What does it mean to be an effective altruist? A fascinating podcast interview has the answer

We are (mostly) happy to help people who are less fortunate than we are, provided it doesn't cost us too much in terms of time, effort, and money.

So how do you account for people who go out of their way to provide succour to those in need, no matter what it costs them in terms of time, effort, and money?

That was the subject of a fascinating Bookworm podcast discussion between host Michael Silverblatt and New Yorker staff writer Larissa MacFarquhar, which I was privileged to listen to recently.

I was so impressed I not only ordered MacFarquhar's book, which focuses on what she calls "effective altruism"; I also urged my students to listen to the interview and submit their impressions in a short article afterwards. "There is no word limit," I told them, "but there are two conditions: You must use your imagination and you must make it interesting to read."

Out of the 30 or so submissions, I found Shreya Roy's write-up to be exceptional, so here it is for your reading pleasure:

LIFE IN THEIR SHOES

Life. What is this life we are living? Have you ever taken a minute out of your life to think about life? By that I mean taking the time out of your busy schedule to think about the lives of others out there and not your own.

SHREYA ROY

Just one minute. That’s all it takes.

Unfortunately we all know the answer to that question. We don’t! And why would we want to think about other people’s lives anyway. We are so busy struggling with our own we never think about what others are going through in life. We complain over and over again. Unfortunately, life isn’t a bed of roses.

There is just one word to define us individuals. Selfish.

Yes, that’s right. We are selfish human beings. All we think about is ‘I’ rather than ‘you’. We always see life from our own perspective rather than someone else’s.

Take a moment to think about what it would be to like to live the life of someone who has never seen her own mother or father. How would her life be different from that of yours? Does she even get 1% of the love that you get? What are her feelings? What goes through her mind every second of the day? Put yourself in her shoes for once.

Fortunately (and unfortunately for some of us), there are certain people in this life who care more about others than about themselves. They care about being effective irrespective of what others think of them. They are extremists in their own way of life and would go to any extent to help the needy, give them the love they deserve. These especially good Samaritans are the focus of Larissa MacFarquhar's first book, Strangers Drowning: Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help.

Strangers Drowning talks about many different kinds of people who have committed themselves to helping others in an extreme way. It’s more to do with "effective altruism", which is so rare to find these days.

And it is these altruists who make a difference in this world. They see things from a different perspective. Why? Because that is what gives them a reason to live. To serve society this way. They feel if they can have the means to buy branded clothes, why can’t they use the same amount of money to save a life? Precisely why MacFarquhar has included in her book the story of an American couple who adopt two children in distress. But then they think: If they can change two lives, why not four? Or ten? They adopt 20. But how do they weigh the needs of unknown children in distress against the needs of the children they already have?

It is interesting that MacFarquhar would never put herself in the category of the people she is writing about. She doesn’t believe in being an altruist herself, precisely why, she says, she became a writer. The fact that she put herself out there to find out more about what drives such people itself is praiseworthy. Not only does MacFarquhar put herself in their shoes but she also tries to explain what true effective altruism is all about.

Strangers Drowning showcases a world of strangers drowning in need and the different ways by which these do-gooders help to make their world a better place.

Moreover, is it right to care for strangers even at the expense of those we are closest to? Strangers Drowning challenges us to think about what we value most, and why.

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Now that you have read Shreya's well-articulated thoughts on the podcast interview, surely you will want to listen in on that absorbing conversation between Michael Silverblatt and Larissa MacFarquhar? Yes? Just head on over to the Bookworm website — click here.

• To learn more about the gifted host of Bookworm, read this interview. You can also learn what things to avoid when conducting an interview.
• And to learn more about Larissa MacFarquhar, check out this interview in The Guardian.

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ALSO READ:

• Back in May last year, Shreya Roy had written a post for The Commits Chronicle about why she was glad she was joining Commits. Read her piece here.

• Thank you, Commits, say our MMC students

What is it that makes life endurable?

"...we all require devotion to something more than ourselves for our lives to be endurable. Without it, we have only our desires to guide us, and they are fleeting, capricious, and insatiable. They provide, ultimately, only torment."

~ Harvard philosopher Josiah Royce, quoted in a fascinating book I bought for myself recently, Atul Gawande's Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

• Want to know more about the book? Check out this review.

The joy of being greeted by your student on World Book Day!

I was delighted to receive this e-mail from Sharanya Shivakumar (Class of 2017) this morning:

Almost immediately I sent her my reply:

Happy World Book Day to you too, Sharanya. I can't tell you how happy I am to receive this e-mail from you. :-)

Of course, I have read Kane and Abel. It was first published in 1979, so I think I must have picked it up in my final year of college. I'm sure I liked it, because I was a huge Archer fan at the time, but I have read a few thousand books since, so I am not sure now exactly what I felt when I put it down for the last time.

You finished it in three days? Wow! I am impressed.

