18.4.05
Indian Media is going to the dogs...
...and i apologise to the dogs for the unsavoury comparison.
Enough has been written and lamented about the tabloidisation of mainstream Indian media, both print and electronic, for a long time now. I must confess that everytime I heard this debate earlier, I would obstinately shut my brain to it and doggedly (what's with my canine obsession today?!) refuse to participate in it. I think the reason for that was my past association with the media. Having worked for the infamous newspaper that is credited with single-handedly pusing the print media into the abyss of crass commercialisation, I was secretly ashamed to own up to my share of the responsibilty (I worked at the Features Desk, which is most definitely the flagbearer of the skin-fest that this particular national daily has now become).
But last Thursday, I was forced to face up to the truth...
On Thursday, while our seniors were enjoying the government holiday on account of Ambedkar Jayanti, I (along with my IFS batchmates) attended the formal reception of the Emir of Qatar at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. It was fun to watch the pomp and show (the building is certainly grand in scale, even though in terms of architectural idiom, it is a complete disaster), the guard of honour (an officer fainted in the heat and was whisked away to be replaced by a substitute in a matter of seconds), the horses (who exhibited how impossible it is to potty-train them), and of course, the famous faces (the Prez, the PM, Laloo, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Shivraj Patil, a couple of other ministers who I reconised from TV but couldn't recall names of etc). As was to be expected, there were loads of photographers and TV camerapersons too.
Frankly, it never occured to me that I should check out if the event was being aired on TV or not. In my mind, it was official duty, done and over with, not a thought spared to it later. But when I reached home in the evening, I found my parents (only my dad actually) quite eager to catch a glimpse of his daughter on TV!! Well, what can I say? My dad, besides being obsessed with his only child, is also from the old school, where Important Events attended must be dutifully checked out in the media later!
So there I sat, plonked on the couch, going through the numerous news channels. You can imagine what I found. Forget about catching any coverage of the event (which I didn't care about anyway), this targeted surfing brought home the truth painfully about what passes for news in our country today...it was horrible, I tell you. One channel was following the trail of a serial rapist (with vulgar, gory detailed victim interviews that made me want to throw up my dinner), at least two channels were very seriously and sanctimoniously analysing the finer nuances of the proposed ban on Mumbai's dance bars and no less than three channels were airing cricket-related stories (expert analysis, preparations in Delhi for the match, Ganguly-bashing etc etc).
This is primetime national television's idea of news. There was a time, when I was a kid, that visiting heads of states were given front-page coverage (and this was a state visit, for God's sake!!) with those funny, posed photos of the guests and our leaders, standing together or shaking hands, smiling self-consciously at the cameras.
I wonder what happens to all those hajaar pictures that those camerapersons took that day? If the papers/channels have no intention of carrying the story, then why the hell bother deploying all that expensive manpower and material to the event?
This has become a rather long post...to end, I am reminded of our interaction with the Hindustan Times Associate Editor during our XP attachment...in answer to our heckling about why HT carries bullshit, he held up that day's edition and asked "which if this items is not important?". We answered, "It's not about what is carried, but what is not carried." I wonder how many important stories get sacrificed everyday that you and me never get to hear of, because some other crap is bieng aired instead.
Enough has been written and lamented about the tabloidisation of mainstream Indian media, both print and electronic, for a long time now. I must confess that everytime I heard this debate earlier, I would obstinately shut my brain to it and doggedly (what's with my canine obsession today?!) refuse to participate in it. I think the reason for that was my past association with the media. Having worked for the infamous newspaper that is credited with single-handedly pusing the print media into the abyss of crass commercialisation, I was secretly ashamed to own up to my share of the responsibilty (I worked at the Features Desk, which is most definitely the flagbearer of the skin-fest that this particular national daily has now become).
But last Thursday, I was forced to face up to the truth...
