This blog is primarily for media aspirants as well as young journalists. My aim is to provide links to articles that will enhance their understanding of the media and help them to improve their writing skills, broaden their horizons, and expand their worldview. My hope is that The Reading Room will also help them to become good media professionals.
This was published in the October-November 2013 issue of Books & More magazine:
BOOKMARKS Quotes from books, quotes by writers... to inspire, influence, and induce a new way of thinking/RESEARCHED AND COMPILED BY RAMESH PRABHU "People tell me, Don't you care what they've done to your book? I
tell them, they haven't done anything to my book. It's right there on
the shelf. They paid me and that's the end of it."
— James M. Cain,
author of The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, and other hard-boiled novels, on why he didn't bother to watch the films based on his books, in an interview with The Paris Review (from The Paris Review Interviews, Vol. 1)
*
"Dear Marjane! Never invest in your looks! Invest in your brain."
— Graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis, recalling her mother's advice to her, in the introduction to The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009
*
"Why is it that people now spend less time
preparing food from scratch and more time reading about cooking or
watching cookery programmes on television?"
— The "cooking paradox", as
outlined by Michael Pollan in Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, quoted in The Economist
*
"A family's photograph album is generally about the extended family — and, often, is all that remains of it."
— Susan Sontag in On Photography, which was first published in 1977
*
"I am fully aware that there are those who say
the term 'empowerment' is outdated and overdone. I strongly disagree.
The people who think it's overdone are those who possess the most power.
Easy for them to say."
— Lois P. Frankel, in Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office: 101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make that Sabotage Their Careers
*
"Lots of animals, particularly apes, use
objects; but what sets us apart from them is that we make tools before
we need them, and once we have used them we keep them to use again."
—
Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, in his modern classic, A History of the World in 100 Objects
*
Once people start reading books on devices,
they find that all the things that they worried about don't turn out to
be true, and that they're actually perfectly comfortable with them."
—
Publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin, in Vanity Fair's How A Book Is Born: The Making of The Art of Fielding, by Keith Gessen, which is available only as an e-book
*
"The good writers touch life often. The
mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave
her for the flies."
— "Faber" to "Guy Montag", the fireman who burns
books, in Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
* “Any life devoted to
reading is extraordinarily rich and rewarding, but it can certainly
become an unbalanced life. Because of all the time I spend devoted to
reading, here are some things that I've, perforce, given up: gardening,
cooking, Rollerblading, and cleaning house. But in return I've gotten so
much gratification from the life that reading has allowed me to live.”
—
Nancy Pearl in the introduction to More Book Lust, the sequel to her
massively popular Book Lust, which was first published in 2003
*
"People
do awful things to each other. But it's worse in places where everybody
is kept in the dark."
— "Veteran war photographer George Guthrie", in Night and Day, Tom Stoppard's 1978 play about foreign correspondents
In the week the Nobel Prizes are being announced, what kind of magazine article can you think of writing? After all, the awards are more than a hundred years old and everything that is there to say about the founder, Alfred Nobel, or his legacy in terms of the prize has been said already, probably many times over.
SEEING DOUBLE? THAT IS THE INTENTION.
So trust The Economist's cerebral quarterly, Intelligent Life, to come up with something exceptional. In the most recent issue, Tom Whipple finds out... wait for it... how the Nobel winners hear the good news.
There are three ways people receive the call. The most satisfying,
for [Staffan] Normark [permanent secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences], is when it is a total surprise. "Sometimes the person is
completely silent. So totally that I don’t even know if they are still
there. You can just hear him breathing." He notices his own use of the
male pronoun. “It is still,” he says with a twinge of apology, "mainly
men." Sometimes the subjects of his research have an inkling that it could
be their time; but when their phone rings, they try not to let
themselves believe it. Serge Haroche (physics, 2012) was out walking
with his wife when he saw a Swedish code appear on his mobile. "I
realised it was real and it’s, you know, really overwhelming," he says.
"I was lucky — I was in the street and passing near a bench, so I was able to sit down immediately."
And what is the third way? Find out for yourself by clicking on this link: "Nobel Calling" (that is such a brilliant headline too).
By the way, since we're celebrating all things cerebral this week, read (also in Intelligent Life) this brief write-up on P.G. Wodehouse, that master of the English language, and his writing style: "P.G. WODEHOUSE'S ART OF THE COMMA".
