Hyderabad 3

Yesterday
Ok, just finished reporting to my boss the deeds, or lack thereof, of the day. He was busy, fortunately, so gave me polite advice not to trust journalists, as they're all jackals, considering the competitive scenario. He then bid me khuda hafiz and turned to his hp flatscreen monitor. And I'm back to my desk.

My desk is in a cublicle and shares space with three other desks. The cubicle is a custom made product of Iceland, in collaboration with sadistic corporate giants in India. I'm sure there's a camera somewhere recording the symptoms of the slow onset of hypothermia. The disappearance of the previous resident of this desk is still a mystery, but I bet the cameras caught him in his death throes, his teeth still chattering six feet under.

I'm taking a look around now. Habiba is not here, probably her day off today. Srinivas and Mridula share the cubicle with me. The guy is a whip of a man, but his serious spectacled face has seen many a byline within the ten months he's been here. The girl is a charmer. No airs about her, loves cricket, is endearingly clumsy sometimes and is one heck of a reporter. Good sense of humour as well.

The first person I met in the editorial was prachi. She's a feature writer from massourie, who worked for the Hindustan times in delhi. Very amiable and quite cool. There's a touch of tough stuff in her, but she doesn't call on it often. Then there's puromita, another sub. She's quite pretty, and I haven't spoken a word to her since I came here. Not even a wish. Sheesh.

Today
Another day at work. Yes, the day's at work, not me. The story I'm supposed to be sniffing around about is regarding bad connectivity of cell phones, like when they cut the call in the middle f a conversation, or when the signal suddenly goes away on a holiday, or when you have to yell so hard your voice sounds half way to the next city and the anyone on the other line still thinks you're whispering. All this in spite of paying through the nose every month. Hardly value for money. Now see, it was so easy to tell you the problem in words like this. Btu no. I gotta make a report of it, make it just boring enough to be interesting. As a report. Any more boring and it loses its readability. That's the challenge of news, to keep your opinions to yourself and if they do happen to surface, they should be only a flavor in the story.

Once upon a time, there was a little boy. He was a good little boy, ad everyone in his little world loved him. They told him that he was the best, that he had his little flaws, but that he was still the best. They laughed at all his jokes, they let him alone when he was cranky. They praised hi every time he showed them a trick. The little boy loved everyone there, but he knew something wasn't quite right. He knew he wasn't the best. He knew he was far from it, and that he was getting farther by the day. But by now, he was quite full of the donuts everyone gave him, and just didn't want to try any harder at his jokes or his tricks. Then one day, everyone told the little boy he wasn't so little any more, that because he was the best, he had to go and be the best.

The little boy who was not so little any more was worried. He knew that the time had come when everyone would know he wasn't the best. He was sure everyone else would laugh and everyone would be sorry.

Ok, too much whining. I just took a walk to the hindu office a coupla km away. Met a very good journalist by name Sai Gopal. He's been in the field for a short while, but he's done a lot. My immediate boss (henceforth to be referred to simply as boss. Alpha boss will be alpha.) has great regard and a lot of praise for him, as does sudhir. Sai G is a great guy. He briefly told me that it was going to be hard, but that how high I go need be no less than how high I want to go. Clichés all, but when I saw the guy say these things, I saw many days of solid work and learning. 'continuous learning experience', termed it. He warned me to stay off office intrigue. I didn't need that one, but well, its helps to keep it in mind. He suggested that I keep a keen eye on the vernacular papers. There might be a lot to draw from them as time goes by, not to mention a picture of the city they give the ready. He also told me never to give up on reading, that the words I read ages ago will come floating back into sentences I write today. "Keep in touch", he warned.

Today is a zilch day. No stories, no ideas even. Just a brief meeting with a couple of bureaucrats in an organization one approaches only for statistics at the state level. It's still a start, I told myself. As I've been telling myself for the past week, tomorrow is another day. Now, another bit of observation that might be helpful – I get sluggish when I sit down for over 10 minutes. Up to 10 minutes is fine. Any more and I get sluggish and I simply can't move out, or do anything. Solution, start moving even before I get into the office. Make an appointment earlier in the day and get to that place first. Finish with the place and then come to the office. Hmm, not a bad idea. All I have to do is tell the boss. Ok. I need to dress like a journo from now on. Enough formals. I'm going to buy jeans and a good woodland shoe and get the look. Its part of getting into the groove.

The cell phone story I was working on needed some stats from the airtel guys. Naturally, their pr system and company policy was thicker than whale blubber, so I was groping with my hands in goop, with no solid info. However, the pr voice of airtel, as you may remember, is rediffusion. I spoke to a guy from that office. He was quite friendly, but this being a zilch day, he didn't give me much. But the guy seemed one of those bona fide pr guys, and offered to buy me ice cream some day, before his wife came back home. Ahem, I assure you, there's no pun in ice cream. He said he was under her mercy when she was home, that's all. Cute. The guy talks good urdu and went high funda for a while. I held my own with passable hindi, and voila, we both have a contact each in hyderabad. I wonder if he knows the contact is mutually useless.

After this phone call, I hit it off with srinivas, the 10month old journo in our cubicle. We sit back to back. He turned around, and explained the 'daily rigour' as he termed it. How every journo has to submit two ideas a day in the morning, work on them during the day and file them in the evening. Yup, two stories a day. Even dc doesn't do those many a week. Of course, its not a rule, just a challenge in a dog eat dog world. Some days it doesn't happen, no biggie. If it happens only on some days, it's a biggie. Another thing, copy's not personal stuff, so its quite common to have peeps read over your shoulder, like srinivas just did. What the heck, nothing incriminating.

TOI prefers two kinds of news – trends and negatives. Write about the newest trends in any field, and they will salivate over the copy. Give a negative angle to any story and you've hit a six. Write about the latest negative trend that's afflicting the city, and you've struck the mother lode of your career. Well, it's 7pm now, and that's what I've seen and learned so far in the day.

All this writing makes me wonder about what it is that makes someone write diaries or memoirs. What urges them to put everyday bits and pieces in writing. Well, there could be the megalomaniacs, who cant see their own deeds, however trivial, go unrecorded. Then there could be the observers, who cant let the magic of their world fade away. That's how many great parts of history came to be written. They write about themselves as well, only to make their lives a humble canvas on which the ceaseless dance of time is laved with gentle strokes of indelible words. Then there are the meek, who use a flow of words as a child uses the folds of a comforting blanket. The blanket is hugged when the child is sad, it can stand a kick or two when he's upset. Without exception, it is let go of when the child grows up. I don't feel like a megalomaniac right now, and I'm definitely not making any history by being the most non productive guy in the office, so I guess I'm rambling in the dark to keep the monsters under the bed from getting me.

-Ananda