On Thursday, while our seniors were enjoying the government holiday on account of Ambedkar Jayanti, I (along with my IFS batchmates) attended the formal reception of the Emir of Qatar at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. It was fun to watch the pomp and show (the building is certainly grand in scale, even though in terms of architectural idiom, it is a complete disaster), the guard of honour (an officer fainted in the heat and was whisked away to be replaced by a substitute in a matter of seconds), the horses (who exhibited how impossible it is to potty-train them), and of course, the famous faces (the Prez, the PM, Laloo, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Shivraj Patil, a couple of other ministers who I reconised from TV but couldn't recall names of etc). As was to be expected, there were loads of photographers and TV camerapersons too.
Frankly, it never occured to me that I should check out if the event was being aired on TV or not. In my mind, it was official duty, done and over with, not a thought spared to it later. But when I reached home in the evening, I found my parents (only my dad actually) quite eager to catch a glimpse of his daughter on TV!! Well, what can I say? My dad, besides being obsessed with his only child, is also from the old school, where Important Events attended must be dutifully checked out in the media later!
So there I sat, plonked on the couch, going through the numerous news channels. You can imagine what I found. Forget about catching any coverage of the event (which I didn't care about anyway), this targeted surfing brought home the truth painfully about what passes for news in our country today...it was horrible, I tell you. One channel was following the trail of a serial rapist (with vulgar, gory detailed victim interviews that made me want to throw up my dinner), at least two channels were very seriously and sanctimoniously analysing the finer nuances of the proposed ban on Mumbai's dance bars and no less than three channels were airing cricket-related stories (expert analysis, preparations in Delhi for the match, Ganguly-bashing etc etc).
This is primetime national television's idea of news. There was a time, when I was a kid, that visiting heads of states were given front-page coverage (and this was a state visit, for God's sake!!) with those funny, posed photos of the guests and our leaders, standing together or shaking hands, smiling self-consciously at the cameras.
I wonder what happens to all those hajaar pictures that those camerapersons took that day? If the papers/channels have no intention of carrying the story, then why the hell bother deploying all that expensive manpower and material to the event?
This has become a rather long post...to end, I am reminded of our interaction with the Hindustan Times Associate Editor during our XP attachment...in answer to our heckling about why HT carries bullshit, he held up that day's edition and asked "which if this items is not important?". We answered, "It's not about what is carried, but what is not carried." I wonder how many important stories get sacrificed everyday that you and me never get to hear of, because some other crap is bieng aired instead.
The Garnier Monopoly
It seems to me that Garnier Laboratories, a line of toileteries and cosmetics, has really taken over the Indian market. I realised this the other day when my dad offered to buy me stuff and I greedily began dictating a long list of all that I wanted. Suddenly, it occured to me that all the products were Garnier. And this wasn't because I was some sort of loyalist. Although reasonably brand-conscious, I have no problem with buying any company's products as long as they suit my skin/hair. So this sudden takeover of my bathroom and dressing table by the House of Garnier was completely inadvertent on my part. But it got me thinking.
A few years ago, when Garnier had entered the Indian market, it was an exotic, new, phirang brand that was advertised as such. It's advertisements featured phirangis to lend credence to this whole "imported-hai-toh-accha-hoga" image. But slowly and steadily, the products diversified and so did its branding. Soon, everything from a facewash to an anti-wrinkle cream, was available under the Garnier umbrella. Recently, it has launched an anti-dandruff shampoo under the Fructis brand, while it's Ultra-Doux line continues strong.
Of course, the marketing has been extremely aggressive. Open any magazine (it needn't even be a fashion or a lifestyle magazine) and Garnier ads are sure to stare back at you. Television is full of thier ad spots too. Garnier is completely inescapable, I tell you.
I believe that the best place to judge a brand's popularity is in a supermarket. So I decided to check this out in Delhi's (ok, Gurgaon's) Big Bazaar. What I found was even more surprising than what I had expected. Instead of simply better placing, more offers or some such thing, what I saw was the almost monopoly of Garnier...in most categories, there was simply no other product other than a Garnier!! Now that I think back, even in Ahmedabad, a hair conditioner meant only the sleek orange Ultra-Doux bottle that every kiranawalla or chemist invariably stocked.