What happened when "A Beautiful Mind" got the call from the Nobel committee Senior media professional PRATIBHA UMASHANKAR commented via e-mail:
Thanks, Ramesh, for sharing this with me.
For
me, the most wonderful way a Nobel winner got the news was when John
Forbes Nash, Jr (Economics, 1994) got the news. The
distinguished mathematician had been suffering from paranoid
schizophrenia for years and he would wander around the Princeton University
campus like a lost soul. Little did he know that a paper he had written
about Game Theory for an economics course he had taken when he was
18 or 20 years old would bring him worldwide renown.
His theory had had far-reaching impact in many fields, such as psychology, politics, marketing, and, of course, behavioural economics. In fact, many people had adapted his Game Theory in several
disciplines, and most had thought the originator was dead.
John Nash,
too, was dead to the world.
Then, one
day, an old colleague accosted Nash, who was walking around in
bedraggled clothes around the campus, sat him down on a bench, and told
him, "John, you will receive a call from the Nobel committee, telling
you that you have won the Nobel Prize for Economics."
And the call came,
but the great mathematician, sadly, had no idea why he had won a prize for
Economics.
Later, he had a miraculous recovery, after more than three
decades of suffering, and he was able to go and receive the Nobel himself, and give an
acceptance speech. Such is the stuff modern-day myths are made of!
Nash sold the rights of his story, and the film based on his life, A Beautiful Mind,
was made, with Russell Crowe (pictured) playing Nash. The
reason he sold the rights was so that his son, who too is schizophrenic,
would be provided for.
And to end this on a "Nobel calling" note, this year's Literature winner, Alice Munro, received the news about her much-deserved prize through voice mail.
Poking fun at people who took themselves too seriously, raising a laugh, and cocking a snook at death towards the end of his life (more about that later) was Art Buchwald's speciality.
Buchwald (pictured at an auction in August 2006) died in January 2007 at the age of 81, but something he said years ago resonates with me even today: "If you can make people laugh, you get all the love you want." I came across this quote again recently and my thoughts then turned to the man whose business — and he took it seriously — was to get people to laugh.
His obituary in The New York Times, by Richard Severo, described best what Buchwald did for a living:
Mr. Buchwald’s syndicated column was a staple for a generation or more
of newspaper readers, not least the politicians and government grandees
he lampooned so regularly. His life was a rich tale of gumption,
heartbreak and humour, with chapters in Paris, Washington and points
around the globe.
Severo also explained why no year of Buchwald's life was as remarkable as the last, and when you read the details you get the true measure of a strong-minded individual who lived life to the fullest:
Last February [2006], doctors told him he had only a few weeks to live. “I
decided to move into a hospice and go quietly into the night,” he wrote
three months later. “For reasons that even the doctors can’t explain, my
kidneys kept working.” Refusing dialysis, he continued to write
his column, reflecting on his mortality while keeping his humour even as
he lost a leg. He spent the summer on Martha’s Vineyard, published a
book, Too Soon to Say Goodbye, in the fall and attended a memorial for
an old friend, the reporter R. W. Apple Jr. of The New York Times. He gave interviews and looked on as his life was celebrated. “The French ambassador gave me the literary equivalent of the Legion of
Honour,” he wrote. “The National Hospice Association made me man of the
year. I never realised dying was so much fun.”
Now you know why I think of Art Buchwald often. And why I consider him one of my role models.
In February 2006, after he was told he had only a few weeks to live, Buchwald wrote a column which he wanted distributed only after his death. That column was finally published on January 19, 2007. Read it here: "Goodbye, My Friends". And here you can read his obituary: "Art Buchwald, Whose Humour Poked the Powerful, Dies at 81".
Behram "Busybee" Contractor, the editor I loved and respected more than any other journalist I have worked with, was also an admirer of Art Buchwald. Behram's universally popular daily column, "Round and About", he told us once, was modelled on Buchwald's columns. You can feast on the "Round and About" archives here: "Busybee Forever".
Nancy Gibbs, at age 53, has become the first woman to become the top editor at Time magazine in its 90-year history.
Gibbs, according to a profile in The New York Times, started as a fact-checker atthe newsweekly 28 years ago. She has since written more cover stories for Time than any other writer in the magazine’s history and she is also a prolific author whose most recent book, The President’s Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity, was published last year.
