THE DIARY OF Z

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‘How to start a career and be your own boss’. Looks like the title of a self-help book? Sure, it is. But then, it’s not so easy for female mid career professionals who have to weigh in a lot many things before the needle swings any which way. It’s hard for those with spouses, loans, and kids to pull off a start-up. But it’s not impossible either. You just have to love your idea enough to figure out how to do it on the side.

But the road to entrepreneurship is pothole-ridden. Take mid career pros. They don’t like the responsibility that comes with it. Usha, the 33-year-old project manager at a software firm puts it succinctly: “It’s as simple as my laptop crashing the other day in the office. Within three hours, I was functional again. That’s the beauty of working in large organisations. The processes are in place, the people are helpful. It’s a secure job whichever way you look at it.”

The lure of global organisations makes it more difficult for mid career pros to say ‘goodbye’ to seven-figure salaries and the perks that come with it, global travel included. “If I do get married to some guy who wants to relocate to Australia, I can join him there without thinking about quitting and finding a new job because my company has a branch out there.”

Anuradha Muralidharan seconds Usha’s opinion. “Yes, a job does come with certain responsibilities, time schedules and deliverables but unlike entrepreneurship, one is not carrying the weight of the entire organisation on one’s shoulders,” she says. “In my job as Manager – MarCom, I might do a late night telecon or stay back in the evening, but be rest assured that when I go to bed, I sleep peacefully. That is the biggest asset of working versus owning your own set up. You tend to worry less and enjoy life more.”

Another important perk is tackling monotony. When you get saturated in one field, you can explore another, without the risks associated with entrepreneurship. “One has options. If one is bored and feels spent, one can move to another department,” says Usha. “You can move roles, go to different cities and countries and work in diverse fields. Because you are working in a larger organisation, there is no harassment at work. Everything is transparent, including your career growth.”

And then, there’s the security factor. “My salary comes on time, there’s a set number of holidays I can take, including maternity leave of 2-3 months,” says a proud Usha, who intends to work for others all her life. “It makes you feel proud to be part of a global organisation because getting a visa is easier and you are respected the world over because you represent a certain company. And then there’s travel insurance where everything is taken care of before you leave your country.”

Working for someone has other benefits, indulging in hobbies being one among them. Ask Anuradha. She gets time in the evenings to read a book, pursue a hobby like writing and have dinner with her family. “When we eat, I am not looking furtively at my cell phone to see if there is a fire somewhere,” she explains. “I eat peacefully and listen to my son talk about his day. This is the biggest perk of working in a company. Not to mention, the monthly pay check which I know for sure will come in. Also, I get to travel and learn more about technologies, markets and cultures, which makes my job all the more exciting.”

It’s the processes that make a big organisation so much more lucrative. And this also helps people to be happy at work. “If you are especially working for an old company, there’s a lot of stuff that has already been done before,” elaborates Usha. “So this helps you build on the existing infrastructure rather than completely re-invent the wheel and go nuts doing it.”

At the end of the day, working for large organisations is also about convenience. “I can choose to work from home, although right now, I don’t want to because I don’t want to carry work home, but maybe sometime later, when I get married and have a kid, I might,” says a thoughtful Usha. “Mobility is an option. Since my office is situated in two parts of the city, I can choose to work from a place close to my house.”

While experts will tell you to jump in, take risks, challenge yourself, trust your instincts, and learn from both experience and the experienced, Usha is clear she will not go on her own. “It’s unnecessary stress that I wouldn’t want for myself,” she says matter-of-factly. “I want to be part of an ocean as it’s so much more easier.”

Domain experts will tell you that twenties are the best for a start-up as you have a whole life ahead for success and failures. The problem therefore is more age-specific. In your 40s, you have many things to deal with. In your 20s, you can focus on one thing and still be an entrepreneur if you focus. This finds resonance in Usha’s early working days. “I took a lot of risk during my advertising days,” she reminisces. “But somewhere inside, I wanted security and stability. Advertising is based on performance. Almost every day, you have to come up with new, original ideas. And in this field, if your account moves, it means the end of your project and you move out of your job. I have also done a bit of freelancing for websites. But I realised these were smaller firms and my growth was stunted. With the dotcom bust, I had nothing to do. Now when I am working for a global organisation, I don’t have to worry about all these things.”