What is with this Garnier Monopoly?
A few years ago, when Garnier had entered the Indian market, it was an exotic, new, phirang brand that was advertised as such. It's advertisements featured phirangis to lend credence to this whole "imported-hai-toh-accha-hoga" image. But slowly and steadily, the products diversified and so did its branding. Soon, everything from a facewash to an anti-wrinkle cream, was available under the Garnier umbrella. Recently, it has launched an anti-dandruff shampoo under the Fructis brand, while it's Ultra-Doux line continues strong.
Of course, the marketing has been extremely aggressive. Open any magazine (it needn't even be a fashion or a lifestyle magazine) and Garnier ads are sure to stare back at you. Television is full of thier ad spots too. Garnier is completely inescapable, I tell you.
I believe that the best place to judge a brand's popularity is in a supermarket. So I decided to check this out in Delhi's (ok, Gurgaon's) Big Bazaar. What I found was even more surprising than what I had expected. Instead of simply better placing, more offers or some such thing, what I saw was the almost monopoly of Garnier...in most categories, there was simply no other product other than a Garnier!! Now that I think back, even in Ahmedabad, a hair conditioner meant only the sleek orange Ultra-Doux bottle that every kiranawalla or chemist invariably stocked.
What is with this Garnier Monopoly?
17.4.05
delhi's mad, mad, mad day...
That's the only conclusion I could come to after the nightmare of a driving experience that I had last Friday...the whole world and it's cousin seemed to be out on the roads throughout the bloody day, not to mention the night. Now some of you might say, so what's new about that? But believe me, it was truly beyond one's imagination. I've been driving in Delhi for years now and know the traffic volume on my usual routes, at various times of the day and on various days of the week, pretty well. So I know, for example, that Route X is quieter in the morning but a madhouse in the evening, Route Y is less crowded on Tuesday (with the market there being shut that day) but a total mess on other day of the week, and so on... So imagine my utter surprise when all my well-calculated moves notwithstanding, I got caught in no less than six jams that day, some of them absolute horrors!
And it wasn't simply about the traffic...there were just people about...too many of them...in hordes. It was surreal, I tell you. What the hell were all these people doing baking in the not-so-subtle sun? Even at the parking lot in South Block (my office for two weeks), there were all these official cars whizzing about. It was crazy, I tell you. And it continued late into the night. At the Delhi-Ghaziabad border, where I found myself at around 11pm, there were tons of those weird, noisy contraptions that remind me of an auto on steroids. Usually, there are harldy one-two about. But today, there were everywhere! It was just mad, mad, mad!!
And it wasn't me alone. Everybody I spoke to was cribbing about the same thing...jams everywhere in places and at times that usually see no traffic at all! Unfortunately for me, I had a thousand chores to do that day, so I had no option but to battle valiantly with this sudden, unexpected population explosion on Delhi roads...
As with all things that you can do nothing about but grin-and-bear, the best way to cope is humour. Here's the insane theory that a friend came up with to explain the madness...here's how the conversation went...Y is me, F is friend...
Y(indignantly): what the hell are all these people doing out on the roads?
F(calmly): celebrating their birthdays.
...silence...
Y: excuse me?
F (repeating with infinite patience, as if to a retarded child): celebrating their birthdays
Y: and why do you think all these people are celebrating their birthdays?
F: you remember, last year there was a news item about 14,000 weddings on the same day because of a heavy saaya?
Y: yes, but what does that have to do with traffic jams?
F: elementary, my dear...all those people getting married on the same day...obviously, they started enjoying the bliss of marital life together, if you know what i mean...so they all must have produced the result of the bliss on the same day...hence, all these people on the roads, celebrating. QED.
Y: so you mean there are 14,000 birthdays today?
F: if there can be 14,000 weddings in a day, why can't there be 14,000 birthydays?
...silence...
Y: i guess we must wish them, then..
