"How writing for our college newspaper helped me land a job"

• FROM THE COMMITS CHRONICLE ARCHIVES (May 23, 2010)

When Commits alumna Mallika Harsha (Class of 2010), was hired by Saatchi&Saatchi as a copywriter in Bangalore, she told me excitedly over the phone: "My articles in YO helped me get the job!" Afterwards she wrote this e-mail to me (YO, or Your Opinion, was the name of the college newspaper till July 2011, when it was changed to The Chronicle):

"THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME

LAND A JOB AS A COPYWRITER"

I owe this to you. Thank you for helping me overcome my fear of writing.

In my opinion, this is my personal fairytale. A modern-day fairytale of course, but a fairytale nonetheless. And I'm taking a chance with writing about it in the Chronicle knowing full well that after having painted such a rosy picture I can't complain about it later, but that's a choice I've already made, I suppose.

Okay, so since it's a modern-day fairytale, let's give the once-upon-a-times and happily-ever-afters a skip. I'm not going to build suspense and reveal it all at the end and neither am I going to take you through the emotionally draining journey till I actually got to the point of writing about it for the Chronicle.

So, the point being: I recently bagged a job at Saatchi&Saatchi. (They haven't given me a designation yet, but it'll most probably be that of copywriter).

When Saatchi called me for an interview, I wasn't expecting to be hired. The interview lasted an hour in which I spoke for 20 minutes and got grilled for the next 40. At the end of which I was told to write a copy test the next day. So, there I was again at the Saatchi office, expecting to spend the next couple of hours writing essay-type questions.

Flashback

I had already sent them a profile of the work I did at my previous job. And earlier that day, I was asked by the creative head to send them all the other work I had done (written work to be precise) like articles and other published work. I had nothing but YO articles to send (which also I found on my email with great difficulty because I wasn't carrying any of it around with me), and I did that — sent the few articles I could find. And the rest of the time, I spent mentally preparing myself for the gruelling test that evening.

Back to the office scene

I was asked to sit in a cabin. I was waiting to be administered the copy test. Then the creative director walked in and said, "I went through your articles. Why didn't you send these to us before?" I didn't know what to say. Even I couldn't think of a good enough reason.  What he said after this is what makes me proud to relate this story at all.

He said based on what he had read he would skip the copy test!

Saatchi&Saatchi did not take a copy test based on my YO work! I was stumped, so much so that when he told me they'd like me to join them, I burst out laughing — to his face (I got an earful for that too, but that's a different story).

I'm going to be under probation for a while, in which time I'm supposed to "show them what I'm made up of" — that's what they've told me. Too good to be true? I think so too. There has to be a catch, na? But I'm ready to take this on! It's "my big break" (as Sai Sir put it), so I'm going to put in my all to prove myself here.

I'm glad I wrote for YO while I was in college, it was great learning for me and I loved it. I'm glad I could use such a platform to get the job I had only dreamt of. Thank you would just be an understatement for all the support I've got so far. So, I'm just going to sign off  here, 'cause the longer this email gets, the more people will want to hunt me down and chase me.

I'm so proud and high on confidence right now that if I wrote any more, I'd just be bragging. So, I'm going to stop here, just glad I could share my experience.

Regards,
Mallika

ALSO FROM THE COMMITS CHRONICLE ARCHIVES: The November-December 2009 issue of Your Opinion, or YO, was a fabulous 10-pager, the first in Commits history. That was an opportune moment, therefore, to ask past co-editors and current editorial board members to share their thoughts on the issue and also to reflect on how YO has evolved over the years, from a black-and-white “lab journal” to a professional college newspaper, the “jewel in the Commits crown”, as our website refers to it. It was also an occasion to think about how the students’ involvement with YO has benefited them. Read what they all have to say here: "Jai YO!"

The classic cricket book even non-fans will enjoy reading

‘What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?’

Since I first read this quote many, many years ago, I have entertained thoughts about reading the book in which it appears. But it was only last month that, serendipitously, I happened to think about it — the exploits of Dhoni & Co. in England may have had something to do with it — leading me to order the book from Amazon pronto.

And, then, some days after the book was delivered, I came across this reference to it in an interview in Books & More magazine (edited by Commitscion Padmini Nandy Mazumder; the interviewer is good friend Pratibha Rao).

Q Which was the one book that inspired you?

Boria Majumdar It is undoubtedly Beyond a Boundary by C.L.R. James. The first time I read it, I understood nothing of it. I read it because people said it was the best book on cricket. Only when I read it the fourth or fifth time, I understood what the book wanted to say. I’ve now read it 47 times. I’ve been to the C.L.R. James Research Library in the West Indies and stayed for a long time in Barbados where James is buried — that’s the impact the book has had on me. For what I want to do — understand society through the lens of sport — there is no better book than Beyond a Boundary. 

