'anti-development' as some insane NGO's would have you believe. I've seen how ham-handed rehabilitation programs for the dispossed have been in Orissa. Heck, a majority of the Naxal's are nothing more than sexually-depraved extortion racketeers! Some more equal than others.
There are no attempts at trust building by successive governments in the state and centre. As well-meaning the 'Holy Calf' really is, and I won't be a cynic and say that he is a hipocritical bastard whose brother-in-law spends tens of thousands on drinks for him at Delhi's better bars. Because that leads to the rhetorical question - how many 'cuddles' could a bottle of Chivas buy?
OK, I take this post as a nother example of my tremendous ability of 'flow of consciousness' writing with no real aim in sight. But it is so much more fun that structured pieces about fat and balding farts! And then again, it is just the start of 'Swag' week. Yay!

Death

2009-10-09T19:26:00.001+05:30

This is a slightly personal post, it might make no sense to anyone, in fact there is only one person I could talk to about this. But writing out things is easier for me at times.
Last night I went to a cocktail reception somewhere in Central Delhi. Not bizarre in itself, other than the fact that I’ve severely cut down my alcohol intake. But big deal, the occasional ‘low-sugar’ Mojito never hurt anyone. Anyway, when I drove down I noticed something peculiar, I knew the lane where the party was happening very well.
A long, long time ago I had a friend who we’ll call A, who used to stay on that lane. Me and another friend of mine, we’ll re-introduce Doc here, used to go over to A’s house quite often. To do what kids did back then. Play video games – Double Dragon, Super Mario; watch cartoons on VHS – classic Transformers and Thundercats is what I can remember right now. Actually quite too many cartoons. These in the days before mobile phones which used to make my paranoid mother even more paranoid than usual when I didn’t land up home with the school bus.
Long story short, during the Class VIII summer holidays when I was summarily packed off to Calcutta to twiddle my thumbs and experiment with cigarettes, A died. I didn’t even know until I came back and called Doc. When A’s mom, who was an extremely sweet lady came to school on the first day, I remember crying and running away and then I never bothered to keep in touch. I don’t know why. I guess I tried to rationalize it – I was 13 at the time. I had barely experienced death, let alone death of someone close to you, someone your age and not some fogey.
Death is a funny thing at any age but when you face the concept in your face when you’re thirteen it does change your thinking in a way I guess. I never thought about it until someone accused me of having a casual attitude towards death. Firstly, I could not get what having a ‘serious’ attitude to death is, but I am horribly bad at comforting people. Because, while A died in the summer holidays, four months later just before the last exam of the second-term exams, Maths I think it was, the class heard that we had lost N, another classmate. Two deaths of guys who sat close to you when you’re 13 or 14? That screws your mind up rather bad.
It also taught me a couple of lessons, the first is to respect electricity and the second was never to want to kill myself. I’ve done plenty of stupid things, and inadvertently tried to kill myself more than once, coming very close to doing so in a car. But, inadvertently mind you. No matter how high I’ve been, or how sad, and believe me I’ve felt horribly sorry for myself every so often, I’ve never tried to slash my wrists or fill myself with Phenyl. If anything, as much as I have screwed up my life, at a level I have to live a full life, to the best of my ability because someone else could not.
And I have to go meet A’s mother sometime. I don’t know what I’ll do or say, but I can’t keep running away for ever. Even from something you would rather forget. Heck, I tell people all the time to suck it on and deal with it. Maybe I should do that too.

You know...

2009-10-09T16:18:00.005+05:30

I'm not so sure this is a collective, 'What were you thinking?' moment but a 'What were you smoking?' moment. I mean seriously? The Big O? The Nobel Peace Prize? I mean, I can say this funnily, but by that twisted logic, the 'Holy Calf' has more rights on an award that they never gave the world's most famous pacifist. A man, whose visage featured on lots of pieces of paper I lost night. Maybe they just wanted to resurrect the prise after they awarded it to a guy who made a great powerpoint and some other bearded guy. But anyway, who are we to question the Nobel Prize Committee. I mean, I'm a guy who bleeds cash while playing cards. Oh well...

I've been working on some pretty interesting stuff and the last few days I've been forced to do a lot of number crunching - probably explains why my card game has gone down the tube, my brain is math-ed out. Playing with numbers always opens your mind to some really interesting facts and figures. You know, sometimes you miss out on that when you start paying too much attention to the gory details of media and political gossip, such as 'Whose Gay?' (the gossip, if it were to be made public might surprise some of you).

