Copy editing...

T J Sullivan on outsourced editing and all that. All you 'editors' at a certain editing house in Sector 62, Noida, run and hide. Heh.

Stuff journalists like...

Check this out. "Slightly American," as one of my journalism profs would say.

"Are you my bag?"

Thanks for the profound comment, Pavitra (who is incidentally a sports reporter herself). Here is an article on (former, I guess) Zimbabwean cricketer Mark Vermeulen by South African journalist Telford Vice. Capital, capital. "Sometimes cricket is not at all a funny, old game ..."

Quick take on sports writing.

I’m biased. So I will begin by saying that Nirmal Shekar of The Hindu is the finest sports writer in the country. I guess there is a genuine dearth of talent in sports writing in India though every other young journalist thinks he/she is the next Cardus. Or Nirmal. Heh. However, most sports news Editors are young and have reached where they are fairly quickly — the sports news Editor of my current employer is an example. Oh, that reminds me… the National sports news Editor of a prominent newspaper (which has a 16-floor office for its headquarters) is another case in point. However, this person mostly writes trash. Further, according to sources, the newspaper concerned is looking more like a sinking ship with each passing day. Some people at a well-known cricket website are good, but take themselves a tad too seriously. But yes, there are a few bright spots here and there in the sports writing scenario. Will post more on that later.

Nice to meet you, Mr Editor!

Hi there. I had a fun weekend. Some of us journalist types had a booze and dinner party on Friday night (morning arrived very quickly!) where we had the inevitable 'lively discussion' on reporters vs. sub-editors. I have my feet in both boats, so I couldn't afford to take sides. Heh. Sunday was as usual, lazy and laidback. And today, I happened to cover the convocation of the National Institute of Bank Management here and met T N Ninan, Editor and publisher,
Business Standard, who was chief guest at the function. As is to be expected, he gave a mature, balanced convocation address that was informative and insightful. My boss later told me, "You are extremely lucky. I hear my former boss (at ET) spoke at the function you went to. Too bad I couldn't attend it myself. Would have liked to catch up with him."

I think Business Standard, in spite of being a little too journal-like, is a credible, solid business daily. Do read this interview of Ninan. He was one of those who grew ET into the brand that it is today. Sample this quote: "When I joined (BS) in 1992 (to undo the damage I had done to BS while in ET!), the brief was to take the paper national, and I mooted the idea of a joint venture with Financial Times, which by then was beginning to look at the Indian market and already had a syndication tie-up with ET that I had negotiated."

That tie-up is now another story for another post, but BS still stands and it was Ninan who kept it from falling.

2050...

I hope the makers of Love Story 2050 never stumble upon this article. I was in Mumbai last week and some friends and I were scoffing at the trailer of the movie, saying, "Just what are/were the makers thinking?" Don't tell me they've made a movie that's ahead of its times and all that jazz?

'Reporter'speak...

“At 13, I started stealing money from my father’s wallet. At 17, I was involved in petty neighbourhood scandals. At 30, hardened by crime, I became... an Editor.” — P Sainath to the Class of 2005-06, Asian College of Journalism, Chennai.

[Silence]

Can journalists be unreachable?

Can journalists be unreachable? Can they switch their cell phones off and sleep when news — good, bad and ugly — happens? Can they tell people who seek information, some of them fellow, albeit rival journalists, that such details are not meant for them? Can a leading newspaper afford not to pick up a ringing telephone?

The top ten mass communication colleges in India, according to Mint.

Here is a ranking of the best mass communication colleges in India by Mint. MICA, Ahmedabad, tops. Interestingly, the Chennai-based Asian College of Journalism (ACJ), obviously a journalism school and incidentally my alma mater, is placed second. Hmm. However, the writer makes it fairly clear in the story that the ACJ is not a mass communication institute. Check out these quotes.

“We are allergic to the word ‘communication,’ as it has been abused by many university colleges in the past. We are more of a journalism institute,” Sashi Kumar said.

Sashi Kumar is chairman of the Media Development Foundation, which runs the ACJ.

