Is philanthro-journalism the way forward?

An excerpt from a well-researched, thought-provoking feature in a recent issue of The Economist:

Readers and advertisers have switched to the internet. Profit margins have shrunk or vanished. Papers are dying and journalists being sacked. Costly foreign and investigative reporting has been particularly squeezed, as has local news. One increasingly popular — if limited — response to these travails is the sort of “philanthro-journalism” long practised elsewhere...

Read the article in its entirety here: "Reporters without orders".

Also read, in the same issue, "Non-news is good news" (The threat of the internet has forced magazines to get smarter).

Prakash and Mandakini Amte: The most inspirational story I have read in years

An e-mail I had sent out to my students, friends, and relatives in September 2009 (I did not have my own blog at the time):

Prakash and Mandakini Amte tend to a skeletal inmate at Hemalkasa.

In 2008, Prakash Amte and his wife, Mandakini, were given the Magsaysay award for service to humanity. (Twenty-three years previously, Prakash's father, the legendary Baba Amte, had received the same award.)

Our newspapers (mostly) carried the announcement prominently and the weekly magazines published some positive features. But it's Tehelka that put Prakash Amte and his achievement on the cover (August 23, 2009) and it's Tehelka that has devoted the most space to the Amtes and their super-human efforts to help some of the most under-privileged of India's under-privileged people.

The magazine also has some splendid photographs (the online edition has very few): pictures showing the work done for the Madia Gond tribals of Maharashtra; pictures that speak of the sacrifices that have been made willingly, of the tough lives that have been led, again willingly.

Prakash Amte with an orphaned leopard in his backyard.

In the magazine, there are also photographs of Prakash Amte with his menagerie of orphaned animals, one showing him frolicking with a hyena with his grandson by his side, another showing him holding a baby monkey.

Here is a telling extract:

Ask him [Prakash Amte] what kept him in Hemalkasa through all this, though, and his response is instinctive and quick. "Manda's companionship — and the people's faith. That is what keeps us here. I have never seen such tolerance for pain. They come to us from a radius of 200 kilometres, we try to help them. Sometimes when I cut their wounds, the pus sprays onto my face and body. We never had gloves but it never mattered. When I watch their wounds — black, poisonous, foul-smelling — slowly turning red and healthy, that is my reward."

And here is another:

A severely wheezing bare-breasted woman is slowly stopping to gasp. She had just raced past us at the river, perched on a motorcycle between two men. Now the generator has been put on, a nebuliser is breathing gentle breath into her.

In the open air shed a short distance away, Prakash and Manda dress an amputated foot. The patient — an old man — lies stoically on the hard floor; he does not want a hospital bed. A wood-fire smoulders near him. A few feet away, a ragged skeleton is recovering from tuberculosis next to a toddler with kidney failure. 

All of this would make an urban doctor faint, but in truth, it speaks of daily miracles over three decades. It speaks of lives saved without elaborate investigations or prophylactics. It speaks of urgent operations under torchlight, of emergency deliveries and complicated cataracts executed on the run with a textbook on the side.

And an excerpt that speaks of Prakash Amte's strength of character:

Four years ago, while showing a poisonous Russel's viper to a visitor, Prakash was momentarily distracted and it emptied its fangs into him. But nothing can perturb him, his children vouch: he always exudes a quiet, unflappable dignity in a crisis. He is the shade tree you take for granted, until it is cut down.

Now, instead of flinging the snake from him, he gently extricated it and put it back in its cage before walking towards Manda in the clinic. She, always the fit partner, the shadow he leans on, did not panic either.

On his way back to the house while she got the antidote ready, Prakash collapsed at the threshold and his blood pressure dropped to zero. A long hot drive took him to Nagpur; ten excruciating days followed. His body swelled like a balloon, blistering in a hundred places. Not once did he complain.

Both husband and wife — still visibly and palpably in love — have this understated sturdiness about them. Not for them the glib sentence, the worldly pitch. Instead, you sense the close workings of Nature in them, a kind of wise acceptance born of daily grappling with life and death.

"One good thing came of the snake bite," Gopal Phadnis, headmaster and co-traveller at Hemalkasa, laughs. "Prakash was never a talker, but he began to talk more after the bite."

To read the full story go to "The Quiet Soldiers of Compassion".

Better still, try to get hold of a copy of the magazine so that you can experience what I experienced when I read this awe-inspiring story: My head began spinning, I felt the hairs on my arms rising, and I kept asking myself: Are the Amtes flesh-and-blood like the rest of us?

CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME: Prakash Amte and his family in Hemalkasa.

After reading this article again today, March 21, 2012, I must reiterate that this heartwarming feature by Shoma Chaudhury remains the most inspirational story I have read in years.

• Photos courtesy: Tehelka

• Also read: "Fresh ideas, fresh writing" (on the vibrant quality of writing in the incomparable Tehelka. And also in the newish Open and in the relaunched Caravan).

Do you find this magazine cover offensive?

Or do you think it is a clever way to tell a story about the merger of two major airline companies in the US?

When Bloomberg Businessweek used this composite image on the cover of its February 6 issue with the headline "Let's Get It On", it probably did not figure on the virulent reaction from some readers.

Here are some of the "negative" letters the magazine printed in the February 16 issue:

• Offensive … displeasing … distasteful … indecent … abominable … obscene … objectionable … that’s what I have to say about your Feb. 6-12 cover. You should be ashamed.

• I think you have a sharp magazine with good writing, making what is (for me) a boring subject — business — actually interesting and understandable. But I object to your Feb. 6-12 cover, the one with a Continental plane “getting it on” with a United plane. Couldn’t you have made a point about an airline merger without descending into base sexual imagery?