In other news, EchTee has something called a 'Leadership Summit'. And this year they've decided to bring over the Dumb and Dumber act - George W.Bush (who will speak about non-alcoholic beer) and Nawaz Sharif (who will speak on why Mush and Zardari are evil). And you thought bringing Mush was bad, this is going to be a security disaster. It is bad enough that the capital is swarming with Naxal apoplogists (you can read all about it in the Naxal's paper - 'Jihad and Maoism Today'), but this might bring out the mad-fringe-leftie firepower. Just thinking.

Hoping to play a bit of cards in the next couple of days as I thrown myself wontonly into the hands of money-fuelled excess. I need a drink. But first, I'm hungry.

Hmmm...

2009-10-08T18:23:00.002+05:30

Minister L'Twitter condemned the attacks on Kabul today. But what else could you expect from the Taliban? Then again, a few weeks ago, L'Twitter's boss said that urged a 'settlement' with the 'good' Taliban. Sigh!
PS: Is it legal to want to kill someone because their ring-tone bugs you? Just asking. should go home and frag some aliens on the console, I'm building up dangerous levels of mad rage. And now I should get back to work.

News!

2009-10-07T16:18:00.007+05:30

A desi-born Tam Bram, educated in the good state of Gujarat is one of the winners of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (The Nobel Committee couldn't find his picture????). In the next few days, the media will claim him as our own, possibly the higher-caste hating politicians in TN will swallow pride and also claim him as their own. And in the process we'll forget about Pakistan and China (the only two countries Anchor Man is interested in declaring war on), the Maoists, the Champions Trophy and maybe even the awesome fraternal battle. Even though I doubt we will ever forget the last.
I guess we in the media feel a misplaced sense of patriotism and nationalism when it comes to anything 'Indian' or someone with even an iota of 'Indian-ness' (as long as they're not white, if you believe the desi media, all white people want to do, especially in Australia, is to beat Indians up*), it sometimes feels like "OMG, OMG, OMG" reporting. I'm not saying don't and the last thing I am is a hater, I just fail to make sense of of the brouhaha that follows. More so, because most of the people perpetuating the brouhaha seem to think exactly like me and wear their national pride on their sleeve, but exactly thump their breasts about it. But then again, sometimes I wonder if journalists really think while they're on the job...
In another piece of news, and this was just waiting to happen, the quaitting part at least. ST has quit Soiled Undie Profit and joined SR. I don't get the logic of the what and why, but this has happened. And another popular one doing the rounds nowadays is that Undie spoke to a couple of guys who sold an illusion to some Japanese company (the story is actually horribly old but has been recently discovered by some bloggers). That is old news, because as some of us know (yes, yes, I don't write everything nowadays I'm too lazy and this isn't really 'profitable' y'know) there was some issues regarding valuations. Now the guys who were being spoken to understood that the valuation demanded was an illusory one, since they're masters of the game, laughed at the demands and left. Not that the company isn't for sale (or so we har), but honestly, it would be cheaper to start a new TV channel nowadays instead of inheriting a crazy high-cost structure.
PS: In case you goils were wondering why you should not marry a Bong guy. Wonder no more, a bit boring in parts, but none the less.
PPS: This has to be best photograph I have ever seen. Well, OK I'm exaggerating, but anyhoo...
*Unless your name happens to be Brett Lee when all you want to do is act in Bollywood movies

Accha...

2009-10-06T18:34:00.002+05:30

Work never ebbs and flows, it comes in deluges and drowns you or you get singed by the drought. The former is usually when your boss loves you and the latter is usually due to a lack of love, or because you are a blithering idiot. Sometimes I think I fall into the latter part of the latter category, but then again sometimes I wonder if the Polar ice-caps have already melted and India is inundated with Bangladeshis and me by work.
We all know how ‘internet’ friendly our government has been of late, you know thanks to Minister de l’Twitter and all. But then you come across this flaming piece of internet junk. And realize to your horror that you’re not on the Wayback Machine. Sometimes I wonder if 'e-governance' has become just another buzzword that management consultants have taught our bereaucrats and politicians. talking about politicians, I vote to start a movement against 'vulgar bribes' and let us start with Desh Ka Jamaai. And then bureaucrats too, and even soft bribes like paying for the rent for a house in Mumbai. Stuff like that.
Anyway have a ton of stuff to work on, but in case you didn't know there are major changes afoot at Undie Profit, which hopefully will mean that they might actually start to reduce their 'paid content' percentage to under two-thirds. Or maybe not. Or they'll get Rakhi Sawant as their new lead anchor. Maybe that will lead to an asset bubble? Who knows, anything (even babies, and Undie TV knows a few things about sourcing babies) that would help Undie Profit will work. But in a weird sort of way, I'm glad they removed the cause of the rot, and it wasn't a guy.