Another quote: It is a view shared by alumnus and deputy news editor at business television channel CNBC, Harsha Subramaniam. “I feel it is not right to call ACJ a mass communication institute, as it is purely a journalism school. I feel mass communication institutes also teach advertising, public relations, corporate communications as part of their curricula,” he adds.

But what should we make of the fact that the ACJ made it to number two on a ranking of mass communication institutes? In Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu, where in August 2006, I was part of a documentary team from ACJ, I met a lady who was working with a non-governmental organisation after graduating from a prominent mass communication college. "ACJ? Oh! You guys specialise. We don't."

AMMA vs. MACTA!

As someone who keenly follows the developments in the Malayalam film industry, I thought it might be worthwhile to write a post on the ongoing AMMA (Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes) — MACTA (Malayalam Cine Technicians Association) face-off.

First things first: Where is (that bad actor) Dileep? It was he who triggered the showdown by backing off from a Thulasidas film after having pocketed the advance signing amount. The reason? Dileep thought it was not smart on his part to work with a director who hasn’t made a hit film in a while. To quote from a PTI report: “The whole issue cropped up when Dileep, who was to act in a film being directed by Thulasidas, refused to play his role after taking an advance, allegedly because Thulasidas’s last film was a flop.” Hello, who can remember when Dileep himself was last seen in a good, let alone successful, movie? The guy’s career is floundering because he refuses to do the one thing he is good at — comedy — and instead insists on working with directors who wouldn’t even have dreamt of casting him if he hadn’t approached them first. That said, Dileep has found alternative ways to stay afloat. He takes more than a passing interest in the booming real estate sector in Kochi. And he craftily offered to produce the multi-starrer Twenty:20, which is sure to rake in the moolah owing to sheer star power. Oh, Dileep is also one of the vice-presidents of AMMA. Ha! Anyway, he seems to have purposely opened a can of worms and stealthily disappeared from the scene.

Meanwhile, with MACTA general secretary Vinayan proving once again that he is a foul-mouthed, pigheaded (literally!) person with a huge inferiority complex, (apart from being the most awful director in the history of Malayalam films) the split would have happened sooner or later. With several members resigning, MACTA is as good as dissolved. Actor Innocent, who has been president of AMMA since its inception, while speaking at a recent meeting, is reported to have said, “It is high time that MACTA closed its open door, or else more and more technicians inside may jump out through it.” A new organisation is on the anvil. As a friend said, I really ought to give a clearer picture, but owing to time pressure, I will direct you to this Sify report instead. It’s fairly informative. Cheers to Malayalam cinema.

On Dasavathaaram...

Kamal Hassan’s latest film, Dasavathaaram, is worth a watch for the efforts put in by the Ulaga Nayakan. The movie does not bore you. However, it fails to live up to the Herculean expectations and a substantial chunk of its Rs 127 crore (approximate) budget has been wasted. You wonder if the legend has done justice to himself by hiding several of his ten characters under layers and layers of make-up. The old woman, Krishnaveni, or whatever her name was, is the worst of the lot. We gladly cheered a caked-up Kamal in Indian, but this is too much to bear. Further, the incredible stupidity of the character itself makes you cringe. While on the subject of exceptionally stupid characters — If there is one character in the film that deserved to die, it is that of Asin. (not that she does, eh. Oh, wait a second. She has a double role. Whatever.) It would have been so much easier on the eyes and ears of the audience, apart from Kamal (s) in the movie. Uff.

Anyway, I liked Rangaraja Nambi, the hardcore Vaishnavite. But many of the other avatars seem to be forced into the narrative. For instance, what the hell is the Afghani guy all about? What is he doing in the film? And the less said about Krishnaveni, the better. Ugh. But yes, Balram Naidu is funny. Telugu raadu. Heh. My favourite, however, is Vincent Poovaraghan, the tribal chieftain who leads a crusade against the sand mafia. It is as Poovaraghan that Kamal shows us, once again, his sheer genius… the make-up is good here, but then it wasn’t really required. Hmm… My friend Pavitra pointed out that the music was far from impressive. Which is precisely why I thought it did not merit a mention. I liked the pleasant Ulaga Nayakane… but the other songs don’t stay with you. Watch Dasavathaaram for Kamal. Once. And do check out this column by Shobha Warrier of Rediff.