F: yes, absolutely...
Y: okay, the next signal, i'm rolling down the window and wishing whoever is next to me a very happy birthday...
F: great! so will i!!
you can imagine how many people we freaked out that day... :-)
And it wasn't simply about the traffic...there were just people about...too many of them...in hordes. It was surreal, I tell you. What the hell were all these people doing baking in the not-so-subtle sun? Even at the parking lot in South Block (my office for two weeks), there were all these official cars whizzing about. It was crazy, I tell you. And it continued late into the night. At the Delhi-Ghaziabad border, where I found myself at around 11pm, there were tons of those weird, noisy contraptions that remind me of an auto on steroids. Usually, there are harldy one-two about. But today, there were everywhere! It was just mad, mad, mad!!
And it wasn't me alone. Everybody I spoke to was cribbing about the same thing...jams everywhere in places and at times that usually see no traffic at all! Unfortunately for me, I had a thousand chores to do that day, so I had no option but to battle valiantly with this sudden, unexpected population explosion on Delhi roads...
As with all things that you can do nothing about but grin-and-bear, the best way to cope is humour. Here's the insane theory that a friend came up with to explain the madness...here's how the conversation went...Y is me, F is friend...
Y(indignantly): what the hell are all these people doing out on the roads?
F(calmly): celebrating their birthdays.
...silence...
Y: excuse me?
F (repeating with infinite patience, as if to a retarded child): celebrating their birthdays
Y: and why do you think all these people are celebrating their birthdays?
F: you remember, last year there was a news item about 14,000 weddings on the same day because of a heavy saaya?
Y: yes, but what does that have to do with traffic jams?
F: elementary, my dear...all those people getting married on the same day...obviously, they started enjoying the bliss of marital life together, if you know what i mean...so they all must have produced the result of the bliss on the same day...hence, all these people on the roads, celebrating. QED.
Y: so you mean there are 14,000 birthdays today?
F: if there can be 14,000 weddings in a day, why can't there be 14,000 birthydays?
...silence...
Y: i guess we must wish them, then..
F: yes, absolutely...
Y: okay, the next signal, i'm rolling down the window and wishing whoever is next to me a very happy birthday...
F: great! so will i!!
you can imagine how many people we freaked out that day... :-)
14.4.05
Mr.XYZ weds Ms.XYZ = Mrs.& Mr.XYZ
While writing out invitations for a friend's photography exhibition, I realised that I didn't know the names of some of my friends' and batchmates' wives. My mother suggested that I take the easy way out and simply address them as "Mrs. and Mr. so-and-so". I explained to her that I, of all the people, could never make the cardinal mistake of simply assuming that the lady had changed her surname to her husband's...this is not misplaced idealism, divorced (no pun intended) from reality...none of my friends have changed their names after marriage, so I guess it is an increasing trend.
Anyway, my queries about wives' names (in some cases, I didn't even know their first names) led to an interesting discovery.
One of my Rajasthani batchmates in the IFS said in his lovely, calm way that a married lady's surname shouldn't be a problem to guess, because it will be the same as her husband's...I suppose my consternation at his obvious chauvinism showed, because he went on to clarify that he didn't mean the lady should change her name, but that it in all likelihood, she didn't need to! I was as lost as you probably are by now.
Let me explain...
Being a staunch traditionalist, what he meant was that in India, all (okay, most) marriages continue to be not only caste-based, but subcaste-based, so clearly, the surname of the would-be husband and wife would be pre-matched!!! Now I must confess that this was something that had never occured to me. Actually, now that I thought about it, he was right...most traditional, arranged marriages that I could recall were between families that had the same surname to begin with, so no problem for the lady! Wow! In a strangely convoluted way, this was pretty liberating for her, no?
Anyway, my queries about wives' names (in some cases, I didn't even know their first names) led to an interesting discovery.
