On another note.

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.

Personal...

Over the last couple of days, I've reverted to type and am dispensing advice from 'K's Book of Wisdom' to several friends, all of whom are very well sorted in their professional lives but something have living, breathing disasters in their personal lives. The ironic bit is that my own personal life is a bit of a minefield and I've had the most godawful experiences in life and love, but, but then again, I guess I've always been one to take on the problems of the world. My Class 12 teacher even told me that I have this bad habit. Then again, I guess I've stopped offering unsolicited advice, but that said, I do have some friends whose lives are so knotted up, that it would take an Alexander to untie it.
But, the issue here is that almost all my friends who are going through issues in their lives are media professionals. I was trying to figure if that was because I tend to know more journalists than the average person or if it was because our lives are really rather messed up because of the way we lead them. At the end of the day, I guess that it is difficult to maintain the professional/personal balance for many of us. Lately, I haven't had much time to myself, let alone have time to give to another person. Not that I mind that, but I look at a couple of my Editors who slog away till midnight at times and wonder just how accommodating their spouses are. Needless to say, the spouses are not journo's.
It isn't always like that, and I should know better than most. If it hasn't been made painfully obvious before, my father is a senior journalist and his climb up the ranks, when he was in his early-30's put a huge amount of pressure on my parents marriage and unfortunately (or fortunately) the marriage gave way. You can't shed tears about something that happened close to two decades ago, but as the media has expanded dramatically and the pressures of the job have shot through the roof for many, many more people. Sometimes, we can make the most incongruous things become a life or death issue and put everything else on hold. We forget that sometimes a line needs to be drawn.
I'm not saying that the media is any different from other professions, but because I guess most times, we tend to be overly-educated, socially liberal sorts anjd if two of these species get together, particularly the smarter, better educated ones, something has to give. Maybe, these are just growing pains of a growing industry, or maybe this is just the start of the beginning. I'm not saying it hasn't happened before, there was a famous case at 'the' pink paper in Bombay about a decade ago where things were thrown at each other an estranged couple which worked there. It is just that it seems to be happening a lot more now. Or maybe, they're just so many, many more media-people now.
Anyway... I really need a break!

A media curse?

I'm off for a few days, because in an extreme change of heart, my organisation which treats junkets with the same disdain that Leonidas treats Xerxes in 300, has decided to give me a couple of days in the heat of equatorial Asia. Anyway, more on that in the other blog, but because of recent conversations with friends in the same profession, that maintaining a veneer of sensibility in your married life, or even for that matter in a relationship, is nigh-high impossible.
Just look at the divorce rate among media professionals, especially those who are a bit more go-getting than the rest. I look at my own life with disastrous relationship followed-up with another massacre of emotions. I was exchanging emails with a friend in TV18, and he gave the example of TV18/GBN where almost every senior person is either divorced or in a failed-marriage of sorts. Heck, I look at people I've worked with (or for) and at least among the 'more happening' types, stable personal lives are a no-no, except in very rare cases. Listen, I've lived through my parents marriage falling apart, and my father was/is a very senior journalist. I mean, I know the divorce rate in this country is going through the roof, but chances are if you meet a fairly senior Indian journalist today, they will either be divorced, unhappily married or (as in my own case) desperately trying to avoid a relationship, and thus screwing my life even more.
In the last mentioned case, and you will be surprised how many of those there are, it is not as if people don't want stability but both men and women are fairly paranoid of getting married because they have seen their friends all around them go through pretty bad times. There are friends I have who got married too young and are already divorced by the time they are 25 or 26.
And you go around trying to find a reason why this is happening, one maybe is that sex is well, pretty easy at most organisations. Not too many people would have that rather ridiculous scruple that 'Steer Clear of Office' rule, something I would advise people to follow simply because office people do get very boring, I mean what else can you talk about, other than talk shop? With sex so easy, and people getting pretty frisky inside editing suites and conference rooms, let alone other tight spaces, marriages are bound to go for a toss. Some senior journalists also take advantage of the situation, stuff that would pretty much constiture sexual harassment in other parts of the world (even though when cases get reported, as recently happened in the country's leading Hindi News channel, they do tend to escalate and lead to a dismissal). And before someone says, all men are bastards, let us be pretty clear about this, women are as guilty of of this as men are.
The second reason, as this is pretty much connected to the first is the long hours people lead in office, not just long but rather awkward hours. Ergo, people tend to mingle a bit too much with people in their own offices, and again because in cities like Delhi and Bombay, there are only so many 'natives', many people are actually pretty short on the friend count, so you hang around a lot with office buddies and next thing you know you're in bed with one of them. It might sound a bit too simplistic, but I'm not getting into it much more than I already have.
Incestuous behaviour leads to disaster, over here not red-neck style-inbreeding but an insane divorce rate, and with talent being hard to come by, companies don't do what they did earlier and 'advise' one party to leave, now even if couples go through a madcap marriage and quickie divorce, they find themselves working together. Not yet experienced a case where a divorced couple has had to co-host a show, but there are quite a few examples of divorced couples working on the same show, one partner is the producer and the other person is the presenter.
Anyway, these are just some thoughts on teh matter, and maybe an explanation for my own steadfast refusal to get on with life (i.e: 'settle down' according to mother dearest) and cling onto the dregs of innocence. I still seriously wonder, and I know I have the brain power to have pulled it off, what if I had studied hard in +2 and made it through engineering, what if I had taken my post-CAT interviews (I had calls from B,C and L) seriously instead of treating them like a joke! God knows, I might have turned out to be this disasterously boring guy! But it is unlikely I would give up what I have today...
Next post, next week!