My favourite book? Rabid book-lovers can never have a favourite book. I can, if I put my mind to it, name a few hundred which I absolutely enjoyed reading. :-)

Right now I'm re-reading Wolf Hall. I first read it a few years ago (and even purchased a copy for the college library) and I thought it was a magnificent portrayal of Thomas Cromwell, the man who worked behind the scenes for Henry VIII (he of the six-wives fame!). I love books dealing with history — fiction as well as non-fiction — and I am re-reading this one because my wife and I have been watching The Tudors on Netflix.

Wolf Hall has been made into a TV mini-series. Sushant has downloaded it for me and I'm looking forward to watching the book come alive on the small screen.

At the moment, I am on Page 463 — only about 200 pages to go. After I am done, I'm going to re-read the sequel, Bring Up the Bodies. (Both books are so, so good, author Hilary Mantel was honoured with the Booker Prize. She is the first woman and the first living British author to win the prestigious literary prize twice.) And now I'm waiting for the last book in the trilogy, The Mirror and the Light. I am hoping it will be published this year.

Oh-oh. When I get started on reading and books, I don't seem to stop, right? :-) *Stops typing now*

I am bcc'ing this to your classmates for their edification. :-)

Cheers,

RP

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ALSO READ: Good readers make good media professionals

A kindred spirit! As my friends and students know, I, too, can't read only one book at a time

Here is a relevant excerpt from Jerry Pinto's column in the latest issue of The Week:

Now that it is the end of the year, I thought I should do an audit of how many books I am reading simultaneously. So I went through the house — not a difficult task to do in a small Mumbai flat — and listed every book of which I had read more than 20 per cent. When I was done, I found I was reading 30 books at the same time. This does not count Marcel Proust — I am in the middle of The Captive The Fugitive — which I have been reading four pages at a time for the last two years.

He is reading 30 books at the same time! I am not so bad, rather, good. According to my Goodreads feed (above), I am reading 10 books currently. (Actually, the number is 11 — two days ago I began reading Sarasvatichandra, by Govardhanram Madhavram Tripathi. But the book is so new, it does not figure yet on Goodreads.)

Here you can read Jerry Pinto's column in its entirety: "Strange Encounters".

"The last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's way"

Some years ago, I read an eyeopener of a book titled Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl. I found it to be so inspirational I bought two copies for the Commits library. Today, while rearranging the books on the shelf in my cabin, I happened to pick it up again.

I remember being struck by one particular passage and I went hunting for it again:

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's way.

And here, in an excerpt from the preface, is Frankl's take on success and happiness:

And so it is both strange and remarkable to me that — among some dozens of books I have authored — precisely this one, which I had intended to be published anonymously so that it could never build up any reputation on the part of the author, did become a success. Again and again I therefore admonish my students:

"Don't aim at success — the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run — in the long run, I say! — success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it."

Here you can read the New York Times obituary of Viktor Frankl to learn more about the remarkable man and his little book that, at the time of his death in 1997, had been reprinted 73 times, translated into 24 languages, sold more than 10 million copies and was still being used as a text in high schools and universities: Psychiatrist of the Search for Meaning, Dies at 92.

• ALSO READ: There's more to life than being happy

Media Matters-10: What to read, especially if you want to understand the media (Second and final part of a two-part series)

This was published on the Education Page of Dubai's Khaleej Times today:

WHAT TO READ, ESPECIALLY IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND THE MEDIA-2

This is the second and final part of a two-part series

By Ramesh Prabhu

In “Media Matters” on February 24, I introduced you to Krishna Prasad, the editor in chief of Outlook, and his list of recommended reads. In that column we covered two categories: “Fiction” as well as “Style and Writing Guides”. Today we will cover the remaining five categories.

I have had to trim the original list for reasons of space, as well as to add some books which I have found to be especially useful and some books which became available only recently. My choices are marked by the prefix “RP”. If you would like to go through the list Krishna Prasad gave me, here’s the link: What To Read.

COMPILATIONS
The best way of learning journalism is to think and act like a journalist. And one sure way of doing so is to find time to go through some of the compilations of great journalism. Not only will you get an idea of what was done by journalists before you, but you also get to read and update your knowledge about events, people, and places in history.

1. The Faber Book of Reportage, edited by John Carey
2. The Granta Book of Reportage
3. The New Journalism, edited by Tom Wolfe and E.W. Johnson
4. The Penguin Book of Columnists
5. (RP) Making News, Breaking News, Her Own Way: Stories by Winners of the Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Women Mediapersons, edited by Lathika Padgaonkar and Shubha Singh
6. (RP) The Paris Review Interviews, Vols I, II, III
7. (RP) Global Muckraking: 100 Years of Investigative Journalism from Around the World, edited by Anya Schiffrin
8. (RP) The Best American Magazine Writing 2014, edited by Sid Holt for the American Society of Magazine Editors
9. (RP) Journalistas: 100 Years of the Best Writing and Reporting by Women Journalists, edited by Eleanor Mills and Kira Cochrane
10. (RP) Deadline Artists: America's Greatest Newspaper Columns, edited by John Avlon, Jesse Angelo, and Errol Louis
11. (RP) Time: 85 Years of Great Writing, edited by Christopher Porterfield
12. (RP) Telling True Stories, edited by Mark Kramer and Wendy Call
13. (RP) Writing a Nation: An Anthology of Indian Journalism, edited by Nirmala Lakshman
14. (RP) Breaking the Big Story: Great Moments in Indian Journalism, edited by B.G. Verghese
25. (RP) Foreign Correspondent: Fifty Years of Reporting on South Asia, edited by Simon Denyer, John Elliott, and Bernard Imhasly
  
MEMOIRS
This is a sure-shot way of learning how journalism works and how journalists work. The very best people in the business have put it all down on a platter for young journalists and you would be foolish not to partake of a great feast.

