Thought for today

One day at someone's office.

Me: Do you enjoy what you are doing here?
Her: NO.
Me: But err...you spend so much time doing it.
Her: Yes I do but this is not what I want to do at all. This does not excite me.
Me: Are you at least learning something useful out of this?
Her: NO. For what I put in I don't get enough.
Me: Pardon me asking but is it the money that keeps you here?
Her: Money? I haven't cashed in my last month's salary!

Me thinks: You spend so much time and effort doing what you don't like. Something that doesn't even give you anything worthwhile, not even money. Then why are you here?

As though she heard it - She: I will hopefully get out of this soon.

Me thinks: People spend so much time, effort and emotions in doing something that they don't like and do a good job of it. Imagine what a fantastic job we would do if we actually did what we want to do.

What happened?

This morning I was channel surfing and I saw John Abraham (shirtless ofcourse) crying his heart out and I was shocked; not because he was shirtless or that he was crying but because it was on Asianet, a Malayalam channel! I don't understand this phenomenon at all. Every time I have crossed the malayalam channels I have seen/heard Hindi or Tamil Songs (when soaps are taking a break that is). Last week I even heard someone sing a Telugu song. I don't know how Mals feel about this but I do wonder why? Can some one explain this to me? Also increasingly the Mal films look and feel like Tamil films (No offence to Tamil Cinema here). What happened to those wonderfully artistic and realistic films that I saw on DD on Sunday afternoons? I don't understand much of the dialogues (esp comedy) but the stories were real with real people in the movies.

I was most horrified when on a trip to Kerala I was subjected to three hours of the movie War and Love. Seriously no one in the right mind would think of an outrageous script like that! And unless you want to kill yourself don't attempt watching that movie. Not even Vodka and Rum can make you enjoy this movie.

Even as I am typing this, SPB is singing Tere mere beech mein on the very same channel.

the man who makes me cry...

I don't remember how I got introduced to him. It could be that I loved his jhuki jhukisi nazar from arth and did some research to find that he could blow mind away. Or that song tumko dekha tho yeh khayaal aaya (I forget the movie name shux) was so soul stirring that I was hooked to his voice, Jagjit Singh's voice (BTW that song was written by Javed Akhtar, WOW).

I get so distracted that I can't talk about one subject without bringing in ten other topics. PHEW

Coming back to JJ. First thing I did when I started getting big fat salary (I won't tell how much because that's an embarrassment compared to what a 20 year old earns now) was to buy his cassettes, no CDs plain old Audio cassettes and play it on my brand new videocon two-in-one. I could listen for dayyyyyyyyyyyyys non-stop. I still do.

I do not know enough adjectives to describe the quality of his voice and what it does to those words. Every singer worth his name has sung the hazaaron khwahishen aisi written by Mirza Ghalib but JJ renders it sooooo beautifully that tears just won't stop. Over the years I have bought every single cassette I could lay my hands on and heard everyone of them a zillion times (yeah yeah I drove my mother crazy with it but she was glad at least I wasn't mad about rock).

My all time favourite, the one song I can listen to all day and get emotional about, every single time is Woh Kaagaz ki kashti woh baarish ka paani. You hear it from him once, and anyone else who attempts to sing it will only be booed, however good he or she is.

Why all this peetike...well that is because I heard him live in Bangalore last Saturday! I was so thrilled to be listening to him live that I had goosebumps for the first one hour and tears of joy for the next. He is simply out of the world. He creates such a wonderful chemistry with the audience, we went mad (all excpet the ones busy with their cell phones!). He has come to Bangalore, I think three times before and I missed the concert every single time. Once I got to know about it too late. Second time I couldn't afford the tickets and third time I was not in town. But it was worth the wait.

At the concert I knew 90% of the ghazals he sang (a far cry from the carnatic concerts I've been to where I feel like an idiot while the rest of the audience lets out collective wah wah for they know the song/s). V also had a blast (nothing like me because his level excitement would be "yeah it was good" compared to the 600 word ramble of mine)

I have to thank three people here. 1) Worldspace radio for letting me know about the concert 2) Sav for getting me the tickets 3) that anonymous gal who couldn't make it to the concert despite having two tickets - you have granted one of my dying wishes (no I am not dying now but you get the drift right)

Ah what an evening it was......................

I am writing about it full four days after because if I had attempted this then all I would've managed to write "Ooohlala", "beautiful", "my god" and sobbed all over the post :-)

No regrets

People keep asking me why I am not getting back to TV journalism. How can you give up such an exciting and glamorous job is a question I answer atleast twice a week. I usually tell them things like - I can't handle the work pressure or my family time is more important. But those are only peripheral reasons. The real reason was that I was disillusioned.