• Your Feb. 6-12 cover page was in extremely poor taste. You made it even worse with the headline “Let’s Get It On.” Surely you could have described the business events going on between Continental and United in a better fashion, and not by showing two planes having sex with each other on the cover of an important business magazine.

• Get It On, Love Built to Last, Friends with Benefits, Exchange Vows, Home Run: Your cover page is so subtle it should have a condom over the dominant top plane (should be United) and a diaphragm shield inside the tail of the submissive bottom one (should be Continental). You will lose several subscriptions over portraying the sacred marriage of two companies as just a long mile-high f – – k. Who was the genius who sent this around legal without thinking? For April 1, maybe, but not right after the holy days!

Of course, there was some positive reaction, too:

• Got to love last week’s cover: A Continental plane mounting a United plane with the caption, “Let’s Get It On”! On the same page, you talk about Facebook having “friends with benefits.” It shows that business has great humor. LMAO! Framing this cover. Thanks.

For the record, I did not even think this cover had anything to do with sexual imagery. One reason for that might be because I did not get the significance of the headline accompanying the image (did you?). "Let's Get It On" seemed to indicate to me that it was time to party, now that the world's largest airline had been formed. And without a second thought I turned the cover page and began reading the magazine. It's only when I read the letters in the February 16 issue that I did the mental equivalent of a double take.

You can read the other letters here: Feedback.

Also read: "Good ideas and good writing need to be backed up by good design".

Can writers be... sexy?

Well, they should, says author Karan Mahajan. Writing in a recent issue of Tehelka, he recounts how he almost posed naked "against the current plague of modesty". His "sexy" photographs appear in Canteen, the magazine behind the project to present writers as sex symbols.

Mahajan informs us that Canteen explained its goals to a newspaper as follows:

“Writers have lost their place as cultural heroes. But why can’t they at least try to compete with pop-culture stars on the same terms? Let’s promote novelists as sexy and fabulous! Insist that the PEN Award require a turn on the catwalk! Hold the National Book Awards on a sliver of sand populated by buxom models in horn-rimmed shades; let the champagne pop for the cameras, as Oxford tweed gets wet on Temptation Island!”

Does it make a difference what writers look like? Will you read a serious piece arguing for the eradication of dowry more intently if you know it has been written by a "hot author"?

Here is Annie Zaidi's anti-dowry piece in Open magazine:

And here is Annie Zaidi, writer, columnist, author, as photographed by M.S. Gopal for Tehelka (to accompany Karan Mahajan's piece):

Tell me, are you going to be giving Zaidi's writing a closer look now?

• And if you're dying to see how Karan Mahajan has been captured in Canteen, visit the magazine's "Hot Authors" project.

From a newspaper article to a monthly newsletter and, now, a bimonthly magazine devoted to books and reading

Two years ago, Rohita Rambabu (Class of 2011), who was then the Books Editor of the Commits newspaper, had written an informative piece on the Just Books library chain. I had become a member of Just Books earlier that year and I was keen on encouraging young people, who formed the bulk of the readership of Your Opinion, to read books by joining the fast-expanding library. (I thought of this article as "reader service".)

Not long afterwards, the founder of Just Books, R. Sundar Rajan, read Rohita's feature and he asked her to help publish a regular newsletter (see inaugural issue pictured above) for the library. Rohita and her classmate Swaha Sircar collaborated on the project initially, but then Swaha began working full-time so Rohita handled the production tasks independently, under the supervision of Sapana Rawat of Just Books.

ROHITA RAMBABU

"I have grown so much with Just Books," Rohita wrote in an e-mail recently. "It is amazing how an article you suggested that I do turned into such a big opportunity.

"With my Just Books salary, I was able to pay off the loan I had taken from my parents for the Master's course at Commits.

"I have now been with Just Books for almost two years, and they treat me on par with a professional (though I know I am at a very junior level with lots to learn before I am good)."

NILOFER D'SOUZA

Some four months ago, another Commitscion had occasion to write about Just Books.

Nilofer D'Souza (Class of 2009), who is a Bangalore-based features writer with Forbes India, contributed a well-written and comprehensive article to the magazine on the technology used successfully by Just Books to "bring libraries back to the people".

NILOFER D'SOUZA'S ARTICLE IN FORBES INDIA.

And now, soon to hit the stands, comes a full-fledged magazine for book-lovers, backed by the company that launched Just Books, with Sapana Rawat as the editor-in-chief, and Commitscion Padmini Nandy Mazumder (Class of 2011) as the editor.

Padmini, who was a co-editor of the college newspaper (like Nilofer before her) and who gave up her job with CNN-IBN in New Delhi and came back to Bangalore when she was offered this assignment, is a voracious reader and passionate book-lover. She writes in her "letter from the editor" in the prototype issue of the magazine that reading defines who we are. She continues:

Reading can give a fresh perspective to a situation. Books transport us to another world. Books let you leave your humdrum existence behind. Stalk a devious murderer with Hercule Poirot, walk the corridors of Hogwarts, romp in the mud with Scout Finch, fall in love with Mr. Darcy, conspire with dependable Jeeves to get poor Bertie Wooster out of a sticky situation... Love, laughter, tears, horror, fantasy, mystery: you can experience it all in one afternoon with a good book.

I could not have put it better myself, Padmini!

THE COVER OF THE PROTOTYPE ISSUE OF INK.

Here Padmini explains why she loves what she does:

Imagine getting paid for doing something you love. Most are not so lucky. I happen to be one of the fortunate few.

After dabbling in a number of career choices (marketing, corporate communications, journalism) and a lot of soul-searching, the opportunity of my dreams knocked on my door right at the moment when I seemed to be losing myself all over again. An opportunity to head a literary magazine.