Monday Morning Madness

2009-10-05T13:52:00.005+05:30

In times of doom and gloom, with newsprint prices headed north again but things looking slightly better on the lay-off front, there should be innovation in print advertising. However most innovation has been for publications to bend over and let advertisers hump their backsides. Alright, even that is, to an extent acceptable, after all, prostituting your bum when you have so many over-paid lazy children to feed might even pass the ‘moral decency’ test as thought up by Messrs Thackerey, Son & Nephew (even though the store front has split into two entrances now). But what really pisses me off are jacket adverts.
You know what I’m talking about, not the full front-page ads that like today in some papers, Yahoo India has taken out – note to yahoo India – If you are going to spend a bomb, spend money on a coked-out bimbette at least. I know ‘You’ means ordinariness, but I don’t wish to be reminded of that first thing in the morning. A half-dressed girl on the other hand, would have really brightened up a Monday morning.
OK, as usual, I digress, my issue is with those painful quarter page adverts. Not to say the full-page ones are by any means acceptable, and for this I will always hate Indya.com (they were the first to make ToI sell out the front page, and before you knew it every second day HT carried a picture of a beaming Ponytail and family) but at least with a full page advert you can hold the paper the way it is meant to be held. With the quarter-page ‘jacket’ advert, you can’t hold jackshit, the paper literally falls apart. You know what I’m talking about. A ‘jacket’ advert is like agreeing to have scat sex.
Seriously. And if you don’t know what scat sex is, please don’t look it up on Google Image Search (with SafeSearch Off) at work (no I won't link it), because as liberal as your office might be to you viewing porn at work, this won’t please anyone. Nor will seeing the fat aunties on India’s top ‘user-generated’ sex video site (no, I won't link to this either), I feel like puking when ‘hot chachis’ like that invade a computer screen (though, the site shows that UGC does work on the Indian web). The popularity of mobile phone video cameras is leading to insanity in Indian bedroom. Bad porn, that is my other problem with the world this Monday morning.
I think I should really see a shrink.
PS: I personally did not exactly fall in love with the first issue of ToI Crest (they have a epaper but not a separate website as yet), but the second issue was a marked improvement (more timely story I guess). My only problem is that the amount of time I have every weekend is finite, and there is far too much to read. I do believe that Crest is going to hammer sales of weekly newsmagazines that have over the years lost the plot (annual sex surveys usually filled with fiction, like that one that claimed that 1 in 3 men ‘did not mastrubate’). It seems that Crest has a pretty high print order right now (estimated at close to 3 lakhs) in only Delhi and Bombay (sorry, Mr.T, Mumbai), and with editions launching in Pune and Bangalore before the end of October, the newsmagazines should be really worried because if this weeks covers are any indication, ToI Crest has already won the battle. That is not to say that ToI Crest might not go wayward very soon.