1. A Good Life, by Ben Bradlee, the executive editor who turned The Washington Post around
2. Good Times, Bad Times, by Harold Evans, the pioneering editor of The Sunday Times
3. A Personal History, by Katherine Graham, the publisher who oversaw the Watergate exposé
4. (RP) Lucknow Boy, by Vinod Mehta
5. (RP) Editor Unplugged, by Vinod Mehta
6. (RP) News from No Man’s Land, by John Simpson, the famed BBC TV journalist
7. (RP) Remembering Mr Shawn’s New Yorker: The Invisible Art of Editing, by Ved Mehta
8. (RP) Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival, by Anderson Cooper of CNN

BIOGRAPHIES
Another great way of learning more about our business. There are two you must try to read. The first is Paper Tigers, by Nicholas Coleridge, in which he profiles some of the world’s great publishers, including three from India: Samir Jain of The Times of India, Aveek Sarkar of the Ananda Bazaar Patrika group, and Ramnath Goenka, the feisty founder of The Indian Express. And the second is my all-time favourite: The Years with Ross, by James Thurber, in which he profiles the eccentric founder-editor of The New Yorker, Harold Ross.

COLLECTIONS
Most great journalists have published collections of their stand-out work. And the books by some of the very best are always at my bedside.

1. Essays, by George Orwell, unquestionably the most vibrant columnist of the 20th century
2. The Best of Plimpton, by George Plimpton, the pioneer of participatory journalism
3. (RP) Frank Sinatra Has a Cold and Other Essays, by Gay Talese
4. (RP) Interviews with History and Power, by Oriana Fallaci
5. (RP) Anticipating India, by Shekhar Gupta, former editor of The Indian Express
6. (RP) Journalism, by Joe Sacco, the pioneer of comics journalism

CLASSICS
Some books by journalists have become classics: Hiroshima, by John Hersey, a sterling account of the victims of the nuclear bombing; In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote, a reconstruction of a serial killing in Kansas; The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, on the horrific conditions in the American meat packing industry. But my own personal favourite is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson, a drugged-out, tripped-out modern classic by the Father of Gonzo Journalism.

 (RP) My must-reads in this category:
1. All the President’s Men: The Greatest Reporting Story of all Time, by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
2. Heat and Light: Advice for the Next Generation of Journalists, by Mike Wallace and Beth Knobel
3. Hard News, by Seth Mnookin
4. Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories from India’s Poorest Districts, by P. Sainath
5. Page One: Inside the New York Times and the Future of Journalism, edited by David Folkenflik

THINK ABOUT IT: “A reporter's life, by God, it’s an absolutely wonderful life. Somebody’s paying the bill to educate you — to send you around the world, if you prove worthy.” — Legendary American TV news anchor Mike Wallace

·        Ramesh Prabhu is professor of journalism at Commits Institute of Journalism & Mass Communication, Bangalore. Commits offers a full-time two-year MA degree course.

·        “Media Matters” welcomes questions from readers who would like to know more about careers in journalism. Please send in your queries to education@khaleejtimes.com.

ALSO READ:

• There is no job like journalism (Media Matters-1)
• Can anyone become a journalist? (Media Matters-2)
• What you must do to become a journalist (Media Matters-3)
• Why we became journalists: First part of a three-part series (Media Matters-4)
• Why we became journalists: Second part of a three-part series (Media Matters-5)
• Why we became journalists: Final part of a three-part series (Media Matters-6)
• Good readers make good media professionals (Media Matters-7)
• Reading non-fiction pays huge dividends (Media Matters-8) 
• What to read, especially if you want to understand the media: First part of a two-part series (Media Matters-9)

ADDITIONAL READING:

• Outlook's peerless issue on the Indian media crisis

Media Matters-9: What to read, especially if you want to understand the media (First part of a two-part series)

This was published on the Education Page of Dubai's Khaleej Times today:

WHAT TO READ, ESPECIALLY IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND THE MEDIA-I

By Ramesh Prabhu

I have been fortunate over the years to have met and worked with many enterprising journalists. None, to my mind, is more enterprising than Krishna Prasad.

I was first introduced to Krishna Prasad, or KP as he is universally known, sometime in 2001 in Bengaluru. The media company I was working with at the time had hired him to come up with a template for the technology and business daily that was to be launched later that year. KP not only designed a classy tabloid; he also trained the journalists who had been recruited to produce it.