One of my Rajasthani batchmates in the IFS said in his lovely, calm way that a married lady's surname shouldn't be a problem to guess, because it will be the same as her husband's...I suppose my consternation at his obvious chauvinism showed, because he went on to clarify that he didn't mean the lady should change her name, but that it in all likelihood, she didn't need to! I was as lost as you probably are by now.
Let me explain...
Being a staunch traditionalist, what he meant was that in India, all (okay, most) marriages continue to be not only caste-based, but subcaste-based, so clearly, the surname of the would-be husband and wife would be pre-matched!!! Now I must confess that this was something that had never occured to me. Actually, now that I thought about it, he was right...most traditional, arranged marriages that I could recall were between families that had the same surname to begin with, so no problem for the lady! Wow! In a strangely convoluted way, this was pretty liberating for her, no?
12.4.05
welcome to my parlour...
found myself in lajpat nagar's central market on sunday, shopping for new ACs with some friends... the shop we were browsing through had another branch close by, where it was displaying the brand we wanted. so there we went, following the salesguy to this promised second branch.
as was to be expected, he didn't take us through the traffic-heavy main roads, but the quieter bylanes, some of which were service lanes for the residences, while others were corners of urban parks that are a lajpat nagar peculiarity (like many refugee colonies of delhi, lajpat nagar homes are wrapped around a series of rectangular parks that overlap at the corners, forming some interesting street spaces).
we were happily tripping along, joking about this and that, when suddenly, i found myself walking through somebody's house...yes, you read that right...through someone's house!!! through his living room/parlour, to be precise! with the owner (presumably) happily sitting there, reading a newspaper, completely oblivious to the fact that four complete strangers (well, i didn't know the man from adam, so i assume that the feeling was mutual) had just walked through his property!!
i wonder if allowing your house to be used as a thoroughfare is common practice in this area or if it was simply this particular gentleman's generosity towards pedestrians? i think Indians in general have a very relaxed sense of what is personal and what is public when it comes to street space. At least that's the way it was in traditional Indian settlements, where the street flowed seamlessly into homes through the otla (a kind of half-raised public platform that connected the home's threshold to the street, where activities like cutting veggies, oiling hair and gossiping were happily performed in full public gaze!).
however, on a cynical note, i suspect that there were no generous motives behind this particular incident, but rather that the man had encroached his house onto the 45 degree street corner junction, which of course, is public property. after some friendly neighbourhood slanging matches, this lovely compromise must have ensued, that he gets to use the space, as long as he welcomes all and sundry to walk through his parlour!
as was to be expected, he didn't take us through the traffic-heavy main roads, but the quieter bylanes, some of which were service lanes for the residences, while others were corners of urban parks that are a lajpat nagar peculiarity (like many refugee colonies of delhi, lajpat nagar homes are wrapped around a series of rectangular parks that overlap at the corners, forming some interesting street spaces).
we were happily tripping along, joking about this and that, when suddenly, i found myself walking through somebody's house...yes, you read that right...through someone's house!!! through his living room/parlour, to be precise! with the owner (presumably) happily sitting there, reading a newspaper, completely oblivious to the fact that four complete strangers (well, i didn't know the man from adam, so i assume that the feeling was mutual) had just walked through his property!!
i wonder if allowing your house to be used as a thoroughfare is common practice in this area or if it was simply this particular gentleman's generosity towards pedestrians? i think Indians in general have a very relaxed sense of what is personal and what is public when it comes to street space. At least that's the way it was in traditional Indian settlements, where the street flowed seamlessly into homes through the otla (a kind of half-raised public platform that connected the home's threshold to the street, where activities like cutting veggies, oiling hair and gossiping were happily performed in full public gaze!).
however, on a cynical note, i suspect that there were no generous motives behind this particular incident, but rather that the man had encroached his house onto the 45 degree street corner junction, which of course, is public property. after some friendly neighbourhood slanging matches, this lovely compromise must have ensued, that he gets to use the space, as long as he welcomes all and sundry to walk through his parlour!
11.4.05
back for good
returning to blogging after a long, long hiatus...promising to stay.