Enough said.

• For the uninitiated, Rhodes scholar Boria Majumdar is one of India's foremost young cricket litterateurs. He is also an op-ed columnist for The Times of India, a sports expert with Times Now, and author of books such as Twenty-two Yards to Freedom: A Social History of Indian Cricket and The Illustrated History of Indian Cricket.

Why I'm reading — and enjoying — the first volume of the Paris Review Interviews

"The Paris Review books should be given out at dinner parties, readings, riots, weddings, galas — shindigs of every shape. And they're perfect for the classroom too, from high schools all the way to MFA programmes. In fact, I run a whole semester-long creative writing class based on the interviews. How else would I get the world's greatest living writers, living and dead, to come into the classroom with their words of wisdom, folly, and fury? These books are wonderful, provocative, indispensible." — Colum McCann, novelist and Hunter College professor

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"I have all the copies of The Paris Review and like the interviews very much. They will make a good book when collected and that will be very good for the Review." — Ernest Hemingway

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"At their best, the Paris Review interviews remove the veils of literary personae to reveal the flesh-and-blood writer at the source. By exposing the inner workings of writing, they place the reader in the driver's seat of literature." — Billy Collins

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"A colossal literary event — worth the price of admission for the Borges interview alone, and of course the Billy Wilder, and the Vonnegut, and and and and . . . Just buy this book and read it all." — Gary Shteyngart

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"The Paris Review interviews have the best questions, the best answers, and are, hands down, the best way to steal a look into the minds of the best writers (and interviewers) in the world. Reading them together is like getting a fabulous guided tour through literary life." — Susan Orlean 

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"I have been fascinated by the Paris Review interviews for as long as I can remember. Taken together, they form perhaps the finest available inquiry into the 'how' of literature, in many ways a more interesting question than the 'why.'" — Salman Rushdie

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"Nothing is lonelier or riskier than being a writer, and these interviews provide writers at all stages the companionship and guidance they need." — Edmund White

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"The Paris Review interviews have always provided the best look into the minds and work ethics of great writers and when read together constitute the closest thing to an MFA that you can get while sitting alone on your couch. Every page of this collection affords a ludicrous amount of pleasure." — Dave Eggers

• What is the Paris Review? To learn all about the literary magazine that was first published in 1953, go here.

• UPDATE (JULY 24, 2013): The second volume of The Paris Review interviews was delivered by Amazon this evening. So much to read, so little time. Sigh.

• ADDITIONAL READING: "Why the writer should be considered the "hero" of a film, any film", excerpts from a Paris Review interview with Oscar-winning director Billy Wilder.

Learn from a CEO: How to work with a jerk

Some two years ago, I published a Reading Room post that discussed the problems of dealing with a boss from hell.

But it is not only a bad boss who can  make you miserable.

What about your colleagues? How do you work with a colleague who is a jerk?

Dave Kerpen tells us how. Kerpen, whose career tips I have featured in this space before, is a LinkedIn "influencer" and I have been "following" him for some time now. Today my Gmail in-box contained an alert about Kerpen's latest post, which offers, I think, sensible workplace advice.

Here are Kerpen's suggestions for making working with a jerk easier:

• Seek to understand where the jerk is coming from
• Shower the jerk with positivity
• Talk to others and consider your options

And he elaborates on each point in his post. Read it here.

• Dave Kerpen has another thought-provoking column, this one published on the Inc. website. Check it out today: "How to Get Everything You Want. Seriously."

If you really need a reason to buy this magnificent National Geographic book...

...here it is:

In these pages readers can follow the evolution of the photograph. Techniques aside, some of the earliest photos compare favourably with those today. Why? Because, like the chicken and the egg, imagination and image must go together. It is the photographer, not just his camera, that catches the moment.

~ From the foreword by Gilbert M. Grosvenor, chairman of the board of the National Geographic Society

What a wonderful phrase that is: "Imagination and image must go together." And this is exactly what happens in National Geographic magazine all the time, every time. Not only are the photos uncommon; the captions are also works of art. (By the way, that excerpt from the foreword also contains an example of a sentence that begins with because. I am pointing it out here because every year I am asked in class if it is "correct" to begin a sentence with because. And I respond, "Yes, it is.")

Now, in National Geographic: The Photographs, the photographers themselves tell us the stories behind their pictures. Here's an excerpt:

Anxiety accompanies Jim Stanfield on every assignment, so he photographs everything he can think of. "I blanket a subject. I maul a story until it's lying on its back like a turtle," he says.

For a piece on Poland, he felt he needed a technology picture. He discovered a self-taught heart surgeon who had read scientific papers about transplants. Stanfield photographed the doctor performing two consecutive (and successful) heart transplants in a marathon that lasted almost 24 hours.