KP, who has been hailed as one of India’s finest young journalists, is today at the top of his game as editor in chief of Outlook, the weekly newsmagazine founded by his mentor, Vinod Mehta.

I am particularly pleased to have made KP’s acquaintance because, like me, he also believes you are what you read. And he is also clear on the point that reading is a vital factor in the success of a media professional.

Many years ago, KP had come to Commits for an interactive session with our students. (He has also been a speaker at the college’s annual seminar.) Afterwards, for our students’ benefit, he graciously handed over to me his recommended reading list, which, in the interests of serving a wider audience, I have reproduced below (the comments introducing each category are by KP) with his consent.

I have had to trim the original list for reasons of space, as well as to add some books which I have found to be especially useful and some books which became available only recently. My choices are marked by the prefix “RP”. If you would like to go through the list KP gave me, here’s the link: What To Read.

Here then, in a two-part feature, are the books you must read – especially if you want to understand the media.

FICTION
Like the movie Citizen Kane (which is the fictionalised account of the life and times of the publisher William Randolph Hearst), one of the all-time great novels is also built on journalism: Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop. But here are a few other works of fiction centered around journalism:

1. Psmith Journalist, by P.G. Wodehouse
2. Fourth Estate, by Jeffrey Archer (a veiled story of Rupert Murdoch)
3. Pelican Brief, by John Grisham
4. (RP) Towards the End of the Morning, by Michael Frayn
5. (RP) Broken News, Amrita Tripathi
6. (RP) The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman
7. (RP) Bunker 13, by Aniruddha Bahal

WALKING THE TALK: Outlook editor in chief Krishna Prasad, who was a speaker at the annual Commits seminar in February 2010, is a book-lover at heart.

STYLE AND WRITING GUIDES
For those who love words and the use of language,there can be nothing more gripping than reading “style sheets”: these are the in-house guides and manuals that newspapers and magazines use to achieve uniformity and standardisation. The Economist Style Guide is universally regarded as the best and most entertaining, but there are a few others that you might like to read.

(RP) It is impossible to overestimate the importance of learning how to write well by following the tips and advice of those who have been there, done that. And since grammar and punctuation have a vital role to play in good writing, you should read books that will help you on that front, too.

1. The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White
2. The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage
3. On Writing Well, by William Zinsser
4. (RP) How to Write Short: Word Craft for Fast Times, by Roy Peter Clark
5. (RP) The English Language: A User's Guide, by Jack Lynch
6. (RP) Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer, by Roy Peter Clark
7. (RP) The Art and Craft of Feature Writing: Based on The Wall Street Journal Guide, by William E. Blundell
8. (RP) 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing, by Gary Provost
9. (RP) The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English, by Roy Peter Clark
10. (RP) On Writing, by Stephen King

• In the next installment of “Media Matters”: The second and final part of “The books you must read if you want to understand the media”

THINK ABOUT IT: “Why did you become a journalist?”
“Better than working for a living.”
― Leslie Cockburn, Baghdad Solitaire

·        Ramesh Prabhu is professor of journalism at Commits Institute of Journalism & Mass Communication, Bangalore. Commits offers a full-time two-year MA degree course.

·        “Media Matters” welcomes questions from readers who would like to know more about careers in journalism. Please send in your queries to education@khaleejtimes.com.

ALSO READ:

• There is no job like journalism (Media Matters-1)
• Can anyone become a journalist? (Media Matters-2)
• What you must do to become a journalist (Media Matters-3)
• Why we became journalists: First part of a three-part series (Media Matters-4)
• Why we became journalists: Second part of a three-part series (Media Matters-5)
• Why we became journalists: Final part of a three-part series (Media Matters-6)
• Good readers make good media professionals (Media Matters-7)
• Reading non-fiction pays huge dividends (Media Matters-8)

ADDITIONAL READING:

• Outlook's peerless issue on the Indian media crisis

"100 books that can change your life": A magnificent issue from Outlook

I have read 35 out of the 100 featured here. What about you? How many have you read?

Check out the full list, and other fascinating feature articles, here: "100 books that can change your life".

And, afterwards, learn about the book that should have been on the Outlook list but isn't: "Reading this book will change your approach to life".

Why I will be buying a copy of Vinod Mehta's new book for the college library

Excerpts from an interview with Vinod Mehta in Mint last week:

Your new book is about your years with Outlook?

No, some portions are about the magazine. There’s one chapter on Ratan Tata. Outlook had problems with him. He filed a court case following our cover story on Radia tapes (controversy). There’s a chapter on Narendra Modi and a long one on the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. I once met Rahul Gandhi at a party at BJD (Biju Janata Dal) MP Jay Panda’s house. He was drinking Club Soda. When I told him to have some wine, he said so emphatically, “I don’t drink.” He repeated to make sure that I heard it. On another occasion, about a year ago, I found him sitting next to me. He asked me about work. I told him the famous saying that journalists, like harlots, enjoy power without responsibility, explaining my new position in the magazine. It was a little joke but he immediately pounced on that and said there’s no such thing like power without responsibility. That was lovely.