In a phone interview, Gibbs told The New York Times that she had been surprised at how many young women at Time said they were excited about her promotion, even at a time when breaking “this glass ceiling has become so commonplace”. (In January, Time Inc. named Martha Nelson editor in chief of its magazine division, the first woman to hold that job.)
Gibbs added that these moves seemed to have resonated with employees. “This is a historic institution and there is something that excites people about seeing a woman run it for the first time,” she said.
ALSO READ: In an interview with Forbes, Nancy Gibbs talks about glass ceilings breaking all over, her most memorable cover story, and the role of a newsweekly in today's world: "Talking To Nancy Gibbs, Time Magazine's New Managing Editor".
Ajay Kurpad (Class of 2011) thought he and the rest of the batch were losing their marbles as I took the class though the basics of punctuation. Here’s his angst-ridden “ode” to punctuation:
Forgot your punctuation? Stop hyphen-ventilating. You just have semi-colon cancer. You are not running a 100-m dash. After all, your feet are like ellipses. If you have a period (pun intended), then you must have read the wrong Commasutra. Brackets are barricading your mind and are trying to colonise you. People will put a question mark on your mental stability now. The apocalyptical apostrophe’s apostle is out to slash you. So don’t forget your punctuation.
The reactions came in almost as soon as people received the link via e-mail.
Here's what my 60-year-old brother-in-law, Praful Patel, who lives in England, had to say:
Hi Ramesh,
I can empathise with Gen-Y, so do agree with most of their comments.
The one that I would disagree with is the traffic behaviour. They do have a choice of setting out earlier so that they can minimise risk to themselves along the way. Yes — everyone is young once — but we all want to be able to look back and say that!
***
And here's the response of a twentysomething management professional, Ankita Maurya, who lives in the U.S. (she is the daughter of a good friend):
You sure are tough on them! Millenials/Gen-Y are getting a really bad rap these days... in the US and in India, too, by the looks of it... a lot of the criticisms are true... but I just think our priorities are shifting... we have seen our parents go through the grind... we are now trying to figure out how to not do that and work smarter!
Ankita also shared this link to a YouTube video:
***
My 14-year-old nephew, Vinay Pai, with whom I play squash, echoed Ankita's sentiments. "Your accusations are too harsh," he told me. :-)
Well, you succeed in holding the interest of youngsters, which is fantastic!
About Point #1, the Internet has loads of stuff by people who mistakenly think they are journalists, and then you have impressionable minds (can’t generalise, though, because there are also the discerning), who take almost everything that’s published there as gospel. Sifting through is an important skill, but what is the baseline? Also, the Internet is filled with a mish-mash of opinion that is passed off as news.
B Surendar
Editorial Director & Associate Publisher
CPI Industry, Dubai
***
Great comebacks, except for No 13. Guilty as charged! Love your students.
I just might steal this idea; in fact, I am wondering if I can actually do that and give Commits the credit. Let me know. If yes, you will have to send the text in Word format.
I love it!! Both sides have made their point well. But I love the comeback in No. 4!!!! :))
Nadia Michael (Patrick Michael’s older daughter,
who also lives in Dubai)
***
Loved this! I'm a fan of # 1...!
Nastassia Michael (Patrick Michael’s younger daughter,
who lives in Toronto, Canada)
***
Hi Ramesh,
Fun feature! Who asked us to score higher than Lakshmi aunty's daughter, indeed! However, in solidarity with people of a certain age, I never asked my kids to match the scores of other kids so long as they were achieving their potential and I don't know any crusty journalism teacher. Do you??
Thanks! Interesting read. The Gen-Y answers do come across as a bit rude and cynical. I wonder if it's the Buddha himself because he or she seems to have understood everything of the human condition and world matters, not just of what relates to this generation, but even the previous ones. And not even one instance of "You're right, and I agree, and this is what we can do to co-operate to achieve betterment together." Which is a bit sad.
There is some cynical anger there, which is fine I guess. It does define this generation. Including me, as you can read ;)
Arjun Chauhan, a twentysomething TV
production professional who lives in Mumbai
***
COMMITS ALUMNI ALSO WEIGHED IN (NOT ALL COMMENTS WERE COMPLIMENTARY, THOUGH):
From Shreya Dutt (Class of 2010)
Reading The Chronicle cover story I couldn't help but smile. It reminded me of how I used to think even a couple of years ago. But as you evolve in your career and your personal life you learn to distinguish between the idealist answer and what really works for you.