I love books. Let me reiterate: I LOVE BOOKS. Lock me up in a room full of books and throw away the key and I will bless you for it. So, you can imagine my glee when Sapana Rawat (my boss) called to tell me that she and R. Sundar Rajan (CEO of Strata) had chosen me as the new editor of a brand new literary magazine.  

PADMINI NANDY MAZUMDER

I would be making all major editorial decisions with Sapana and I would have a free reign on the topics we chose to cover.

I was beside myself!

It was a dream job for the likes of me. I'd be talking about books, meeting authors, attending literary fests, telling people about books, and, consequently, create more bibliophiles.

These three months at Strata have been all that I hoped for and more. I have met industry stalwarts, authors, publishers, attended a publishing conference, rubbed shoulders with the who's who of publishing, found out more about the books and authors that I love so much, and brought out a magazine which is exactly what I think is the need of the hour. In the process, I discovered that I am darn good at it too!

The opportunity to do what you love and what you are good at comes across rarely. When it does, grab it with both hands and don't let go!

The magazine should be available to the general public soon. Having had a chance to go through the prototype, I can tell you that Ink is going to be the answer to many a book-lover's prayers. (Ace Commits photographer Pratidhani Tamang from the Class of 2012 has contributed many pictures, including the cover image above.)

Incidentally, another Commitscion, also a co-editor of the college newspaper, Varun Chhabria (Class of 2012), will be helping to produce the Just Books newsletter from January. All the best, Varun!

• UPDATE (June 19, 2012): Books&More, which is the current avatar of Ink, is now on the web, thanks to the efforts of Varun Chhabria, the associate editor of the magazine. Check out the latest issue here.  

COVER OF THE APRIL-MAY 2012 ISSUE OF BOOKS&MORE.

Fresh ideas, fresh writing

Has anyone noticed the vibrant quality of writing in the incomparable Tehelka? And also in the newish Open and in the relaunched Caravan?

The latest issue (August 14) of TEHELKA is full of gems waiting to be discovered. Take the cover story on Omar Abdullah (Page 28). Begin with the headline:

A man. A mess. A map. Omar Abdullah plots a way out for Kashmir

That incisive headline leads us to an intro that makes us want to read the whole article:

HALF A glance, and Omar Abdullah knows what he needs to fix. He is on the banks of the Sindhu, 40 km from Srinagar, about to begin a mass contact campaign. There’s no way a stone hurled by a human can reach him here from Srinagar. A stone from God, maybe. For the moment, God does nothing like that. But Omar still doesn’t like what he sees. There are 300 people waiting for him under a canvas tent. They are barricaded by a concertina wire. Omar’s sofa is on a dais 30 feet from the nearest listener. It creates an ‘us and them’ scene. This is terrible; it’s the very heart of the matter in Kashmir. Instantly, Omar knows he has to do something. The wire is dragged away and Omar’s sofa is brought closer to the crowd. When he settles down, Omar is six feet away. He has sort of closed the gap. There’s a murmur of approval from the gathering.

And here's a description of Omar Abdullah from later in the article:

Omar, the son, is the opposite. He isn’t spontaneous at all. It would appear that he lacks emotion. This makes it difficult for him to connect with people. He seems to have difficulty reaching out and warming people up. Only with his closest circle of friends, is he known to have let go and had a good time. Omar’s life outside Jammu and Kashmir also makes it tough for him to trust people he doesn’t know. His style of administration thus gets impersonal. While the best governors need to be impersonal to do a good job, Kashmir makes it complex for Omar. He is modern and secular, and is good at giving directions, which he expects to be implemented. He is appropriate and correct. These are his assets.

Now for the conclusion:

What we are seeing of Omar is just the first stage of what he thinks will be a long time in Jammu and Kashmir. It took a series of meetings, not always pleasant, in the Abdullah household before Omar’s career was moved from hotel management to politics. It was a Rajiv Gandhi moment, the difference being that Omar’s wife agreed to his career shift. This is the youngest chief minister of India’s most sensitive state. He might make more mistakes, like anyone else. It could also mean he is chipping away at his weaknesses. In today’s Kashmir, that is one story worth following.

Vijay Simha, deputy editor of Tehelka, spent four days with Abdullah in order to write this profile. Think about the questions he must have asked, the meticulous notes he must have made, the relationships he must have forged with all his interviewees before he could sit down to file his story. Please note that this is not a "feel-good" profile; Simha gives us both the positives and negatives of the Kashmir chief minister's personality. At the same time he also makes us think about the Kashmir imbroglio. It's first-class reporting all the way.

There is also an illuminating profile by Zahid Rafiq of Masarat Alam, the man seen by many as the face of the current protests in Srinagar. You don't have to agree with Alam's views, but you will have to agree that this is a fine piece of reporting and writing by Rafiq. (First Year Commitscions: The phrase nom de guerre is used in the seventh paragraph — meaning?)

On Page 51, Assistant Editor Nisha Susan has written a thoughtful commentary on the ugly Rahul-Mahajan-beating-up-his-wife-again episode. Here's an excerpt:

Television commentators (still tingling from Rakhi Ka Swayamvar) marvelled at how the Swayamvar franchise gave Mahajan the trappings of an eligible bachelor. At how 16,000 women applied. At the millions who watched the show. Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayega managed the proverbial making of a silk purse out of a pig’s snout. But the analysts seemed to have missed the point. Rahul with the porcine cast to his face was watched by the country because he reeked of ineligibility. The producers showed remarkable shrewdness in retaining the sham of mehendi, shiny tassels and genda phool while catering to our desire for schadenfreude — our pleasure in other’s suffering. Rahul made girls jump through hoops because he could. We watch because we can. We wallow in the many colours of humiliation that reality television offers us — as happily as we gawk at car crashes, as intently as we would watch public hangings.