Do you have any equation with Narendra Modi?

Mr Modi and I have a very strange relationship, if I can call it that. There’s a defamation case against me in Ahmedabad that he had instituted about 10 years ago (as Gujarat’s chief minister) and it is still alive. It concerned a minister in his then cabinet called Haren Pandya, who was murdered... You see Mr Modi doesn’t interact with anybody. He has no social life, no kitchen cabinet. There’s a coterie of journalists who are very sympathetic to him, but they all are very upset at the moment because they haven’t been rewarded. Who are these journalists? I can go so far as to tell you that one of these journalists was desperately trying to become the Indian high commissioner in Britain. Mr Modi’s staunch defender, he is a very sober, moderate sort of a person, but on Modi, if you know from TV debates, he goes berserk and loses all sense of proportion. There’s another editor who had done Mr Modi’s party a great service and who runs a newspaper, but he is suddenly out of favour. He is feeling very bad. His close buddies tell me that there’s nothing he could do. Mr Modi either likes you or he doesn’t like you. There’s no convincing him to change his view. Once he doesn’t like you, you are finished.

Some people say that your magazine’s owner kicked you upstairs to the new post.

There may be some truth. The fallout of the Radia tapes (cover story) cost us in terms of ads from companies. Any proprietor would be worried by that. I had been editing the magazine for 17 years when the owner suggested the new position. I jumped at the offer. My wife had also been telling me that I was not doing anything, just slogging. I was not writing, just looking at pages and getting the designs supervised. I was ready to move on.

• Read the interview in its entirety here: "I don’t appear on Arnab Goswami’s Pakistan debates: Vinod Mehta".

• ALSO READ: If you want to understand journalism as it is practised in India today, its joys and its pitfalls, I can recommend no better book than Vinod Mehta's Lucknow Boy : A Memoir.

• Photo courtesy: Ramesh Pathania/Mint

Your new book is about your years with Outlook? No, some portions are about the magazine. There’s one chapter on Ratan Tata. Outlook had problems with him. He filed a court case following our cover story on Radia tapes (controversy). There’s a chapter on Narendra Modi and a long one on the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. I once met Rahul Gandhi at a party at BJD (Biju Janata Dal) MP Jay Panda’s house. He was drinking Club Soda. When I told him to have some wine, he said so emphatically, “I don’t drink.” He repeated to make sure that I heard it. On another occasion, about a year ago, I found him sitting next to me. He asked me about work. I told him the famous saying that journalists, like harlots, enjoy power without responsibility, explaining my new position in the magazine. It was a little joke but he immediately pounced on that and said there’s no such thing like power without responsibility. That was lovely. Do you have any equation with Narendra Modi? Mr Modi and I have a very strange relationship, if I can call it that. There’s a defamation case against me in Ahmedabad that he had instituted about 10 years ago (as Gujarat’s chief minister) and it is still alive. It concerned a minister in his then cabinet called Haren Pandya, who was murdered... You see Mr Modi doesn’t interact with anybody. He has no social life, no kitchen cabinet. There’s a coterie of journalists who are very sympathetic to him, but they all are very upset at the moment because they haven’t been rewarded. Who are these journalists? I can go so far as to tell you that one of these journalists was desperately trying to become the Indian high commissioner in Britain. Mr Modi’s staunch defender, he is a very sober, moderate sort of a person, but on Modi, if you know from TV debates, he goes berserk and loses all sense of proportion. There’s another editor who had done Mr Modi’s party a great service and who runs a newspaper, but he is suddenly out of favour. He is feeling very bad. His close buddies tell me that there’s nothing he could do. Mr Modi either likes you or he doesn’t like you. There’s no convincing him to change his view. Once he doesn’t like you, you are finished. Some people say that your magazine’s owner kicked you upstairs to the new post. There may be some truth. The fallout of the Radia tapes (cover story) cost us in terms of ads from companies. Any proprietor would be worried by that. I had been editing the magazine for 17 years when the owner suggested the new position. I jumped at the offer. My wife had also been telling me that I was not doing anything, just slogging. I was not writing, just looking at pages and getting the designs supervised. I was ready to move on.

Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Politics/FZQyvFsoQvz7gLuYXbVf7N/I-dont-appear-on-Arnab-Goswamis-Pakistan-debates-Vinod-Me.html?utm_source=copy

Your new book is about your years with Outlook? No, some portions are about the magazine. There’s one chapter on Ratan Tata. Outlook had problems with him. He filed a court case following our cover story on Radia tapes (controversy). There’s a chapter on Narendra Modi and a long one on the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. I once met Rahul Gandhi at a party at BJD (Biju Janata Dal) MP Jay Panda’s house. He was drinking Club Soda. When I told him to have some wine, he said so emphatically, “I don’t drink.” He repeated to make sure that I heard it. On another occasion, about a year ago, I found him sitting next to me. He asked me about work. I told him the famous saying that journalists, like harlots, enjoy power without responsibility, explaining my new position in the magazine. It was a little joke but he immediately pounced on that and said there’s no such thing like power without responsibility. That was lovely. Do you have any equation with Narendra Modi? Mr Modi and I have a very strange relationship, if I can call it that. There’s a defamation case against me in Ahmedabad that he had instituted about 10 years ago (as Gujarat’s chief minister) and it is still alive. It concerned a minister in his then cabinet called Haren Pandya, who was murdered... You see Mr Modi doesn’t interact with anybody. He has no social life, no kitchen cabinet. There’s a coterie of journalists who are very sympathetic to him, but they all are very upset at the moment because they haven’t been rewarded. Who are these journalists? I can go so far as to tell you that one of these journalists was desperately trying to become the Indian high commissioner in Britain. Mr Modi’s staunch defender, he is a very sober, moderate sort of a person, but on Modi, if you know from TV debates, he goes berserk and loses all sense of proportion. There’s another editor who had done Mr Modi’s party a great service and who runs a newspaper, but he is suddenly out of favour. He is feeling very bad. His close buddies tell me that there’s nothing he could do. Mr Modi either likes you or he doesn’t like you. There’s no convincing him to change his view. Once he doesn’t like you, you are finished. Some people say that your magazine’s owner kicked you upstairs to the new post. There may be some truth. The fallout of the Radia tapes (cover story) cost us in terms of ads from companies. Any proprietor would be worried by that. I had been editing the magazine for 17 years when the owner suggested the new position. I jumped at the offer. My wife had also been telling me that I was not doing anything, just slogging. I was not writing, just looking at pages and getting the designs supervised. I was ready to move on.

Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Politics/FZQyvFsoQvz7gLuYXbVf7N/I-dont-appear-on-Arnab-Goswamis-Pakistan-debates-Vinod-Me.html?utm_source=copy

The best of journalistic virtues:

A.
Courage

Campaigning

Toughness

Compassion

Humour

Irreverence

B.

A serious engagement with serious things

C.

A sense of fairness

D.

An eye for injustice

E.

A passion for explaining

F.

Knowing how to achieve impact

G.

A connection with readers

• From Alan Rusbridger's essay, "Does Journalism Exist?", in a wonderful and fascinating book, Page One: Inside The New York Times and the Future of Journalism (edited by David Folkenflik), which puts journalism and one of the world's greatest newspapers front and centre. I have already placed a copy of the book in the Commits library. (Alan Rusbridger is the editor of the highly respected Guardian newspaper.)

• I have now ordered the documentary on which the book is based. Take a look at the list of awards and award nominations for the documentary here. And here is a riveting feature from Slate on David Carr, "the star of Page One", the documentary. (Carr has also contributed an essay, "Print Is Dead. Long Live The New York Times", to Page One, the book.)

• ALSO READ: "If you want to understand what journalism should be..."

How I know I am not alone in my fetish for books-2

[Though] I read at least a hundred books a year, and often twice that number, I always end up on New Year's Eve feeling I have accomplished nothing.

***

I have never squandered an opportunity to read. There are only twenty-four hours in the day, seven of which are spent sleeping, and in my view at least four of the remaining seventeen must be devoted to reading.

Of course, four hours a day does not provide me with nearly enough time to satisfy my appetites. A friend once told me that the real message Bram Stoker sought to convey in Dracula is that a human being needs to live hundreds and hundreds of years to get all his reading done; that Count Dracula, misunderstood bookworm, was draining blood from the porcelain-like necks of ten thousand hapless virgins not because he was the apotheosis of evil but because it was the only way he could live long enough to polish off his reading list.

If it were possible, I would read books eight to ten hours a day, every day of the year. Perhaps more. There is nothing I would rather do than read books. This is the way I have felt since I started borrowing books from a roving bookmobile at the tender age of seven. In the words of François Rabelais: I was born this way.

***

Until recently, I was not aware of how completely books dominate my physical existence.

Only when I started cataloguing my possessions did I realize that there are books in every room in my house, save for the bathrooms, and books in all three rooms in my office suite. ... Books are in my line of vision at all hours of the day and night.

***

JOE QUEENAN

With few exceptions, I write my name, the date of the purchase, and the city where the book was purchased on the inside flap of my books. If I have not written my name inside, it is because I have already decided that the book is not worth keeping.

***

I do not accept reading tips from strangers, especially from indecisive men whose shirt collars are a dramatically different colour from the main portion of the garment. I am particularly averse to being lent or given books by people I may like personally but whose taste in literature I have reason to suspect, and perhaps even fear.

I dread that awkward moment when a friend hands you the book that changed his or her life, and it is a book that you have despised since you were fourteen. People fixated on a particular book cannot get it through their heads that, no matter how much this book might mean to them, it is impossible to make someone else enjoy A Fan's Notes or The Sot-Weed Factor or The Little Prince or Dune, much less One Thousand and One Places You Must Visit Before You Meet the Six People You Would Least Expect to Bump into Heaven. Impossible. Not without assistance from the Stasi.