"I kept studying the doctor and watching his eyes," says Stanfield. "He was so focused, he didn't even know I was there."

About 20 hours into the ordeal, Stanfield made a picture of the surgeon that shows the drama and exhaustion.

The photograph is among the many that are part of the collection in the book, so you can study it after you have read about Stanfield's experience. Isn't that a great way to learn more about taking, sorry, making pictures from some of the world's best photographers?

National Geographic: The Photographs was apparently the gift book of the year when it was first published. In my view, it is the gift book of the year, no matter what year it is.

• Also read: "When you have two hours to shoot ace director James Cameron for a National Geographic magazine cover, how do you do it?"
  

Don't get burned by your online profile

From an article published in Bloomberg Businessweek two days ago:

Think before you post, especially if you’re looking for a job. Seems like common sense, doesn’t it? Yet despite all the advice and warnings to be cautious with social media, job applicants continue to get burned by their online profiles.

Read the piece in its entirety here: Hey Job Applicants, Time to Stop the Social-Media Sabotage.

Afterwards, learn how to scan and delete your old, embarrassing posts from your social networking site: "Get rid of digital clutter".

And you will also want to read this post that I discovered on the Time magazine website: "Facebook Etiquette: Avoid These 5 Common Mistakes".

MUST-READS:

• "Mind your e-language"

• "A Facebook conversation that illustrates the perils of copying and pasting status messages, or sharing links, without studying closely those messages or links"

• "Facebook: Boon or bane?"

It feels as though I have unearthed a gold mine and discovered a time machine at the same time: When reading a book becomes an experience of a lifetime

History, be it fact or fiction (!), fascinates me. One of my all-time favourite books is Travels with Herodotus, by the legendary Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski. I have also enjoyed the sagas written by James Michener and James Clavell. And every now and then I dip into I Wish I'd Been There: Twenty Historians Revisit Key Moments in History.

So how could I not order A History of the World in 100 Objects from Flipkart after I first chanced upon the book at a Reliance TimeOut store? (It's called "showrooming", Reliance. Get used to it.)

For more than a fortnight now, whenever I have had the time, I have been obsessively reading up on each of the historical objects described intelligently and — yes — lovingly by Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum.

A History of the World in 100 Objects, which is based on the BBC Radio 4 programme of the same name, is such a treat that I find myself re-reading almost every chapter.

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DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT
"This wonderful book transports us to every corner of the globe." — TOM HOLLAND, OBSERVER
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And, after I am done with each chapter — I am a quarter of the way through the book, object by object, one object to a chapter — I head over to the BBC site dedicated to the programme. Here I can listen to the original radio programme, go through the transcript, examine the selected object in glorious colour, read additional comments by experts, study relevant timelines... it feels as though I have unearthed a gold mine and discovered a time machine at the same time.

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DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT
"Vivid and witty, shining with insights, connections, shocks, and delights." — GILLIAN REYNOLDS, DAILY TELEGRAPH
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From beginning to middle to end, each chapter fairly radiates energy. Neil MacGregor tells the story in so vivid a style that I keep asking myself: How does he do it?

For instance, MacGregor has to come up with a hundred different chapter introductions; he has to meld historical facts and dates with his own interpretations and understanding; he has to incorporate the views of experts; he has to explain why each object is important in today's context; and he has to come up with a hundred different chapter endings.

And, this is perhaps just as important, he has to make it interesting for the reader from first word to last. 

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DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT
"One can only remain grateful to Neil MacGregor for inviting us, his readers, on this wonderful journey." — RUDRANGSHU MUKHERJEE, THE TELEGRAPH, KOLKATA 
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Let us take, at random, a few opening lines (not the entire first paragraph):

OLDUVAI STONE CHOPPING TOOL (1.8-2 MILLION YEARS OLD): "This chopping tool is one of the earliest things that humans ever consciously made, and holding it puts us directly in touch with those who made it."

OLDUVAI HANDAXE (1.2-1.4 MILLION YEARS OLD): "What do you take with you when you travel? Most of us would embark on a long list that begins with a toothbrush and ends with excess baggage."

CLOVIS SPEAR POINT (11000 BC): "Imagine. You're in a green landscape studded with trees and bushes. You're working in a team of hunters quietly stalking a herd of mammoths. One of the mammoths, you hope, is going to be your supper."

PARACAS TEXTILE (300-200 BC): "Looking at clothes is a key part of any serious look at history. But, as we all know to our cost, clothes don't last — they wear out, they fall apart, and what survives gets eaten by the moths. Compared with stone, pottery, or metal, clothes are pretty well non-starters in a history of the world told through 'things'." 

CHINESE ZHOU RITUAL VESSEL (1100-1000 BC): "How often do you dine with the dead?" 