This is clearly the work of a superior writer. And don't we just love it? (First Year Commitscions: See how Susan uses schadenfreude, the word we discussed in class last week.)

Aastha Atray Banan gives us another enjoyable piece: a profile of Rani Mukherjee on Page 49. Banan goes to meet the star at her home in Mumbai to find out if she has turned into a recluse, as rumour would have it. Here's an excerpt:

At 32, she looks better than she ever has. Yoga has made her slender. Dressed in a short skirt and minimal makeup, she retains a regal air. Lauren Bacall once said, “I am not a has-been. I am a will-be.” Rani would approve of Bacall’s style. It is unlikely she has read the quote though. She doesn’t read, she says. Unlike several young ladies who manufacture reputations as frenetic readers and think that Jane Austen was a Victorian and Omair Ahmed is a medieval poet, Rani says flatly that she does not read. "I don’t read much — I have an allergy to the smell of books. Really."

This is an interview you want to read from beginning to end, not only because of the subject but also because the writing is so sharp. And knowledgeable.

Then there is this acerbic review by Gaurav Jain of Tishani Doshi's new book, The Pleasure Seekers. Jain is harsh in his critiquing, and the headline ("So this is where poetry goes to die") and the standfirst ("Tishani Doshi has sunk a basic family saga in her kingdom of twee, says GAURAV JAIN. That leaves the blurbs") make that clear to us. But it's Jain's writing skills that help us to understand why reading this book would be a waste of time: He has strong opinions and articulates them well. Here's an excerpt:

Everywhere else ... Doshi seems mainly interested in being cute. Her precious narrator sounds like PG Wodehouse’s mushy Madeline Bassett, who believed that stars are God’s daisy chain and that every time a wee fairy blows its nose, a baby is born. Doshi writes like a phoren ma’m delighted at her grasp of exotic India: a young girl on the back of her father’s bicycle is “a princess being guided by a troubadour”....

(First Year Commitscions: Look at the unusual words in this review: twee; overweening; pedantic curlicues; sylvan; fey. Going by this evidence, not only is Jain frighteningly well-read [the term used by Tarun Tejpal to describe his staff in the interview we watched in class recently], but so, apparently, are the Tehelka readers. Your thoughts?)

And finally, in the "Personal Histories" section, there's a heart-rending piece by Tehelka's 24-year-old correspondent Nishita Jha about the night she "lost" her father. If you have shared a special bond with your parent you are sure to be moved by this first-person account.

The Tehelka website is also home to a fascinating and inspirational and touching story — "Irom And The Iron In India’s Soul", the saga of one Manipuri woman's epic fast for justice in her home state. Managing Editor Shoma Chaudhury pulls out all stops to tell you why "Irom Sharmila's story should be part of universal folklore". Read it and weep.

NOW HERE are a couple of examples of the quality of writing in OPEN: "The World Cup of kabaddi" and a critique of the Harry Potter books. Also, there's this must-read by Gauri Dange in the issue of August 7. A must-read for two reasons. One, if you have aspirations to write and publish a book in India, Dange's article will come as an eye-opener. Two, the top-notch writing. Here's an excerpt:

And so I decided that I wouldn’t do joyless and sterile anymore. Friends advised me to show my new book to other publishing houses, where “things are different”. I did take a stab at that, but when I saw early signs of the same torpor laced with smugness, I decided to go it alone. I formed Omo Books with a partner, to publish and distribute this book and future work. At least I had signed myself out of another round of absurdity and non sequiturs.

(First Year Commitscions: Look at the use of the phrase non sequiturs. Didn't we discuss it in class this week?)

• THE CARAVAN has also published some brilliantly written articles. Sample them here: "All hail The Caravan..." 

• Photos courtesy: Tehelka, Open
  

The World Cup of Kabaddi...

...and the top prize of Rs.1 crore was won by India, who beat Pakistan in Bathinda, Punjab, in early April. Open magazine (April 23) gives readers a racy description of the tournament and the finale, with Arindam Mukherjee capturing the festive atmosphere at the games and also conveying the seriousness with which hard-core fans view kabaddi:

This was no place for the faint of heart. This was Bathinda, in the heartland of Punjab, where the game of kabaddi captivates millions across generations. Here, in similar dust-choked pits, many a bone has been broken, nose bloodied, and ankle sprained in a game that combines judo, wrestling, grappling and athletics, all at once. Westerners have found it difficult to define the game, sometimes even calling it a ‘push-of-war’.

Hotels and dhabas across Punjab switched from IPL cricket to PTC Punjabi channel, which was airing the contests live. Badal even claimed that the kabaddi tournament had “left behind IPL cricket as far as TRP ratings in northern India, New Delhi, Canada, Britain, US, Italy, Pakistan and Iran are concerned”. That cannot be confirmed, but the cheers in Punjab grew audibly rowdier as India trumped Canada to make the finals, while Pakistan edged out Italy.

Read Gone in Thirty Seconds to get an idea of the frenzy the tournament evoked.

• Photo courtesy: Open

A fascinating look at how the internet turned a 16-year-old into a pop phenom

Time (May 17) headlines Claire Suddath's article "Pop Star 2.0", a reference to Justin Bieber who is being hailed as "the first real teen idol of the digital age, a star whose fame can be attributed entirely to the Internet".

The intro draws you into the story before explaining how Bieber's manager first discovered him:

Late one night in 2007, Scooter Braun, an Atlanta-based promoter and music manager, was in bed surfing the Internet when he stumbled upon a grainy home video of Bieber belting out Aretha Franklin's "Respect." "It was such raw talent, my gut just went wild," Braun says, and then pauses. "Maybe I shouldn't tell people I watched videos of Justin Bieber in the middle of the night." Two weeks later, he flew Bieber and his mother to Atlanta and became his manager.