— From "Great Expectations", one of eight essays written by American journalist, critic, and essayist Joe Queenan and collected in One for the Books. (By the way, I am also the proud possessor of another of Queenan's marvellous collections, Confessions of a Cineplex Heckler.)

• ALSO READ: "How I know I am not alone in my fetish for books-1".

How I know I am not alone in my fetish for books-1

I plan to go as I have lived: with a book in my hands. And not just any book by anybody. No, if there's one writer who can ease aeronautical timor mortis [the author is flying from Washington, D.C., to Chicago], it's Dr Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, Plum to his friends, and the creator of Jeeves, Psmith, Madeline Bassett, Uncle Fred and a body of fiction that has brought more joy to readers than even the Kama Sutra of Vatsayana. When angels in heaven want a book to read, they buy a paperback of The Code of the Woosters, then lean back into a cloudbank and sigh with pleasure over sentences like these:

"He, too, seemed disinclined for chit-chat. We stood for some moments like a couple of Trappist monks who have run into each other by chance at the dog races."

"Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French."

"Years before, and romantic as most boys are, his lordship had sometimes regretted that the Emsworths, though an ancient clan, did not possess a Family Curse. How little he had suspected that he was shortly to become the father of it."

— From "Weekend with Wodehouse", one of 46 essays written by Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Michael Dirda for The Washington Post Book World and collected in Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments. Dirda was flying to Chicago to attend a convention of the P.G. Wodehouse Society. (By the way, I am also the proud possessor of another of Dirda's fine collections, Classics for Pleasure.)

• Also read: "Why you must read".

• ADDITIONAL READING: "P.G. WODEHOUSE'S ART OF THE COMMA".

I don't think I knew that poetry could be so... raw (and I was reading this over breakfast)

And Lord did I push, for three more hours
I pushed, I pushed so hard I shat,
Pushed so hard blood vessels burst
in my neck and in my chest, pushed so hard
my asshole turned inside out like a rosebud...

That is American poet Beth Ann Fennelly describing her daughter's birth in "Bite Me", the first poem in her collection, Tender Hooks.

And how did I happen to read this passage? I came across it this morning in Stuff I've Been Reading, by Nick Hornby, the celebrated author of About a Boy (which became a movie starring Hugh Grant), High Fidelity, and other works of fiction and non-fiction.

Hornby writes, by way of explanation, that he had met both mother and daughter briefly during a visit to Oxford, Mississippi, and "both of them seemed like the kind of people that one would like to know better". And then, a few days later, he read "Bite Me".

Hornby continues:

So I ended up feeling as though I knew them both better anyway — indeed, I can think of one or two of my stuffier compatriots who'd argue that I now know more than I need to know. (Is now the appropriate time, incidentally, to point out the main advantage of adoption?) If I had never met mother or daughter, then these lines would have made me wince, of course, but I doubt if they would have made me blush in quite the same way; maybe one should know poets either extremely well or not at all.

Stuff I've Been Reading is full of such unexpected insights and witty observations concerning books and authors, and, yes, poetry collections and poets. The writing is so smart that even the digressions into Nick Hornby's other obsession, football (and his favourite team Arsenal), are a delight to read.

• Stuff I've Been Reading had been lying on my corner table along with other books that had been delivered recently by Amazon. Since I'm already reading a few other novels and non-fiction books, I put off opening Stuff I've Been Reading with great reluctance, but today seemed like a good day to delve into it. And the rewards were immediate. I call it instant gratification.

• Nick Hornby writes a monthly column, in The Believer magazine, called "Stuff I've Been Reading". The book of the same name is a collection of those columns over the years. You can read an excerpt from the most recent column here.

• ALSO READ: "A serious attempt to give poetry the space it deserves"

Wondering which book to read next?

Bookish can help with some great recommendations.

All you have to do is visit the website and, in the dialog box on the home page, key in the name of a book — it can be something you have read, for instance, or a book you are reading now. Automatically, you get personalised recommendations based on, according to Bookish, the insights of editors and other book experts, plus various book characteristics that include their subjects, the awards they've won, and their authors' writing styles.

For instance, when I typed "The Lowland", Jhumpa Lahiri's Booker-nominated novel, here's what Bookish came up with:

Try it out yourself. If you're a booklover, it's not only fun; it will also lead to some serendipitous discoveries.

• Bookish lets you read samples, too, and currently you can also check out the guide to the best new books expected to be launched this fall. 

• How did I happen to come upon Bookish? It was all thanks to Jeremy Greenfield's post on Forbes: "The Best Way To Find The Next Book You Want To Read". Also on Forbes: "Best-Selling Novels the Critics Hated".

• By the way, if you love to peruse book lists, A List of Books has 13 "Top 100 Books" lists combined and condensed into one master list — 623 books in all. Check it out here.