'Of myths and men' by Nirmal Shekar

Okay, so this aint a quote. It's a piece written by Nirmal Shekar, the sports news Editor of The Hindu and my sports writing teacher at the ACJ. Read it. All of you who think Nirmal Shekar's writing is crap (including some of my friends, teachers and colleagues... past and present), go away.

Fists of stone!

"There is only one legend and that's me." - Roberto Duran

PS: With due respect to 'Fists of stone,' I can't help wondering why Ali didn't think of this first. Heh.

Silence! The Greatest speaks...

"The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses—behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights." - Muhammad Ali

Ali is and will always remain, the one, the only, the Greatest. : )

No one left...

"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."
—Martin Niemoeller

Success...

"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. - Michael Jordan
I will be posting some of my favourite quotes, picked randomly. Those on my Gtalk list (and a lot of those who aren't!) would have seen most of them before.

Yawn…

I’m bored and tired. The one thing about Pune that I really like is the climate, but lately, even that has been quite weird. While the summer is manageable compared with the insufferable heat and humidity of Chennai, the chilly winds at night mean a cold is constantly waiting to happen, often never really going away once you catch it. Bah!

Anyway, I’m looking forward to watching Dasavatharam tomorrow, in spite of the not-so-favourable reviews. Kamal once said in an interview, “I would never read a review before watching a film myself. No point going to a movie with a mindset.” Hmm.

What’s (The) Happening?

No, I did not like the film. It’s strictly a one-time watch (it seems longer than its 90 minutes. Ho hum.) and does not live up to all the hype. And please, it is not scary. In fact, there is perhaps one scene in the whole film that has some shock value. Maybe the Americans will freak out because they’re mostly stupid. Mark Wahlberg is a fine actor and puts in a good performance, but he alone cannot save The Happening from being an implausible, stupid, we-know-what’s-coming flick with the most predictable of endings. Shyamalan disappoints. He should stop making entire films based on a one-line premise. Watch it if you must. I hope it wins an award for the most overrated and disappointing film of the year.

'Frankly speaking...' Blah!

Here is a hilarious post by one Karthik on the Editor-in-Chief of a prominent TV channel. I agree with his views. Mr A always looks like he's in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe he should have stayed put at NDTV, but then nobody knows what he was doing there in the first place. Blah.

Btw, according to some friends of mine at the TV channel concerned, the A is a terrible boss.

Covert…

Ok, so a lot has been written about the sacking of Mubhashar Jawed Akbar from The Asian Age. Khuswant Singh, Rahul Singh, Seema Mustafa, Pritam Sengupta, Kuldip Nayar and Shantanu Guha Ray, among others, have expressed shock, resentment and sadness over the unceremonious exit of one of India’s most distinguished editors. The articles are all here.

Can’t resist quoting from from Akbar’s farewell letter to his colleagues. He may have flirted dangerously with politics (long story, that!) and is no angel, but M J certainly has a way with words.

“For reasons that need not detain us, I must say farewell. I was under the impression that I might have been able to do so with more grace. But judging from this morning’s edition of our paper, it seems I might have overstayed my welcome… We may not have been the biggest, but we held our head high because there was one nonnegotiable asset in our family: We could not be bought. We were independent. We were free. We held our head high. Never let your head stoop, not as long as you are a journalist.”