There is also a smart analysis of Bieber's appeal:

As a songwriter, Bieber specializes in two subjects: tender ballads about his parents' divorce and the kind of desperate puppy love to which anyone who has ever been a teenager can relate. His audience can be understood just by looking at his song titles: "U Smile," "First Dance," "One Less Lonely Girl." This is the brilliance of Bieber. Kids will listen to anything if it's catchy, especially if it makes them feel grownup, but Bieber's music says something they actually understand. Nobody is going to believe a 14-year-old boy when he sings, "You're my one love, my one heart, my one life for sure" — nobody, that is, except a 14-year-old girl.

And the longish concluding paragraph capitalises on that appeal:

The day after his appearance on SNL, Bieber gave a small concert at New York's Highline Ballroom for several hundred teenage girls, many of whom had waited for up to five hours to win tickets through a local radio station. The girls wore Bieber T-shirts, carried Bieber CDs and had Bieber backgrounds on their cell phones. "He's so sweet. He's not like every other guy who is just like, 'Ugh, whatever,' " says Alicia Isaacson, 13, from Long Island. It's a sentiment once professed for every artist from Shaun Cassidy to Paul McCartney. Every few seconds, a shrill cry of "Justin!" erupted from somewhere in the crowd. Security guards handed out water bottles and escorted those who felt faint or overwhelmed outside. Offstage, Bieber played with his baseball cap. "I'm really tired," he confessed. "Right now my schedule is just go, go, go. Sometimes I just want to sleep." That afternoon, he had cut his rehearsal to just half a song because he didn't have the energy. But signs of fatigue were gone now, and he took the stage with force. For the first few minutes, the only discernible sound was screaming.

Don't you want to know more about the only artist to have four hit songs before ever releasing an album?

• Photo courtesy: Time

How well do you know your men?

Tehelka has this occasional series on Indian men, which the magazine began with this hilarious look at the contradictions in the Malayali male by Nisha Susan, the magazine's assistant editor.

Here is an excerpt:

(Yet,) seeking the typical Malayali man is a slippery affair. Each one looks out moodily and introspectively at you from behind varying amounts of facial hair. He’s sure he’s not typical, sure he’s misunderstood by his community. Simultaneously, he likes being Malayali and sure he’s the distilled Malayali, and others crude abominations.

Then came the dissection of the UP, or Uttar Pradesh, man by Annie Zaidi, the Mumbai-based writer and author, who brings up the three broad categories into which she cast the UP man when she was growing up:

White chikan kurta-clad sons of former zamindars who continue to rear pigeons and fly kites as a full-time occupation and sometimes carried guns, almost like a liability; the lean, inscrutable rickshaw-pullers/stone-breakers/gardeners; and the westernised, English-speaking intellectual. There was a time when, if a Hindi filmmaker wanted to create the character of a provincial intellectual, he would place the character in Allahabad — once known as the Oxford of the East. By the time I grew up, UP had cast off any intellectual pretensions it had and settled firmly into a mould defined by politics, caste and religion.

Now, in the issue of May 1, Tehelka holds a magnifying glass over the Marwari man. "Don't show me the money, show me your mummy" is the headline to Tusha Mittal's insider piece on a world that is easily recognisable if you're a Marwari, like Tusha, one of the magazine's principal correspondents. Here is an excerpt:

At his core, the Marwari man is a staid, almost docile, apolitical creature. Independent thinking has never been a good value. Asking questions is taboo.

 

That is why a good Marwari mummy was horrified when her 16-year-old boy declared he wanted to be a journalist: “I have failed to bring you up”. Soon, the trauma took on entirely new proportions. “English honours? Isn’t that what girls do?” That was the first time the boy realised what it means to be a Marwari man. (Unless 3/50 in Math counts as the definitive moment of truth.)

What has been deemed sacred in the Marwari home is “respect for elders” — a master stroke, a classic euphemism to ensure the old patriarchal values remain unchallenged and unquestioned. In the Marwari world, the daughter is merely an impediment in the quest for a son. A child of privilege, the Marwari man has always been comfortable with this status quo. “If the first child is a daughter, there’s a fear of what the second will be,” says Reshma Jain, editor of Marwar. If the second is a girl, try a third. If that fails, the bride and her chromosomes have clearly not understood the good values that prevail in Marwari society.

All these pieces are laced with humour and written in good faith. Even so, there seem to be plenty of home truths for readers to absorb and think about.

Here Kirti Bhotika (Class of 2008) gives us her reaction to the analysis of the Marwari man after I had sent her the link by email with my question: Anyone you know? Or recognise?

Hahaha! Pretty much the whole clan!!! Why do you think I am marrying a guy who's NOT a Marwari :D

Most of the article is absolutely true, Sir. But yes, things are changing. I have cousins who are working, (and no, they are not interior designers or fashion designers running a small boutique out of that extra useless room in their big houses) who are serious about their careers AND with the consent of not just their husband but the whole family! And I really admire those families. But yes, it is true that these kind of families would only be a small percentage. Another change that I have noticed is that Marwaris are happy if a girl is born - I must mention here that my father was overjoyed when I was born and distributed pots of rasgullas to the family, extended family, neighborhood, etc etc etc. :) What can I say, I am blessed! It's no longer a taboo when a girl is born in the family... There have been innumerable incidents of a son/sons betraying the father so finally it's dawned upon them that girls prove to be better in the long term. Yes! Girls rock! 

And Sir, among all the cons, I love the pro that we still are so attached to our culture and traditions - I don't know where else would one follow all of it, with so much pride. It's a lot of fun and binds us together, I wouldn't want to let go of it.

Yes, the weddings are bit show-off, but that can't be helped - our fathers believe, you got it or not, you flaunt it. Am not particularly happy about this...