What struck me was the career-goal bit. You will be stretched at work, you will be pushed against the wall sometimes, and you will want to be in a position when you listened even half-heartedly to those who have more years to you on possible situations you will encounter along the way.
If you are to deliver a presentation at the end of the day, your boss will not be interested to know about all the ad hoc work you were given through the day. If you have a wide range of projects that don't hold your interest, complete those projects anyway. You never know when you will need to step up to do that same job you absolutely detested in college. And I assure you there will be many times like that.
The workplace of today is evolving at a rapid rate. Though there is value for people who have defined skill-sets, there is greater value for people who are equipped with multiple skills. If you want to be a copywriter, you should know how print, television, social media, and digital media function. This is applicable to all disciplines in media.
As for sucking it up, I groaned every time I heard the phrase. I groan even today. Only difference is, I know that it is a reality that isn't nice, but, a reality nonetheless. The world doesn't stop if you're unwell, or if you have suffered a personal tragedy. Neither does business.
And as for advice, I am all for learning the hard way, but a little flag-off from time to time never hurt. :)
***
From Sushmita Chatterjee (Class of 2008)
Hahahaha...wow! I loved this. Great going, Ramesh Sir. :)
***
From Tapasya Mitra Mazumder (Class of 2013)
I am wondering, how did you let that pass under your nose?
The copy's rudeness is quite appalling, but I'm sure your "accusations" won't change a bit in spite of all that rudeness.
What's the point then, may I ask?
***
From Noyon Jyoti Parasara (Class of 2007)
Fun read, but I am not sure if I would have accepted this as the lead of The Chronicle.
This could be in another designated section. No?
About the answers to your accusations... the cycle goes on. Not all accusations are correct, neither are all answers!
***
From Sherry-Mary Jacob (Class of 2007)
Wow! What a way to lighten my Tuesday brain. I have saved the link in my drafts folder. The next time my dad lashes out at us with his favourite emotional dialogue, I know where to fetch my answers from. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it, Ramesh Sir. :)
Thanks!
***
Faye D'Souza (Class of 2004) shared a link to a Huffington Post article on my Facebook wall with this comment: "This answers a lot of the questions you've been asking."
After reading the piece, I commented on Facebook:
I was especially struck by the soundness of this comment:
"Gen
Y has 'unrealistic expectations and a strong resistance toward
accepting negative feedback,' and 'an inflated view of oneself.'
"[Paul Harvey, a University of New Hampshire professor] says that 'a great source of frustration for people with a strong sense of
entitlement is unmet expectations. They often feel entitled to a level
of respect and rewards that aren't in line with their actual ability and
effort levels, and so they might not get the level of respect and
rewards they are expecting."
And I also wrote that I agree 100% with the advice provided at the end of the article: 1) Stay wildly ambitious. The current world is
bubbling with opportunity for an ambitious person to find flowery,
fulfilling success. The specific direction may be unclear, but it'll
work itself out — just dive in somewhere. 2) Stop thinking that you're special. The fact is,
right now, you're not special. You're another completely inexperienced
young person who doesn't have all that much to offer yet. You can
become special by working really hard for a long time. 3) Ignore everyone else. Other people's grass
seeming greener is no new concept, but in today's image crafting world,
other people's grass looks like a glorious meadow. The truth is that
everyone else is just as indecisive, self-doubting, and frustrated as
you are, and if you just do your thing, you'll never have any reason to
envy others. Afterwards, I wrote to some young people I know, asking them if they thought that this advice is helpful for those who are about to begin a career. Here is the response I received from Ankita Maurya's younger sister, Shweta, who is a college student in the U.S.:
Ankita and I were just talking about this article a few days ago! I
think the first two points are meaningful to me. Just because reality
does not meet my expectations doesn't mean I should lessen my ambitions —
I still want to aim high!
But the reality of not being as special as we
think is important — I know that my friends and I have left school with
inflated images of how unique each of us are. It's not just that we
think we are unique, but we think that we can skip hard work and
immediately obtain our dreams once the world learns about our uniqueness — as if these things will be handed to us because we are as special as
we believe.
The second point is a good reminder that we must still earn
our place in the world and at work and leads back to the first point: stay
ambitious.
And there were comments by Commits students, too.
From Sneha K. (Class of 2014)
That was some pretty awesome advice! Especially, "to dive in somewhere."
Just what I needed to hear today!