Not one to get bogged down and stay out of the newsroom, Akbar has already launched Covert, an unabashedly political fortnightly, which is now two issues old and features columnists such as Seema Mustafa, Kuldeep Nayar, Khushwant Singh, Arif Mohammad Khan and so on. And yes, Byline is alive and kicking. The design isn’t the greatest, but the forceful political content might just make Outlook, India Today and (ahem!) Tehelka sit up and take note. I really don’t have much to say on the cover story on Sharad Pawar in the first issue as well as the one on Kalam in the second, except that they are quite audacious in more than one sense of the word. Anyway, here’s some more wordplay. The mission statement of the magazine reads:

“Power is secretive about truth and propagandist about claims. Democracy demands media that reveals the covert and sifts the overt to peel off propaganda. Knowledge is the ultimate asset of the citizen. We hope, in COVERT, to tease the truth out of the wrinkles of secrecy. Our weapon is the scalpel, not the sword; we prefer the soft-spoken word to the scream, a smile to anger.”

PS: If someone asks you who the Editor of Covert is, don’t say M J Akbar. He's wisened up. This is a D'Mockeracy : )

“It was his year…”

“Three legendary directors, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, and George Lucas — all friends of Marty — were on the stage together to announce the Oscar for the Best Director in 2007. They must have known in advance that it would be their old friend, Martin Scorsese. It was his year.”

Thought of posting this photo caption, which I took from the Orkut album of a good friend of mine, H. This guy wears his political lineage lightly and has opted for a career in banking. That he has an abiding interest in films goes without saying.

Scorsese should have won for Taxi Driver. Or Raging Bull. Or Goodfellas. Or even Casino. But he won for The Departed. Which I really liked, by the way.

PS: Having studied and worked with a talented and eclectic bunch of people, it has somehow been a regret of mine that very, very few of my friends and classmates have (as of now) chosen careers in:

A) Politics. (A lot of people I know say they are ‘apolitical.’ That too, proudly. I wonder if it’s possible to be completely that way. Since we are all part of a political and social system, I guess it would be rather difficult. Just one or two of the people I studied with are still active in politics. One of them is doing very well for himself back in Kerala. And hopefully, he is finding time to serve the public as well. Heh.)

B) The Armed Forces. (There are two or three, but that’s all. Oh well. The reasons are now common knowledge.)

The 54th National film awards and all that…

Well, some surprise winners this time, eh. Of course, Lage Raho Munnabhai and its four awards is the big news. I thought it was a fairly good film. No further comments. Hmm… I haven’t seen Priyanandanan’s Pulijanmam, (Malayalam) which was adjudged the best film. However, having watched his Neythukaran, (which also had Murali in the lead) I can say he’s got what it takes. In an interview on Malayalam channel Asianet yesterday, Priyanandanan hinted at reviving his project with Mammootty, an adaptation of Vaikom Muhammad Basheer’s novel Shabdangal. (Look it up on Wikipedia!) If it happens, that will be a must-watch movie. Oh, with this write-up, Nilanjana S Roy leaves us in no doubt of Basheer’s genius. Do read.

For some obscure reason, sections of the Malayalam media (TV and online) insisted on referring to Priyamani, who won the best actress award for her role in the Tamil film Paruthi Veeran, as a ‘Malayalam star’. Whatever. (Note: I only mean to drive home the point that the channels and websites should have refrained from ‘claiming’ an award for Malayalam by repeatedly calling Priyamani a Malayalam actress. She has featured in some inconsequential Malayalam films and Paruthi Veeran is probably the first film that gave her scope to perform.) That’s it on the awards for now, will post more stuff later.

And yes, I liked Sarkar Raj. A little over-the-top at times, but definitely worth a watch. A journalist friend and former classmate (school, college, J-school) of mine, B, who is a credible film critic in his own right, told me, “I liked Abhishek’s performance. No one else from the current lot of actors can do that role.” Hrithik Roshan, I suggested. (Ha!) No way, he said. “RGV would have had to make him flex his muscles. Tight close-ups won’t work.” Hmm. Anyway, good comeback by RGV. Contract and Phook are coming up soon. I think he’s back on track. But with RGV, you never know.

By the way, I will be watching Manoj Nelliyattu ‘Night’ Shyamalan’s latest, The Happening, this weekend. Shudder. Heh.

New blog!

Hey all!
This is my new blog. Will try to post something useful once in a while. Most of the stuff will be media-related. I will also write on films, cricket, politics and try to provide links to other write-ups that may be worth a read. Cheers!