Shubho Bijoya

2009-09-30T13:58:00.001+05:30

Well, it was that time of year all over again, when the unwashed masses or rather masses who don’t understand what a deodorant is, despite the television telling them that applying said deo, usually with an extremely silly name will get them laid, came near my house. And have now left, for which I am eternally grateful – Shubho Bijoya to me means the end of the crowds – which is why it is a good day. The masses generally honked their horns a lot, groped the occasional other person (this, as someone tried to explain to me isn’t sexual it just is well, Indian, because we like ‘feeling’ other people. Really now?) and picked the odd wallet. The Puja being a curious side-show run by middle-aged Bengali women who don’t work giving them their one chance in a year to act important.
It isn’t as if I’m not religious, but the rampant commercialization of the Puja – four pandals I saw were lead sponsored by – a betting company (bwin, the guys who sponsor Real Madrid); Coca-Cola; some random deodorant company with a skimpily clad woman on the poster (we are worshipping ‘Ma’ here, remember) and some other random mutual-fund company, maybe the guys who call me up five times a day trying to sell me a plan.
Surprising isn’t it, but at a level we actually celebrate misogyny in this country or at least under the ‘modern’ anti-imperialistic religion that we follow, which kind of dilutes the ‘maryada’ and ‘sabhyata’ arguments that are thrown at you by whackos sometimes. Of course, you can argue that I belong to whacko school as well, but the guys who belong to whacko school really are people who put stupid ring-tones and worse call-back tones. And of course people who defend a child-rapist on the grounds that he makes good movies.
Surprising isn’t it? The Americans all said and done, pursue a rapist for over thirty years and then spring a trap on him that has given many people across the world a massive moral dilemma. And we desperately try to bury a case so that a large pasta dinner can be enjoyed at 10 Janpath. Makes you wonder if Mayawati really does have a decent point. Even though, a college friend from Lucknow argues that the massive parks are great places to go for walks and get stoned every evening. I really didn’t know that UP politicians were chasing the stoner vote-bank. It is a bad idea to rely on stoners for votes, as successive college elections prove. The guys like sleeping. And I should know.
Anyway, the reason for my tardiness lately has been a Gym, I’m too tired to frikking think. Well, not quite, but I’ve been watching a bit of cricket on the side and really haven’t had the time. No wait, actually I’m just making excuses, I’ve been lazy. Period. That, and some other stuff.

Random Mutterings

2009-09-24T18:00:00.002+05:30

I will begin this episode of K’s psychotic, or otherwise, rants by cribbing about my favourite topic, Press Releases. It doesn’t take much to add a link to a download location, but some folks think that a friendly five-meg attachment of a paunchy fat-ass will get printed. Never mind the picture belongs in a gallery of ‘How not to take a picture!’, one picture I got recently didn’t even have the red-eye corrected. A crap mobile phone camera can do that much onboard, let alone on a computer. I had to spend half of Monday clearing out emails, sure I’m to blame for some of them, but I have never covered kitchen and kitchen accessories in my life. So why send me an email? I’m just too nice to start dramatically blackballing domains, but yaar, akal lagaya karo.
The other thing that is a bit irritating are detailed pitches which are so crappy it isn’t funny. But what gets my goat is the latest habit in some agencies to highlight that the person they’re talking about is a ‘single mom’. How does that make a difference? I sure don’t remember my mother advertising the fact. Sure, it might be plausible in a women’s magazine but where I work? Christ, at least change the pitch between journalists. What someone is makes no difference to me straight up, it can make for great anecdotal pieces – or the lead feature in Mint Lounge – give me the basics first.
That said, I wonder how well we give the basics too. Like this entire ‘DLC’ brouhaha with Bharti and MTN, I was out of the news loop for over a week and while I did manage to go back and reference stories to figure out what on earth was being written about, I should not need to. Sigh! I’ve just had a long day under the sun running from meeting to meeting, so grant me the rant.
Oh yeah, and the latest one I got says ‘We have a Twitter account please follow us’! Until your company makes references to ‘Holy Cows and Calves’ I refuse to follow you, but that’s just me. An irritable journalist who is about to turn a year older and is dreading the influx of people to go see ‘Ma’. Nothing against Durga Puja, believe me I love it, but I refuse to stand in queue with the great un-deodorised masses. I’m not being a snob, I go see the Puja’s in the morning, in the evenings, if you live in Delhi stay, far, far away from CR Park and GK-2. If you value your nose, wallet and general well-being.
Oh yeah, and if you thought that Minister de l'twit was bad, his Boss is crazier! Let's all deal with the Taliban, so the next time the Congress says IC-814...

L’affaire de la Minister l’twit-twat!

2009-09-23T16:14:00.001+05:30

You know something, this might not have been a big deal, had JJ kept his gob (or fingers) shut. PR is one thing, having a hissy fit over someone who is far higher up in the hierarchy than your boss reeks of stupidity. But those of us who are blessed to have known Jacob from college should not pretend to have been surprised. When a powder-keg of stupidity with a short fuse is lit, it will go up and the collateral damage will fill the pages and the airwaves with even more stupidity. It just shows the importantance of a term a friend once told me – ‘Minion Management’. If you cannot manage your Minions you will meet the same fate as Saruman. No wait…

If you are saddened by the loss of Sanctimonous self-important posts by Indians on twitter, don’t despair, Emotion-Girl tweets too! In fact, Undie-TV is tweeting itself to glory in their new let us engage with everyone philosophy and I must admit for a channel that (through Emotion-Girl) that once wanted blogs to be banned/censored (particularly blogs that said nasty things about Emotion-Girl, after all she is a war hero, didn’t you know?) this is quite a volte-face.