Would just like to end with this - every clan/caste/religion has its own set of pros and cons and we should strive to accept the pros and change the cons as much as we can, for the progress of our society.

All valid points, Kirti. What do others have to say?

• The July 10 issue of Tehelka has Pragya Tiwari's illuminating piece on the Bengali man. Read it here.

It's rare to find a business story about Ekta Kapoor in Indian magazines or newspapers

And even more rare to find a well-written one. So it was a treat to read this excellent analysis of the trials and tribulations and, now, the comeback of India's soap queen in Forbes India. The authors, Saumya Roy and Deepak Ajwani, have clearly done their homework and, just as clearly, they have spent time with Ekta getting to know her, her style of functioning, her working relationship with her new CEO, Puneet Kinra.

Here are a couple of excerpts:

Impulsive decisions, once the norm at Balaji, have given way to thought-through processes. Former employees recall how shifts would run late into the night, when a last-minute phone call from her would require them to throw away the portions shot through the day and reshoot. 

Kapoor is no longer that capricious: “We’ve taken very strong calls that no last-minute changes are needed. If the script needs to be rechecked, then the script head, who we have now, rechecks the script after we write. No longer am I that involved with any one show that I’m making these night calls and changing everything.”

And then Puneet Kinra enters the picture:

She can’t do it alone. That’s why she brought in corporate finance professional Puneet Kinra to realign Balaji’s strategies and fix the operational irritants.

At first look, Kinra couldn’t be more different from Kapoor. He is the perfect foil for her creative, passionate self. This 38-year-old ex-PricewaterhouseCoopers hand is all about processes, risk management and cost control. But together, they seem to be evolving a formula to keep Balaji Telefilms a creative-focused but soundly managed entertainment enterprise.

Good writing makes good business sense, doesn't it?

• Thanks to Nilofer D'Souza for the tip-off.
• Photos courtesy: Forbes India

Reading CAN help your writing

Time Out Bengaluru, in my opinion, is the best "local" magazine in the city, for the writing, the editing, the headlines... the ideas! Take this review of the Zeus Sports Bar on Brigade Road in the latest issue.

Read the intro:

Manohar Crest is no Mount Olympus. If you’re in this building on Brigade Road, you will not, like Zeus, be able to cast your eyes upon lands far and wide, watching as Hades makes off with the white-armed Persephone. You might, however, spot someone barely escaping the maws of death – or the left front wheel of a BMTC bus, as Bangalore calls it – near St Patrick’s Complex.

The reviewer, Kankshi Mehta, knows a thing or two about Greek mythology so she's able to add that divine line about Zeus, and Hades, and Persephone. Isn't that clever?

Continue reading and you'll see more Grecian references, including this one:

And now, onto the food. If you’re a vegetarian… well, there really is only one way to put this, and in order to do so, one must turn one's attention to a scene from that iconic insertion of Greek mannerisms into popular culture, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Here, Toula Portokalos’s suitor, a vegetarian, is being introduced to the family, and this is what transpires: Toula: “He doesn’t eat meat.” Aunt Voula: “What do you mean he don’t eat no meat?” Stunned silence in the room. Aunt Voula; “Oh, that’s okay. I make lamb.” Okay, it’s not that bad, but still, vegetarians get slim pickings at this bar.

And the flourish at the end:

Opa!

Here is a definition of opa:  A Greek word that may be used as an ‘exclamation’, or ‘utterance’, or ‘declaration’, or ‘affirmation’ or a lovingly gentle way of telling you to ‘Stop’ ... depending on the situational context. It is a word or pronouncement of celebration; the celebration of life itself.

Kankshi Mehta is one well-read journalist who's also well-versed in popular culture and what a difference it makes! Agree?

• Also read: "If you don't read, you can't write".

All hail The Caravan for giving us...

...some marvellous reads in the latest issue. There's hardly any magazine in India that opens up its pages wholeheartedly to long-form journalism, so those looking for something substantial to sink their teeth into, in a manner of speaking, will gladly devour the May issue.

Look at the treasures on offer:

1. Who the Foucault Stole My Cheez?
A brief but wildly satirical and clever piece by "Timothy Paperphadkar" on the dead-end nature of academic seminars.

2. Paperback Messiah
Who doesn't know (about) Chetan Bhagat? And which young person hasn't read at least one of his books? No hands going up? That's not at all surprising considering India's most popular author in terms of sales has become a youth icon in less time than you can say 2 States: The Story of My Marriage. 

Here Srinath Perur immerses himself in Bhagat's world to learn what it is exactly that the banker-turned-writer has done to get millions looking up to him as their role model.

Here are some excerpts:

Bhagat has said he thinks of himself as 90 percent entertainer, ten percent reformer. This mix ensures that his novels occupy a strange literary register, one in which stories dealing with social concerns are written using the conventions of pulp fiction. In the tradition of pulp, Bhagat’s books employ linear plotlines, simple language and short sentences. Readers speak fondly about how quick-paced Bhagat’s books are and how they never get boring, something achieved by never requiring the reader to pause. Characters do not aspire to the complexities of realism, but are constituted of a few clearly defined characteristics in rough accordance with which they behave. They often behave in disjointed fashion, hurtling along from one mood to the next before the reader’s attention can wander. And they never respond to situations in nuanced ways which might require the reader to pause and reflect; their responses are clearly communicated through word, gesture or expression. To whatever extent possible, plausible stereotypes are employed over fresh and telling detail, freeing the reader from having to rely too heavily on the text. Events in the books can sometimes take melodramatic turns, and depending on what one is used to, this can require a significant ability to suspend disbelief.