Sometimes, the reason for choosing to be an employee could be found in the family background. Take advertising professional Bela Vora. “All the entrepreneurs I knew – the business folk – my mother and her brothers, worked in run down dingy offices and struggled with clerks, paper work and bribing officials for various licenses, while my father who was a manager with Glaxo Laboratories worked in a spacious, air conditioned office surrounded by well dressed and polite people,” she recalls. “Therefore, I was naturally fascinated by the big corporate life, rather than with entrepreneurship in those early years.”

Given time, you learn the good and bad side to entrepreneurship. “By working in small and large companies for 22 years, I learnt not only about how the advertising business is run and what makes a good product, but also the most important softer skills of people management and the ability to face failure,” says Vora, who was an employee for more than half her working life before setting up her medium-sized advertising agency, Black Coffee. “If I have met with any success today, it has been because of my career background. It molded me, put me in touch with the right people and gave me the impetus to strike out on my own.”

Then again, entrepreneurship can be the best option for those mid career pros who are happily married with young children, as a promotion in an organisation means a change of city or even country. “This is increasingly a prerequisite for a post on the board,” says Vora. “The outstation transfers are measured in years. This can put a real dampener on your personal growth and family life and needless to add, plunge you into the classic dilemma of home versus career, or, in my view, happiness versus money. Many entrepreneurs, especially women, are made by this dilemma. It is a good time to strike out because a newly born business person feels more fulfilled to have a home to come back to rather than a service apartment in a foreign country.”

Working in smaller organisations works wonders for a future entrepreneur. Take 35-year-old technical writer Nirmala G. “I spent seven years being indispensable by working in a smaller organisation. It helped me prove my self worth and learn a lot more because you are being watched and picked on all the time. You multi task and know what it takes to run a firm because you’ve done it all. I know that the value add I can give compared to someone who hasn’t been on their own will be far superior. It is important to know what’s your worth, because then you can survive it this way or that.”

Now she works in an MNC and prefers the relative financial security. “I can become an entrepreneur, if I am able to pay off my home and car loans and have a certain regular income to meet my monthly expenses,” she says.

This could well be a possibility, given time. But right now, Nirmala is happy tapping away on the keyboard until she accumulates enough capital and wisdom to strike out on her own.

The first of the opinion polls is upon us, this time initiated by the Malayala Manorama Group’s The Week magazine. ‘Modi wins, lotus wilts!’ reads the screaming headline that prides itself on bringing the results of an exclusive Gujarat election survey. The kicker headline goes on to say that the CM is popular, but BJP faces a resurgent Congress. Can there be a more balanced story than this one? Consider for a moment that this story is manufactured, then who would tend to benefit from this? The Congress and Narendra Modi, ofcourse. Now consider that the story is sponsored by the Congress, why couldn’t they have said, ‘Modi loses, lotus wilts!’? Because everyone knows that though the popularity of Modi is on the wane, he is yet to find a competitor. So in the interest of some credibility, it was important for the survey to be semi-credible. After all, Modi’s winning margin might come down from his last victory (there is no Godhra this time around), but his utterances are continuing to make national headlines. If there is one publicity machinery that is working overtime, it’s the Modi camp. For them, any kind of publicity is good publicity. In fact, the more extreme reactions that Modi elicits, the better it gets for him. That has been his way to polarise voter opinion.

A similar story will emerge when any of our Kannada and English newspapers and TV channels undertake an opinion poll in Karnataka. Everyone who is in the know will tell you that these surveys tend to benefit the politicians more than citizens like us. In fact, they end up causing more angst and in some cases, utter confusion amongst voters. But what everyone knows is that most of these surveys are unscientific, sometimes manufactured and therefore never accurate. So how do they justify their ineptness? By saying that the voters changed their mind at the last minute. It could be true in some segments where liquor and money do turn around fortunes of many parties, but I would still blame the surveys for this. Noticing that their popularity has dipped, courtesy the opinion poll, a certain political party might pitch in with more money, resort to large-scale rigging and subvert the electoral process. This is particularly true in states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Which is why, it’s in the best interest to ban opinion polls. Is the Election Commission listening?