On another note, it looks like Anchor-Man might have got his war after all. Not the one against Pakistan, which would have meant mutually assured nuclear death, or a one with China which would have likely meant us being walloped. But now we’re fighting the enemy within, something that is not half as exciting (probably because it is more important) than a full-fledged war. And did anyone understand this wonderful line in HT today from the Indian cricket team’s new doctrine…

“If you want sex but do not have someone to share it with, one option is to go solo whilst imagining you have a partner…”

WTF???

I mean really WTF??? Do they mean to imply that our cricketers should masturbate? When Bollywood is full of overweight and over made-up starlets dying to sleep with them. No wait, all those are on location with Akshay Kumar. Back to the point, and these were actually the first words I happened to read today morning – a treatise on masturbation. Gary Kirsten’s insidious plan to weaken the Indian team is now know (the next thing he’ll suggest circle jerks). Sorry for being so gross, but these were actually the first words I read in the morning when I woke up bleary eyed a few minutes after the stock exchanges had opened.
But seriously ‘Men In Blue’, I do have I do have a lot of Sasha Grey and Maria Ozawa videos (in high-def no less), so if you need any videos I would happily provide you some. After all, we all are mates and what is a few porno videos between mates, eh?

I was so traumatized that I even attended a Presser today after months just to see Ford India name their new small car (though it felt like the size of a Hyundai i20) the Ford ‘Traitor’ – well, it is called the ‘Figo’; but can you expect any self-respecting fan of FC Barcelona to ever buy a car with such a name. It will probably be expensive too as well as being temperamental.
And by the way, I’m back!

Only in India

2009-09-22T14:19:00.002+05:30

Only in India can we come with a show that is for intents and purposes called “Who Wants to marry a Wife-beater (and a dumb coke-head who gives coke-heads a bad name)” Of course, there is also the mystery of ‘Who paid the Hotel Bill’ which has had unintended casualties. The last I heard Nandan was airlifting laundry back to Bangalore to get it washed (rather than at Karnataka Bhavan); even though of all the guilty ‘hotel parties’, Nandan should be able to afford his own bills, even those from Wasabi.
Now, this brings us to the peculiar tale, or non-tale of the ‘wounded soldier’, which though carried in at least three papers has made one the target of a miffed government. But the target may actually not be the paper, but more perversely Anchor-Man; who if he could would have declared war on at least 35 UN States by now. Maybe, they, like most sane (and by now even the slightly insane) people on this planet want him to shut-up. The problem is that Anchor-Man and his arch-nemesis Emotion-Girl cannot shut up, if fact they find new ways of trying to give synaptic shock. Leading me to wonder if televised news in India lives in a Bizarro world.
The one good thing about television outside India, is the quality of coverage. Not that I watched a lot of it, TV in Germany is horribly boring and I refuse to pay for the Hotel porno channel, who pays for porno? But I did watch some sports, F1 coverage on the BBC is just mind-bogglingly superior to the crap Star Sports dishes out (when Karun Chandok isn’t around) – even Eddie Jordan knows more than Steve Slater. And the post coverage, man, that made me cry almost. I was watching the Champions League on French TV – sure I didn’t understand a word of what Desailly was saying but the graphics and analysis didn’t need much translation.
And here we get to see a clown who doesn’t know his drugs. Thankfully, Minister Twat has been told off big time. And read this if you have some time.

The K's new Sighs...