There is plenty to learn, too. An arbitrary example:

LACHISH RELIEFS (700-692 BC): The strategy of shifting populations has been a constant phenomenon of empire ever since [the time of King Sennacherib, the Assyrian ruler]. Perhaps our nearest equivalent — just about in living memory — is Stalin's deportation of peoples during the 1930s. Like Sennacherib, Stalin knew the value of moving rebellious peoples out of strategic areas and relocating them far away from their homelands.

And here's the concluding paragraph from the same chapter:

Sennacherib was not quite as bad as Stalin. Cold comfort for the victims. The Lachish Reliefs show the misery that defeat in war always entails, though of course their main focus is ... Sennacherib in his moment of triumph. They do not record Sennacherib's less than glorious end — assassinated by two of his sons while he was at prayer to the gods who had appointed him ruler. He was succeeded by another son, whose own son, in his turn, conquered Egypt and defeated the pharaoh Taharqo, who is the subject of the next chapter. The cycle of war that Lachish Reliefs show — brutal, pitiless, and devastating for the civilian population — was about to begin all over again. 

Oh joy! I have waiting for me another 75 chapters bursting with such scintillating writing.

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DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT
Mary Beard reviews A History of the World in 100 Objects in The Guardian: "Brilliant on radio, Neil MacGregor's 100 objects also make a marvellous book".

The television journalist who towers head and shoulders above the... worst

He was just asking to be sacked:

And sacked he was:

FROM THE NEWS EXPRESS WEBSITE: "News Express Channel did not broadcast this video of Mr. Narayan Pargaien but it was uploaded by someone we don’t know, Mr. Pargaien was working as a Retainer with designation of a Reporter and on Tuesday (25-06-2013) This Channel terminated Mr. Pargaien with immediate effect, as such an act by the reporter is a Grave misconduct which goes against cultural values of our Channel."

But Mr Narayan Pargaien, who was reporting from Dehradun on the Uttarakhand flood disaster, is trying to defend the indefensible. He told the Indian Express:

"They [the locals] forced me to ride on the shoulder of a local. They told me they won't allow me to cross the river on my own," he said, adding that he could not refuse them.

What was he thinking?

• Commitscion Dipankar Paul (Class of 2009) has posted, on my Facebook status update, the link to Mr Narayan Pargaein's interview with News Laundry. You can watch it here. And you can also watch that reprehensible P-to-C, which, following a legal complaint by News Express, has been removed from the site on which it was first uploaded.

I'm so glad I've this book waiting for me

Amazon.in delivered Lunch with the FT: 52 Classic Interviews a few days ago. I have been waiting to tuck into it after I finish what I am reading now (Following Fish, by Samanth Subramanian, and three other books). And snacking on Anvar Alikhan's review in Outlook last night has only served to whet my appetite.

Here's an excerpt:

We have everybody from Donald Rumsfeld to Angelina Jolie, from George Soros to Imran Khan, from economist Paul Krugman to Albert Underzo, co-creator of the Asterix comics. There’s even Saif Gaddafi, the doctoral student son of the former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi (though one wonders what wicked thought process led to him being invited). These personalities are drawn into conversation by the FT’s interviewers over a leisurely meal at any restaurant of their choice, accompanied by a bottle — or two — of wine, which, of course, is a wonderful device to get them to drop their formal persona, and reveal a little more of themselves than they otherwise would have.

Read the review in its entirety here: "Autocrats of the Talking Table".

And here, on the Financial Times website, you can read one of the more recent Lunch with the FT columns: "Kim Dotcom: Over salad and club sandwiches at his $24m rented mansion in New Zealand, the internet’s most wanted man says his crazy days are behind him".

Death to the adjective! (Or so say some of the great writers)

When you catch an adjective, kill it. 
~ MARK TWAIN

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The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech.
 ~ CLIFTON FADIMAN

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The adjective is the enemy of the noun.
~ VOLTAIRE

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If the noun is good and the verb is strong, you almost never need an adjective.
~ J. ANTHONY LUKAS

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Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers “Please will you do my job for me?”
~ C.S. LEWIS

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Forward motion in any piece of writing is carried by verbs. Verbs are the action words of the language and the most important. Turn to any passage on any page of a successful novel and notice the high percentage of verbs. Beginning writers always use too many adjectives and adverbs and generally use too many dependent clauses. Count your words and words of verbal force (like that word “force” I just used).
~ WILLIAM SLOANE

• This is just a tiny sample of the wealth of writerly wisdom available on possibly the best website ever for writers looking for advice, "Advice to Writers", curated by author Jon Winokur. (Winokur also has an interesting post on Huffington Post on the best books on writing books. Check it out here.)

• ALSO READ: "Too many adjectives, adverbs, and subsidiary clauses are the death of good writing"