But until that happens, expect to be reading a lot many opinion polls in the days to come. In addition to Outlook and India Today, you might have Deccan Herald, The Times of India and even The Hindu coming out with divergent findings on which party would win the state elections this time round. With TV9’s propensity towards the Congress, don’t be surprised if their opinion poll favours the Congress. Don’t be surprised if Zee Kannada favours the BJP. Similarly, among print publications, Deccan Herald’s findings could favour the BJP while the Times of India could very well pitch for the Congress. That’s where their respective ideologies lie. But I could be wrong. Political equations can change at the last minute, and thereby their stands. Opportunism makes politics highly unpredictable. But what is clear is the need for a stable government, both at the centre and the state. Happiness doesn’t reside in a country that is forever under a cloud of political uncertainty. Are you ready to cast your vote?

(This piece has appeared in my Media Watch column that runs in Agni every week)

At a time when the issue should be larger than the subject questioning it, TV9 does the most ignoble of things. By projecting reporters larger than life. Just the other day, I saw a live voice broadcast of a reporter, giving his take on the dismal state of Karnataka politics, as if he’s an expert on the subject. Even that is okay by me. But what is not, is the way his photograph filled up almost half the screen, while the rest carried file footage of the Karnataka drama that unfolded in the last two months. A decade ago, this practice was frowned upon. In fact, there were no pictures of the correspondents covering the news. Only many years later, did the TV channels decide to put a face to the voice at the other end. Then again, it was a passport size photo. Still, the story was bigger than the reporter. Fair enough.

But once globalisation set in and cable TV became ‘the’ addiction of the nation, mere reporters became voices of India, be it on NDTV, Aaj Tak or Star News. Their ignorance was only matched by their arrogance in needling a controversial topic and upbraiding a supposedly errant person. That’s when they became larger-than-life. There have been many instances where these reporters have ridden roughshod over the cameramen who are herded around like cattle. There have been many more instances where the TV reporter becomes an arm-chair journalist and gets his story on the phone, leaving the cameraman to cover his tracks by getting the video footage of the scene in question. You could shout ‘manpower crunch’ and get away with it, but not when it’s a crucial story of national and international importance. But this has happened ad infinitum. No TV channel wants to send out its team of reporters and cameramen to remote corners of the state and country. Take TV9. Much of its reporters are confined to the major districts of the state. What about the towns? Aren’t they not part of Karnataka? Can the state be called one without them? Are they a Karnataka-centric channel or a district-centric channel? Agreed, much of the news happens in districts like Bangalore and Mysore, but that shouldn’t deprive the other town folks from airing their news and views?

Not that TV9 is the only culprit. All the national channels are party to it. The anchors are portrayed as larger than life and even have advertising campaigns endorsing that fact. I would prefer an expert instead of these just-out-of-a-beauty parlour anchors any day. And then, there’s this issue of tapping every nook and cranny of the state and country. With the politics of opportunism reaching a new low in Karnataka, every newspaper, magazine and TV channel, both local and national, should have carried out campaigns on the pros and cons of a coalition government. Is it the antidote to autocracy or does it lead to the collapse of democracy? While the jury is still out on that, it’s about time we asked this question to ourselves and be ready with our vote for the upcoming state and general elections.

May the best win.

(This piece has appeared in my Media Watch column that runs in Agni every week)

I mimic, therefore I am. This seems to be the credo of TV anchors and news readers today. If some are bad at what they do, others are good at imitating their channel founders. If it’s not Prannoy Roy’s accent on NDTV, it’s Vinod Dua’s Hindi inflection on Aaj Tak. Will people ever find an identity of their own? What’s worse are slip-a-thons. Not a minute passes and there goes the slip. If it’s not the pronunciation, it’s the anchor’s persistent lack of knowledge. If that isn’t all, it’s their awkward pauses and grammatical errors galore.

The regional news isn’t any better. Tune in to any language channel, and you will find half-baked anchors trying to ‘fit in’. Some sport a frenchie, some speak with a heavy accent, and a few others belong to the staid Doordarshan variety – no spunk, no attitude, no nothing. This species is worse off because their credo seems to be: ‘We are like this only’. Which means, you can never expect them to improve and move with the times.