2009-09-21T16:39:00.001+05:30

Minister Twat shoots off his Blackberry thumb and hell breaks loose, far too many reams of newsprint get expended on this while stories that came from mysterious sources that are not surprisingly ‘anonymous’ make it to the front pages as well without much discussion. Anyway, I’ve not been around and there really hasn’t been much going on other than the fact that 40 years after people started throwing stones at Indian Railway AC coaches, it is only when someone threw a stone at a Shatabdi coach with the ‘holy calf’ (Swapan’s term, not mine) that the Indian Railways swung into action.
Anyhoo.
Don’t feel like I missed much out here. And I had a great time in Paris, saw the Louvre and Orsay museums and my feet are still hurting after all that walking. No seriously, you do end up walking a lot in Paris. The Whiskey in Scotland was good too and the countryside is beautiful when you drive through it, even though I wished I was driving a nice two-seat roadster or even a four-seat convertible instead of the giant MPV we had rented. It really is another country compared to south of the border.
I’ve been travelling for a while and it was kinda weird to see that India barely makes the news outside. Other than the continuing disaster that is the preparation for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Oh well, given the shrill tone that accompanied Anchor-man when I turned on the telly (Yes, I just had to tune to Times Now first) it was as if nothing had changed. Yes, there are signs of the economy turning even though I doubt that will mean that we get ‘delayed’ increments this year, even though I am sure that 2010 will bring with it the return of misplaced optimism.
But for the time being, let us get back up to speed. And enjoy the adventures of twats et al.

More Sorries!

2009-09-07T14:37:00.002+05:30

If you have ever had a significant other, the term 'sorry' becomes a permanent part of your vocubulary. However, I have been travelling out, first on an office trip and now on vacation since I don't wish to donate my LTA into the government's coffers. Having faced the might of India's bureaucratic engine today morning when I went to get an International Driving Permit - if you want a taste of purgatory I would suggest a visit to the zonal transport department office in Sheikh Sarai. But enough whining, I have a bunch of things to finish writing and photos to file before I head off again, this time to the Scottish Highlands. I'll try and update whenever possible.
It has been good to be forcefully weaned off desi news, I got regular YSR updates on Twitter - what was really weird was how the obits started coming before people knew the chopper had crashed. That said, the entire episode makes you wonder how many more 'Heart of Darkness' areas we still have in India? Anyway, till later...

Frankenstein’s Monster

2009-08-31T13:16:00.000+05:30

What amazes me is that people still get all dewy eyed and soft when it comes to launching a magazine. I’ve spoken to three friends in the past three weeks who are ‘launching’ magazines and who have tried to either hire me at half my current salary, because ‘I’m Good’ or getting me to write for them pro bono. I had to politely explain to them that they’re not only kooks to believe that they can afford me, but I genuinely like ‘being in the machine’, because it helps with content creation because it gets me access. Anyway, enough about me and my complete lack of philanthropy and adventure, because I still genuinely feel that a printed product without a distribution strategy in place, no matter how ‘niche’ (read: elite) the audience, is one bound to fail. ‘Elite’ twats don’t pay for anything, you just have to start mailing them the magazine and then go to advertisers and say “this is our mailing list, can we now become your catalogue?”
I’m sorry in I sound cynical, but the machine is a highly evolved life-form and thee amniotic goo it surrounds you in feels really nice and warm. Just as long as you know you’re in goo. I’m sorry, it has been ten years since The Matrix, which I saw an advance screening of with my best friend Doc at the Russian Cultural Centre and still remember that both of us barely made a peep during the movie. Here is the thing, there are more and more magazines out there and many of them fill needs – such as porno magazines – believe me, despite the advent of online porn and dedicated torrent sites where you can download all of Sasha Grey’s movies there is a particular joy you have when you see titties in print. A joy that future generations of horny 15-year old boys will never know!
Magazines are great and the racks at Khan Market with thousands of titles show that there is hope, but I don’t know for how much longer for a bulk of the products. Trade magazines won’t go away anytime soon, and PR agencies will tell you that clients still have a bout of auto-eroticism when they see their thumbnail in a business magazine, a cover… well you don’t want o know. But that said, there are far too magazines that come and drop out too quickly and worse still several of the smaller magazines read like the Internet paraphrased, with only the occasional guy who understands a modicum of English. Most content is crap, with little genuine research or writing.
Personally, I don’t know how much longer the format will survive in its current form. As I said, porn has moved primarily online and so will the magazine, perhaps they will survive till the advent of colour e-book readers . But believe me; I’ll miss them when they’re gone. But despite the misplaced optimism of my friends, it is great that people still believe in the format. I just hope that the quality of magazines coming out was better. Just look at GQ India, a genuinely disappointing product, there is the occasional sign of sheer brilliance (and excellent photo-shoots) admittedly – but then again compared to the high-standards of GQ UK, you kind of expected this.
On another note, I’ve been accused of baiting Business Standard. Honestly, I’m not a fan of the product anymore (other than ‘Chinese Whispers’). It was and remains a decent product, but over the past few years, you can sense it isn’t the same. It was a great foil to ET, and had far superior policy coverage. But you need money to survive, and well, I don’t think Uday Kotak (guess who wrote about him recently) is putting any into BS, and I don’t think anyone is buying. Fact of life, deal with it. Money and funds are important for survival as is brand-building, no matter how passionate readers are, a brand on the down slope, need money to survive. Particularly, when the brands at the top of the game are losing money.
Hopefully, Baru might take it somewhere new. I don’t know. But honestly, it is losing the ‘top of mind’ battle. As I’ve said before, to each their own, we have a fantastic choice of newspapers, magazines and television channels, and you are free to consume what you want. Some you might feel are worse than others and some are genuinely bad – many of the Indic channels for example – I watched how they explained the ‘Loch Ness’ monster the other day – bizarre.
Anyway, over the next few weeks I will be travelling a fair bit, so I become irregular all over again, don’t start sending ‘hate mail’. Take care and be careful of what you read on the interwebs!