Author Mohsin Hamid on the difference between a novelist and a filmmaker

An excerpt from an engrossing book I have just finished reading:

As a novelist, I found it fascinating to watch a film being made. In many ways, Mira does what I do as a novelist — construct and painstakingly craft a story.

But she also does things I don't have to, like marshal 230 people for weeks on end. What I can do in a sentence or a paragraph, she has to build an entire set to do, and she needs carpenters, electricians and painters to do it.

I operate in a pleasant little cocoon, just me and my computer, quietly working away. She has to create this beautiful, impactful thing in complete chaos, with phones ringing, last-minute problems developing, traffic violations, electricity shortages — all kinds of crazy stuff.

I am much more appreciative now of how difficult it is to make a good film.

• Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, in his short essay in Mira Nair's The Reluctant Fundamentalist: From Book to Film

To read a review of The Reluctant Fundamentalist (the book) written by Commits student Rigved Sarkar (Class of 2010) for the college newspaper, visit the Commits website: "Musings of a man changed (http://commits.edu.in/aug/six.html)".

To read a review of the film by New York Times critic Manohla Dargis, click on this link: "Dreams Are Lost in the Melting Pot". The New York Times also has an interview with Mira Nair.

• In addition, you should visit Mohsin Hamid's home page to learn more about the novelist (his latest best-seller is How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia).

If you read only one book this year, let it be this one

Back in August last year I had published a post about an inspirational book I had just finished reading.

I was so impressed with the thoughtful advice — and thought-provoking ideas — offered by Clayton M. Christensen and his co-authors in How Will You Measure Your Life? that I wanted everyone I know, especially my students, to read it. (That post — "Reading this book will change your approach to life" — continues to be among the most popular on this blog.)

Recently, I was asked to review the book for the August-September 2013 issue of Books & More.

Here is the review (based partly on my original post) in its entirety:

A life changer

Book: How Will You Measure Your Life?: Finding Fulfillment
Using Lessons from Some of the World’s Greatest Businesses
Authors: Clayton M. Christensen, with James Allworth and Karen Dillon
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 206
Price: Rs. 299 (Flipkart)

IT IS RARE to find two people separated by some forty years in age raving about the same book.

When I wrote about How Will You Measure Your Life? on my blog some time ago, one of my students, Archita Nadgouda, who is in her twenties, wrote to say, “I cannot thank you enough for recommending this book to us! This was just the book I needed at this point of time when I’m embarking on a new relationship and planning a new career.” A few days later, Patrick Michael, executive editor of Dubai’s Khaleej Times who will soon be turning 60, posted his comments: “This is a must-read book for all, especially those starting out in life.”

On second thought, however, I am not surprised that both Archita and Patrick were entranced by what How Will You Measure Your Life? has to offer.

Like me — and like you — they must have asked themselves these universal questions many times over the years:

• How can I be sure that I will find satisfaction in my career?
• How can I be sure that my personal relationships become enduring sources of happiness?
• How can I avoid compromising my integrity?

Unbelievable as it sounds, How Will You Measure Your Life? not only provides the answers to these questions but also explains, with the help of real-life examples, how we can find fulfillment.

Slim in size but big on ideas, this book does not claim to offer simplistic answers. Instead, as in the introductory chapter, it provides insightful illustrations of how the theories this book propounds can help us in our lives. We first learn that people often think that the best way to predict the future is by collecting as much data as possible before making a decision. “But this,” the authors tell us, “is like driving a car looking only at the rear-view mirror — because data is only available about the past.”

The authors then explain why experience and information by themselves are not enough: “There are many times in life where we simply cannot afford to learn on the job.… This is why theory can be so valuable: it can explain what will happen, even before you experience it.”

Then, in the first section titled “How to Find Happiness in Your Career”, the authors examine what it is that really makes us tick, and follow it up with an enlightening debate on "incentive" versus "motivation". By the time we are through with this section, we understand clearly why motivation trumps financial incentive every time.

Section 2 deals with "Finding Happiness in Your Relationships". Too few of us seem to have understood that there is much more to life than our career. That is why we focus a great deal on becoming the person we want to be at work — and far too little on the person we want to be at home. We indulge in this self-destructive behaviour because, the book tells us, investing our time and energy in “raising wonderful children or deepening our love with our spouse often doesn't return clear evidence of success for many years”. Consequently, we over-invest in our careers, and under-invest in our families. What is the danger here? If we don’t nurture and develop those relationships, the book warns us, our family won’t be there to support us if we find ourselves traversing some of the more challenging stretches of life, or as one of the most important sources of happiness in our life.

The third and final section, which happens to be the shortest, is devoted to the topic of living a life of integrity. Titled "Staying Out of Jail" (how appropriate), this section explores a theory that, the authors say, will help you answer your final question: How can I be sure I live a life of integrity?

And, finally, here's a quote from the book that should motivate you to grab hold of a copy right away:

It is frightfully easy for us to lose our sense of the difference between what brings money and what causes happiness.

If you read only one book this year, let it be this one. Especially if you are young and have embarked, or are about to embark, on a career and a relationship.