What bothers me even more is that all the good anchors on TV pretend to be Mr and Miss Know-it-alls. That’s fine, so long as there is no abject disregard to every celebrity being interviewed. After a point, the anchor’s superiority complex just gets to you. I know the dude sitting next to the anchor is known to be the most corrupt, but by turning an interview into a one-sided slang match doesn’t prove anything, does it? Can’t the anchor be more neutral and let the viewer decide who is the villain of the piece? Isn’t this a democracy? Can’t there be fair play? Take Karan Thapar’s famous court martial with advocate Ram Jethmalani. In taking on Manu Sharma’s case, has Ram Jethmalani betrayed his principles and scattered all morality and ethics to the winds? This was the premise of this interview that made for some spectacular viewing. However, there was this niggling doubt that the whole thing could well have been staged. How else can you explain Jethmalani threatening to storm out of the interview several times and not doing it? What about the super calm composure of Karan Thapar in the tensest moments during the interview? Does that mean even interviews and news chat shows are being staged in the race for maximum eyeballs? Is ‘shock and awe’ the only way to tell news today?

Just when I thought I had heard the last of it, Yahoo announces that it will soon launch a news service where the anchor will sing the news for you. Does that mean, if it’s to do with someone’s assassination attempt, the music will be hip hop? And hymns, if it’s an obituary?

If this isn’t a parody of news, what is?

PS: Perhaps we are also to be blamed for this trend of ‘shock and awe’. How else will you explain the survival of the seven-year-old nakednews.com that has its anchors shedding clothes while reading out the news?

The song ‘Dard-e-disco’ in the just-released Hindi film ‘Om Shanti Om’ has become India’s new anthem. No problem with that. It’s got a mellifluous Sufi influence. Has the timbre and tenor needed of a song that waxes eloquent on matters of the heart. But what gets my goat is the way the TV news channels are airing interviews with the cast and crew of Om Shanti Om and Saawariya ad infinitum. I have no issues with promos breaking the news segment for some comic relief, but advertorials disguised as editorials is definitely not on. If the general entertainment channels air similar-sounding reality shows at the same time, I am okay with that. After all, they could do with better viewership ratings (TRPs). But news channels should concentrate only on giving breaking news in the fastest and most accurate manner possible.

The worst happened only last week. While I was surfing the news channels for the latest in breaking news, all I saw was an enthusiastic Shah Rukh Khan talking about his film Om Shanti Om. What’s worse is that every news channel, be it NDTV, Aaj Tak or Times Now had the same SRK clad in the same t-shirt and sitting on the same sofa and talking the same shit. SRK has no issues with this ofcourse. After all, he’s preparing for an all-out fight to the finish with Saawariya. It’s revealing to know that a superstar like him gets the jitters from a big banner film. Shah Rukh Khan is even quoted saying, ‘My movie’s budget is equal to the publicity budget of Saawariya’. Ofcourse, it’s exaggerated but he conveys the competitive streak between the two filmmakers. Competition is fine, so long as it is healthy but what isn’t is the way news channels are giving up their sacrosanct editorial space for what is downright promotional stuff. Have things gone so out of hand that TV channels are airing the interview simultaneously for more TRPs? Is this a new form of overkill? Or is this a novel way to make money by the TV channels even before the film reaches the theatres? Call it what you will, but one thing is clear. The TV channels have just lost their nose for news in pursuit of material happiness. By airing the interview on the same subject with the same person at the same time, they are creating a visual blind spot. When a person views the same thing on every channel when he’s particularly looking for breaking news, he will simply switch off and get on the Internet for the dope.

The statistics point out the rot within. According to an industry survey, Hindi-language soaps and movies corner 40% of all TV ad revenue. No wonder, news channels are morphing into general entertainment channels to sustain themselves. But then, why call themselves a news channel? If this isn’t enough, there’s more bad news. According to reports, the total number of channels on air is set to hit 700 by 2009. This means, broadcasters will be forced to slash advertising rates and spend heavily on improving technology to ensure their channels are carried into homes, or face the prospect of being swallowed up by rivals.

This media trend is only going to worsen in the coming days. The pressure on advertising rates and the load on overburdened analog distribution systems is expected to benefit deep-pocketed broadcasters and edge out smaller and niche broadcasters. The upshot? Hapless viewers like you and me will be witness to many more OSO-like advertorials ad infinitum. But we don’t need to just grin and bear it. There is hope yet. We can always turn off the TV set and log on the Internet instead.