Sources, schources... hic!

2009-08-21T21:16:00.001+05:30

I don’t mean the people to whom you might end up going to shady bars (Press Club or IHC) who end up giving you absolutely pointless and often libelous information. No, I mean the ‘Anonymous’ source or the guy ‘who wished not to be named’ or worse still, ‘the one who cannot be named’. You see, after seeing headlines saying ‘Hindustan Khabardaar’ on Aaj Tak warning about the evil of American Global Hawk and Predator UAV’s now being bought by Pakistan along with the associated illiterate hype, the point is I think we live in a magical Harry Potter world and the reason that sources can’t be named even for the most innocuous story is because the source is either Voldemort or worse still, third-hand.
You know what I mean. Your editor lunched with someone at the Chambers and then tells you a story and tells you to do it. The news is credible and very likely true but you go on your editors word and its your byline. Everybody wins. But just reading some papers, the amount of people who are taking the ‘unnamed’ source escape route is getting crazy. I can’t act holier than thou here, I’ve also been guilty of this, but recently, actually for a few years, to save myself useless questioning later I’ve been informing a senior editor of who the source was if I resort to using the ‘anonymous’ tag. It is a lot safer to editorialize and express an opinion as your own than to constantly attribute to mysterious sources unless it is something policy related. Or when you start discussing the Ambani brothers… In which case just stepping back is a hell of a lot safer then getting dragged to lunches with ‘good friends’. Either that, or doing an analytical study of government and legal documents. Now these can be ‘sourced’ through ‘anonymous people’ but they’re printed documents so they’re a lot safer than ‘sources’.
Anyway, before I bind my argument in several layers of knots like my iPod headphones – what I want to argue is that occasionally ‘sources’ have to be used – most bureaucrats in the central government who are not Secretary-level don’t want to get into a soup and therefore don’t get quoted. And as for the Ambani brothers, nobody wants to get on their bad side. Fair enough. But then at least give me an idea of the source. If it is a corporate story did you get it from the PR flack (company spokesperson). The main reason I’m whining is because sometimes stories include far too many ‘anonymous sources’ and then trying to identify who is saying what becomes impossible for the writer, let alone the reader.
I know. I’ve been there. Just chill on the ‘sources’ credit will everyone? It will help with the credibility of what is being written and my bowel movements!
And if you haven’t read The Secret Diary of Ajit Balakrishnan as yet, you must! It reminds me of the early day’s of the Rakesh Jhunjhunwala spoof blog!

Chinese Honeytrap

2009-08-20T15:13:00.003+05:30

Not something you will ever hear of in this paper, not from October any which way, or so the grapevine goes (not anything as much fun as the highest profile alleged honeytrap in the recent past). The number of conspiracy theories you hear on the phone nowadays with the 'Number 10' stamp on them is positively befuddling. It would seem that there is a full 'plotting' cell over there geared to engineer what can only be called 'Jinnah' moments.
Anyway, there was an interesting exchange on Twitter yesterday. Minister Twit says something, one of the few relatively politically neutral high-profile journos points out the ridiculousness of Minister Twit. Who then says that he is a critic of JLN. The joys of social media! Honestly, not everyone will ever get even a 100 followers on Twitter, let alone a thousand, but you shoul go onto Twitter for amusement. Personally, Twitter is a fantastic content-discovery and disemination tool for me. But that is me, someone who is far too social for his own good.