*

Interestingly, none of the Chetan Bhagat readers I interviewed seemed particularly aware of any larger message or intention in the books. Kavitha Gopinath, an ardent Bhagat fan, works for a telecom company in Bengaluru and was an enthusiastic audience member at the launch of 2 States. She says about Bhagat, “For me he’s the ultimate entertainer. His books are effortless to read.” Asked about the larger significance of his books, she says, “Honestly, I didn’t realise there was any. It was only when he spoke about it during the launch that I went, ‘Oh. Okay.’”

Read the article in full here.

3. Tales from the Indian Fish Trail
A detailed investigation by well-known journalist Samanth Subramanian into the controversial Hyderabad fish cure. In the great tradition of the old New Journalists, Subramanian also volunteers to swallow the "miracle" fish live so that he can write about the whole experience:

And then, suddenly, it was my turn.

The most disconcerting moment of the entire process was a few seconds of stasis, when Harinath held the fish up, medicine gleaming in its mouth, and I stood with my mouth open as if it were the Eucharist wafer, dimly aware that I could still twist away and run. Then the stasis broke, and Harinath’s hand, full of fish, was in my mouth.

From all the first-hand observation that evening, I must have somehow learned how to swallow right, because the fish went down, tail first, much easier than I expected. It was slippery and small, and although I felt an initial tickle, I think it had expired by the time it was a third of the way down my throat. Right away, though, I realized that it wasn’t the fish that was making people retch; it was the asafoetida, so strong and vicious that tears started in your eyes in that very first second. Then, as it slid down, it burned such a trail of further pungency down your throat that your hair stood on end and your fingers clenched involuntarily. Eyes still streaming, I grabbed at a bottle of water behind Harinath, although somehow, my mind had inscrutably fixed on its own preferred solution to the asafoetida’s pungency: fresh-cut mangoes.

These paragraphs appear towards the end of the article, but the whole piece is bursting with lustrous writing.

4. His Personal World of Sound 
An entertaining profile of Vijay Iyer, the jazz musician from India who's galvanising the New York music scene. I love jazz and I play it often in my car and at work but I would be stumped if I were asked to talk about what makes jazz "jazz". So I am grateful that the author, Akshay Ahuja, has helpfully given me a few pointers:

Today ... many no longer perceive modern jazz as a part of vernacular culture. As Iyer acknowledges, the music has become freighted, for whatever reason, with various anxieties. “There’s a certain kind of guilt factor that comes into play with jazz. People will be like ‘I don’t know anything about jazz...therefore I don’t listen to it, or therefore I don’t want to pay attention to it.’ And part of it is that people feel obliged to be experts on it in order to listen to it.”

Part of the challenge of being a jazz musician today—or a painter or a poet, for that matter—is simply getting people to actively engage with the work and trust their response. “There’s no great mystery,” Iyer says. “It’s just about letting people in the door."

Like most improvisational arts, jazz gains immeasurably from being experienced live. Every musician produces sound not just with an instrument or a set of vocal cords, but with the entire body. A melodic phrase can be formed with the motions of a pair of hands, its rhythms accented by the slide of a foot. As Amiri Baraka wrote of Thelonious Monk, “The quick dips, half-whirls, and deep pivoting jerks that Monk gets into behind that piano are part of the music, too. Many musicians have mentioned how they could get further into the music by watching Monk dance, following the jerks and starts.”

Brilliant! Do read the article in full.

*

Media students will also benefit from reading about NREGA, India's landmark welfare scheme, which is the cover story in this issue. 

Also, there is a highly educational feature on the latest game the big boys (and girls) play: carbon trading.

Sadly, the computer screen is not the ideal medium in which to enjoy long-form journalism. So if you can, buy this month's issue of The Caravan to savour the goodies. (For those at Commits, a copy has been placed in the college library.)

• Also read: "The man who has proved — literally — that journalism is an art form". 
  

LONG-FORM JOURNALISM SITE
If you are looking for more in the way of long-form reads, here is a site that's right up your alley. The editor, Aaron Lammer, sent me an email this morning after he came across The Reading Room while, he says, he was looking for Indian long-form journalism pieces. 

At Longform.org, the editors "post articles, past and present, that we think are too long and too interesting to be read on a web browser. We started this site to bring together our enthusiasm for both great longform reads and the excellent Instapaper reader".

Check it out here and see for yourself what the Instapaper reader is all about.

How do you write about personal experiences?

Especially when they leave a bad taste in your mouth and smack of racism? Here's a young Guwahati-based journalist writing in Tehelka on his encounter with a Delhi landlady:

“Oh, you guys are Manipuris?” She intended a rhetorical question but wound up reiterating the popular geographical lessons that ignorance has taught her — along with probably another three-quarters of the population. The northeastern states have been muddled and shuffled to form this mess, stripping all civilisational peculiarity that is natural.

To read the article in full, go here.

The bureaucrat who had to resort to using foul language to get minions to do his bidding

The Open magazine issue of May 7 has at least two articles that are worth reading — one by an Australian writer on her experiences of life in Mumbai as the wife of an Indian man. In the other piece, also a first-person account, B. Ashok (pictured below), IAS, private secretary to a union minister, gives us the "B, C and D of governance". Here is an excerpt:

I called for the dictionary again and the librarian reappeared with his ledger in no time. But this time before he could speak out, I blurted out: “Bhen..Ch… D… do you need your job here or not?” Tears streamed down his face as the ledger disappeared and the dictionary made its appearance on my desk. (Hey presto, it works!) “Saaala, ainda mujhe lecture mat dena (Scumbag, don’t ever lecture me again).” Thus ends the first experiment with a resounding success.

 I can't recall ever reading a more revealing article by someone senior in government. To read the full piece, go here.