(This piece has appeared in my Media Watch column that runs in Agni every week)

Ekta Kapoor and her counterparts like Dheeraj Kumar and Aruna Irani seem to be intent on saffronising television. Pick any soap on Sony, Star Plus or Zee, and you will see some or the other pooja being telecast into drawing rooms across the country. Agreed, it’s a Hindu-dominated country and such rituals are part and parcel of the majority, but the frequency of such rituals has gone beyond tolerance levels. Remember, this is on national television and therefore needs to be tailored to every other religion in the country. What’s more, much of the customs and rituals shown in these serials are predominantly North Indian and find no resonance to South India. The TV channels seem to be happy overdoing one religion and ignoring the rest. If this isn’t a sign of national disintegration, what is?

There is more to this. When the odd serial does have a storyline involving members of other communities, it’s only by name. There are no rituals being shown, no pilgrimages being captured on film and no recitations of their sacred texts. Why these double standards? Why can’t an equal emphasis be paid to all the other religions and showcase their customs and rituals as well? And by this, I don’t just mean Muslims (sunnis and shias) and Christians (catholics and protestants), but also the Jains, Sindhis, Punjabis, lingayats, vokkaligas, Brahmins, vaishyas, shudras – each of them have their uniqueness, be it in the way they conduct marriages to the way they eat and dress. If the media is a mirror to society, then why is the mirror not functioning like one? Why can’t we show what is real and leave the interpretation to the viewers? There are numerous cases of inter-religious marriages of the famous and the not-so-famous. And like everything else in this world, some work out, some don’t. But the reality today is that there is more of an integration of cultures than ever before, and barring the fundamentalists, several others are co-existing in a multi-religious environment. Why isn’t this being reflected on the small screen? Why is their a bias not only towards non-Hindus, but also towards different regions, creeds and colours? Why can’t a real India be shown on national television?

Films are worse off. They of course represent the minorities, but only to reinforce stereotypes. A Muslim crops up if it’s to do with terrorism, a Sikh is in the picture to convey colour and variety and a Parsi couple figures if it’s to give a comical touch. This is particularly predominant in films, language no bar.

Thankfully, our regional TV channels are much more rooted in their portrayals. If there’s a pooja, it’s rare and it’s only because the script demands it. What’s more, they use non-Hindus to take their story forward. There isn’t any perceived religious bias. And even if there is, it isn’t so in-your-face like the Ekta Kapoor serials. Will she and her ilk drop their regional bias and become truly national and stop furthering the RSS agenda?

There’s a looming threat of misinformation in the Indian subcontinent. Most media houses are either run by businessmen with strong links to politicians or worse, run by the kurta-clad themselves. If it was a covert operation earlier, today the ownership is out in the open. Every political party worth its salt is trying to gather as much media steam to envelop the country. Knowledge is power, but when the power of disseminating it is at the hands of netas, you have to take every information from their media vehicles with much introspection.

Experts attest that many communal riots would not have taken place but for the false stories deliberately planted in news papers. Editors beholden to their employers and often to politicians regularly dissuade younger journalists from pursuing awkward stories, preferring instead to print safe plants and handouts from politicians. Such freedom tends to be confined to the editorial pages, which have now become the unique preserve of a select menagerie of wind-bagging superannuated bureaucrats, and pious academics.

A few years ago, the debate was about whether the media controlled politicians or whether politicians controlled the media. Now TV news channels are lining up along political lines and have become more in-your-face. NDTV is owned by Radhika Roy, who is CPI leader Brinda Karat’s younger sister and Prannoy Roy’s wife. The Times Group is partly owned by an Italian, Rabritio Mindo, who happens to be related to Sonia Gandhi. Hindustan Times is no more with the Birla’s and is now controlled by the Times Group. Andhra Jyoti is owned by Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), a Muslim political party. The Statesman is controlled by the CPM. Mathru Bhoomi is funded by the Muslim League and the Communist Party of India. Kairali TV is controlled by the CPM.