Thank you. As always. :)
From Diyotima Sinha Roy (Class of 2014)
I agree with the second point. You are not special; you have to work and gain experience to be special! :)
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:
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.
Commits alumnus PRATIDHANI TAMANG (Class of 2012), who works as a freelance photographer in Bangalore, explains what it takes to work on one’s own terms
I have no boss. And every day is the weekend; at the same time, every day is also a workday.
That’s because I have been “job-less” —by choice — since I graduated from Commits a little over a year ago.
But not having a job to go to does not mean not having to work.
So I do work, but on my own terms. You see, I am a freelance photographer and cinematographer.
PRATIDHANI TAMANG: IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA, FOR ONCE.
The first thing I want to make clear here is that being a freelance photographer is not for everyone (as my senior, Nishal Lama, from the Class of 2008, will corroborate), so don’t splurge on that latest Canon or Nikon just yet.
The biggest problem when you work as a freelancer is that hundreds of people will appreciate your work and make business inquiries. But after you send them an estimate, they will just vanish into thin air. Out of hundreds of formal discussions, only five or so jobs will actually work out.
Also, sometimes, there is no work for long periods of time, which can be very frustrating. I think it is this fluctuation in work schedule that scares many freelancers into opting for a regular full-time job.
On the flip side, I am sometimes offered loads of work, but I feel too lazy to take it all on. There is no boss to scream at me, so why bother!
When I first started off I already had a few contacts, thanks to whom I was able to bag my initial assignments. I explored many new places and I made many new friends. That was amazing! As for making ends meet, the money is certainly coming in, though not as fast as I would like. The thing is, I have to make humongous investments in my gear: there’s always something I need to buy to upgrade my equipment, or so it seems.
But there is mostly satisfaction in being able to have a huge amount of control over the work I choose to do.
Bottom line: I love my life right now. Having said that, I know that sooner or later, like most freelancers, I will have to give up this gig and go in for a 9-to-5 (yikes!) or set up my own business (very different from hangin’ out solo). I see the latter happening, but I think there is time enough for that.
Till then, I am going to savour, and live by, Pink Floyd’s dictum: “Shine on, you crazy diamond.”
Back in May I had published this quote (among others) that I had read in The Thinking Life, a thought-provoking book by P.M. Forni:
" 'I have no time,' we say, but we do,
we always do. What we lack is the will or wisdom to commit our time to
goals that would be smart of us to pursue. If you are really motivated
to do something, you will make time for it. I am not arguing that
you are not busy. Most of us are. I am simply urging you to consider
that you are only as busy as you let yourself be."
I chose this particular excerpt to make the point that if we care enough about what we have to do, we will always find the time in which to do it.
The operative words are "what we have to do". And also "find the time".
Whether we are in full-time employment or in pursuit of an academic/vocational course, we may have little or no say in the nature of the tasks assigned to us. It is rare for a boss to ask you if you would like to do this or that job. And there is certainly no point in grumbling about the lack of time. When such is the case, surely it is to our advantage to tackle any assignment head-on by making the time for it and by caring enough about the outcome?
Now here's another perspective on this tendency that many people have of asserting they are "busy as usual".Writing in The Week, the magazine's business editor Carmel Lobello says it is time to stop talking about how swamped you are because...
...talking about how slammed you are can actually damage your ability to connect and interact with people, which is bad for all aspects of life. In Harvard Business Review, entrepreneur Meredith Fineman says, "To assume that being 'busy' (at this point it has totally lost its meaning) is cool, or brag-worthy, or tweetable, is ridiculous."
PS: I remember that when I was working with Khaleej Times in Dubai, my colleagues would invariably respond to my friendly greeting "How are you doing?" with the retort "Surviving." But any time I was asked "How are you doing?", my response would invariably be "Thriving."
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)".
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).
I have more than 20 years' experience (1981 to 2003) as a journalist in India and Dubai, specializing in selecting and editing news reports and features. From 2003 to 2019, I taught journalism and writing skills to master’s students at Commits, a media college in Bangalore.
I joined Cactus Communications ("Serving Science Worldwide") as a copyediting freelancer on October 1, 2019. From the very beginning, I have enjoyed the challenge of working on a new assignment each day. I like to think of every article as a daily crossword puzzle that I need to solve by examining the clues closely. And, finally, when I submit the article that I have tended, I like to think, with love and care, I feel deeply satisfied.