I was dissappointed that news was not just uncovering stories...it was creating sensation with that "truth". I was dissappointed that people in Delhi couldn't distinguish between Karnataka and AP. I was once asked to go to Sriharikota to get a single byte from a Scientist because the producer in Delhi thought it was in Karnataka (it is in AP) and didn't think that there was any credible space scientist in Bangalore! I was shocked by the utter ghoulish rivalry between journalists of different channels. I was dismayed at the blatantness with which colleagues stole bylines from each other. That wasn't the place for forming friendships I was told. (honestly I don't want such friends). I was let down by the statement "you have to be dramatic to grab attention" And the producer didn't mean dramatic words he meant dramatic action in front of the camera (in case your wondering, I had to be dramatic). I tried that but then if I wanted to be dramatic won't I be in an (K)Ekta Kapoor serial than at a 24 hour news channel? They sure pay better (Even a not so big actor gets as much as 3k per episode and with soaps running for 700-800 episodes imagine the money one could make there)

To top it all if you don't want to live in Delhi or Mumbai you can't really break into the "league" (there are exceptions to this of course but who said anything me being exceptional?)

A friend of mine who worked in the TV medium for longer than me recently quit saying "TV is such a dog eat dog world that unless you are ready do that you shouldn't be in there"

Yeah I sure miss the magic of visual medium because print is not as exciting (no offence here just my opinion) .

The Hoot has an opinion piece on 24 hour news channels. After reading that I surely don't regret my decision.

An open letter to all mothers

...who have sons or will have sons.

My dear,

I am writing this on behalf of all the women from my generation who for the rest of their lives have to live with the precious sons you have produced and brought up. We have taken these men as our brothers, friends, and as husbands. And I can I assure it is not easy on us; that is why I am writing to you because we have realised that you alone can help the next generation of women.

1) Do tell your son that he is precious and special but not so often that he expects his sister, girlfriend or wife to treat him like a demi-god if not god himself.

2) Do take him to the kitchen and show him around as often as you would to your daughter. So that his girlfriend or wife doesn't have to introduce him to chopping board and sowtu when he is 25.

3) Do teach him about keeping a house - dust it, clean it and keep things in order. So that later when his girlfriend or wife tells him these things need to be done, he is not shocked because he always thought no one actually did any of this, but was somehow done, as if my magic.

4) Do tell him that you actually get up before him and make his morning coffee out of love (and that you can sometimes not to do it even if you love him) and not because it is a woman's duty.

5) Every once in a while do tell him you don't feel like steaming over the stove and make endless chapathis for him and that he has to make do with a quick rasam or mosaranna just this once.

6) Do tell him that when all of you go out for a fun day at a mall and come back home you are as tired as him and so you cannot magically recover in a matter minutes and make coffee and snacks or dinner for the family. You need to rest as well, just as he wants put up his legs and talk about all the fun things he saw that day.

7) Do let him carry grocery bags as often so that he doesn't start to believe that when he goes grocery shopping he doesn't have to volunteer to carry bags till he sees the woman with him is about to collapse under its weight.

8) Do talk to him about your problems and worries. So that later when his girlfriend or wife wants to talk to him, he doesn't wonder "doesn't she have girlfriends to talk about "girlie" things?" Sure testosterone will come in the way of his understanding once in a while but atleast the other women are spared the effort of telling him it is "not abnormal"

9) Do tell him about labour pain you had to endure for him and the cramps you get during PMS. So that he knows having babies is not easy on women and that the woman he is in love with doesn't go crazy every fullmoon / newmmon but is just going through PMS once a month.

10) Lastly please stop believing that you are a miracle, just because you have produced a son and that you need special attention all the time. It is plain simple biology at work (that too not from your side). You are not any more special than the woman who has had three girls in a row.

Pl. do understand that we are on the same side here. Had the mothers of previous generation had done even half of these things said above, trust me, your married life would certainly have been better. You would've never had to say "no one listens to me" when in reality you wanted to say "my husband is a pain in the butt and I blame his mother for it"

We are on the same side here. think about it.

Accessorize...without buying!

Which woman wouldn't love accessorizing with Bags and fabulous jewellery. Even the ones who famously proclaim beauty comes from within and doesn't need external agents, secretly wish they could get their hands on them at least once in a while. If only they weren't all so very expensive :-( Well someone has come up with a solution for both kinds of women. You don't need to buy them just borrow them, use them for as long as six months and come back and get a different one this time. You will soon be labeled the most fashionable woman who gets new bags and jewellery every six months! Don't believe me? Check this out.

Now how does one get them work this out in our country?