The situation isn’t any different in Tamil Nadu. If Jaya TV is owned by AIADMK supremo J Jayalalitha, Kalaignar TV is run by the DMK while Mega TV is funded by the Congress. The Dalit Panthers of India have floated the Tamizhan channel while the PMK have set up their own. The political equation is as polarised in Kerala. There’s Jai Hind TV owing its allegiance to the Congress. That places it in direct opposition to Kairali owned by the CPM. New entrant, Sudarshan TV is backed by the RSS. Karnataka hasn’t remained untouched either. JD (S) leader Kumaraswamy has launched Kasturi channel and is also the proprietor of Amogh, one of the largest cable distribution networks in Karnataka. Udaya TV is part of Sun Network and the Maran brothers who are related to the DMK. Rumour is rife that Ramoji Rao’s ETV Kannada could be bought by a rival outfit. With the Lok Sabha elections scheduled for 2009 and the Assembly poll in 2011, things could get quite convoluted and muddy. The viewing public wouldn’t know whom to believe as they are clearly media vehicles for their political masters.

The solution lies in community radio, community newspapers, video and audio cassettes. Internet is another medium, which can contribute to free and speedy dissemination of information and usher in ‘digital democracy’ and creation of ‘netizens.’ Folk media like Harikatha, puppet shows and street can also be revived and used as vehicles of effective social communication.

The question is, are we discerning enough?

(This piece has appeared in my Media Watch column that runs in Agni every week)

Prison Break makes you an addict. You can’t wait to watch the next episode on TV. Your eyes might be dead and tired watching the episodes back to back (I got it downloaded from the Net), but your motivation to keep watching it is so high that your eyes can’t do a thing about it. Such is the addiction. Right now, two seasons, each of 22 episodes, are over. The next season is to start in September. Can’t wait. Feeling breathless already.

SO WHAT IS PRISON BREAK?

It’s about an average bloke Lincoln Burrows getting framed for the murder of the vice president’s brother.  The first season is all about how Michael Scofield, Lincoln’s exceptionally talented brother (possessing something called ‘low latent inhibition’ that equips him with a remarkable capacity to remember everything he sees) lands in Fox River prison as a fellow prisoner by purposely committing a bank robbery and his eventual escape from prison with seven other prisoners who help him in his endeavour.

Seems like a simple enough premise for the first season. But the way it’s executed is a screenwriter’s test of skill. Watch each of the episodes and you will notice that there isn’t a dull moment and I mean it when I say this. This is a thriller all the way. The dialogue delivery, the impeccable casting and the characters make your day. Each of their uniqueness is what allows Scofield’s gameplan to work.  And how? Watch it to FEEL it.

SO WHAT’S THE SECOND SEASON ABOUT?

How all the fugitives try to save themselves from the clutches of the law. If you think, it’s boring, brace yourself for some mind-blowing ‘cops and robbers’ game you’ve never watched on Indian television. There is the US secret service, the President’s men and the FBI coming together to put the pronounced fugitives back in the cage.

TERSE ACTION, CONSISTENT CHARACTERISATION

Each character is given equal ammo to make his presence felt. Be it the psychopathic T Bag who is always on a killing spree or the super sensitive Scofield who can’t bring himself to hurting anyone leave alone killing. There’s the hip hop kiddo who eventually turns out to be quite a toughie who will give his life for the safety of his prison inmates. There’s Sucre, who will do anything to lead a happy life with his wife. This is one ‘on the run’ season that grips you from the word go. You feel what they are feeling, you experience the same knots of anxiety, confusion and sheer dread, you feel transported into the world of these characters and don’t see a way out… until the next episode starts rolling in. It’s a great feat by the writers and the different directors who helm it from time to time.

WHAT HAPPENS IN THE THIRD SEASON?

To the point of getting repetitive, Scofield is now back in prison, this time in a prison in a banana republic like Panama where there is no extradition policy – if you are jailed here, you can never go back to your country.

Therefore, the problem here is more compounded. Escaping from a prison in the US was still easier, but at Panama, it can be quite a roller coaster ride filled with too many lows and very few highs. It seems to have all the promise of the previous seasons and the potential to be better than all of them. We are waiting, Scofield. Bring it on.

PS: The first episode of Season 3 was out a few days ago… disappointing fare… hope it revives interest and starts winning back viewers soon.