• Photo courtesy: Open

On marrying a "brown man"

I have always wondered about the ramifications of a white woman marrying an Indian man and choosing to live in India. How does she tackle the questions, the stares, the obsequiousness? Apparently the editors at Open magazine had the same thought and they commissioned an Australian writer in Mumbai to chronicle her feelings and share her experiences about being married to a "brown man" and living with him in India. Her article is both poignant and revelatory. Here are some excerpts:

How foreigners are regarded in India is a curious matter. Our white skin, and the belief that we have power and money, unwittingly elevates us to the top of the social hierarchy. Doors will open for me in India, while at the same time remaining closed for many Indians. Shop assistants will beckon for my attention,while ignoring other potential customers. Everyone wants to have a foreigner for a friend. I’ve lost count of how many times my neighbours have knocked on my door, asking me to meet every relative who visits them. They’re not interested in my husband, though.

*

My husband is neither loudspoken, nor imposing. As a result, he often gets mistaken as my guide. I  remember one day, I was shopping at a stall at the Colaba Causeway market in Mumbai. My husband, who’d been looking at something else, came up to me and asked how I was going. The stallholder turned to him, and roughly told him in Hindi to go away and not interfere in the transaction.

*

There have been ...occasions where my husband and I have visited the hotel rooms of male Indian friends staying in Mumbai, and it’s actually been inferred that I must be a foreign prostitute. The hotel staff did their best to prevent us from going to the room.

Read the article in full here.

• Photo courtesy: Open

How NOT to write a profile

The IPL controversies have led to many names being dragged in the mud, perhaps deservedly so. But did Sunanda Pushkar have to be lambasted in this fashion in the Outlook issue of April 26? Here are a couple of excerpts from Vrinda Gopinath's profile of the woman labelled — in a pull-quote — "the P3P queen of Masala Dubai":

Her skills in occasionally getting well-known sponsors made her rivals green with envy but the snide bitching barely fazed her. Says a former rival acidly, “Sunanda would claw her way to a sponsor and have him eating out of her hands, she was not a girl’s girl.”

*
Sunanda-watchers in Dubai say it was around this time she adopted her new style statement—Dubai flash trash of peroxide hair streaks, heavy make-up, razzle-dazzle, seductive couture, false eyelashes, chrome nail paint, and Louis Vuitton victimhood. It was a sign of her arrival in the league of the neo-rich tycoons.

Some of the facts in the article are possibly true. But most of the writing seems to be speculative; plain bitching, in my view.

• On the other hand, Shoma Chaudhury has tried to present Sunanda's side in this interview in Tehelka (April 30). Chaudhury also takes the media and the rest of us to task. Here's an excerpt from the introduction:

A deep and unthinking misogyny has underscored all the reporting on her. Her real crime is that she is an attractive 46-year-old widow, who is bright, vivacious and hot — in the way only those women can be who have a comfortable relationship with themselves; who understand that beauty does not preclude one from being kind; or protect one from sorrow. If the media had wanted to try the two [Sunanda and Shashi Tharoor] for financial impropriety, it should have stuck to doing that. Instead, all of it has become an ugly spectacle about a society trying to decide what women are allowed and not allowed to be. Ambition, sass, and self-assured sexiness are clearly high on the list of India’s penal code for women.

Read the full interview here.

• Thanks to Nilofer D'Souza for the tip-off.

Time says the iPad will usher in a new era for journalism

The managing editor of Time, Richard Stengel, writes: "In the media these days, we have to participate in things that we also cover. I am not one of those who see the tablet as the solution for all the media's problems, but I do see it as a dynamic new way that we can present great reporting and writing to our readers. For the first time since the magazine's birth in 1923, we will soon be delivering the entire contents of TIME to paying customers in a radically different way: as a self-contained application that you can download to the iPad."

Read more.

Time put Steve Jobs on the cover of the April 12 issue and also commissioned Stephen Fry, the actor and writer, to go to Apple headquarters and write about the iPad.

Fry is an unabashed admirer of both Jobs and Apple. Here is his intro: 

It is a gorgeous spring day when I arrive at the coolest address in the universe: 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, Calif., where Apple has been headquartered since 1993. The campus, for such they call it, is enormous yet not big enough to contain Apple's current rate of expansion. An additional site is being designed and built. After stocking up on "I visited the mothership" T-shirts at the company store (we fanboys are pathetic, I readily confess), I am shown around the canteen, lawns and public spaces. It is right to call this a campus, for everyone looks and dresses like a student. I should imagine the only people ever caught wearing suits here have been visiting politicians.

Read the rest of the article here.

And then savour the review of the iPad by Lev Grossman, "Do we need the iPad?".

All three pieces are writing of the highest quality. Enjoy.

• Photo courtesy: Time

 

 

 PRECILLA LEONITA'S iPAD WAS GIVEN THE ONCE-OVER BY SURAJ AND HIREN,

MY WIFE'S NEPHEWS, WHEN THEY VISITED COMMITS RECENTLY.

• For an Indian take on the iPad, here's Arun Katiyar, the Bangalore-based content and communication consultant and a former India Today journalist, writing about the "newest shiny toy on the block" in Mint.

 

Raghu Rai's new book...

...India's Great Masters contains some powerful images of music and ecstasy, says Tehelka in in its issue of April 10. Go here and click on the 'View Slideshow' button.

This is a good example of how to present pictures that are very special.

HERE'S AN EXCERPT:
S Balachander -- An entirely self-taught child prodigy, Balachander went on to become a veena and sitar virtuoso. Raghu Rai tells Tehelka's Gaurav Jain, “I took him to Mahabalipuram to interpret his music. His strokes are the deepest possible sound; they bounce so much, it seemed the rocks were approaching in rhythm and dance. I sat him there and wondered what to do. When you make yourself available, nature makes itself available. When I shot this, it went beyond my planning. Ab sur lag gaya.”

• Mint has also done a good job with its slideshow feature on Raghu Rai's work.