A total black out at Media House. A shocking disbelief in the eyes of each employee. For most of them, this is a first incident of its kind.
A blackout should be going on air too. Nothing being shown in a 24*7 news channel. The rest can be managed subsequently. So, The output head gets on work. An old tape is rolled, until the technical defect is fixed.
The chairs circle around. Various topics get the intellectual involvement of the employees. Yes! Gossiping does not have a competitor when it comes to what people in this country do when not working. Another thing about the media is that everyone here has an opinion.
Trifles aside!
A freelance journalist from Mumbai comes looking for the producer in charge of Entertainment Section.
What the young man tells her was bound to catch my attention.
“ Mam, I can get you the inside stories. I have news and pictures about celebrities – completely nude!!... Doing all sorts of shoddy stuff. Original stories Mam! I am surprised the news channels only report petty Shahid-Kareena fights.” There are so many people with the character of Shakti Kapoor and he is the only bad man known.
On asked how he manages to get those stories, he said he comes across them when he goes for his own assignments as a journalist.
“They would really shoot up your channels TRPs, mam”
The journalist leaves leaving his phone number for further reference.
From Classroom to Newsroom
My experience with one of the television news channels is acquainting me with a lot of new things about the industry. I enter the office after getting my approval as an unpaid intern there. A whole new affair awaits me.
This is what I encounter.
Youtube being browsed incessantly. Video downloads. A new script written and voice over done. A lot of effects applied on the editing machine. And, package ready.
No outdoor shoot. No reporter. No cameraperson required.
Hey! That’s plagiarism, I express articulately. A dozen eyebrows raised. Another half a dozen eyes turn towards me. I realise my ‘mistake’.
“That’s what all other channels are doing”, the assistant producer and my team leader tells me.
I now fathom how various amazing videos are being shown in channels across the country. And that too astounding videos from far off lands.
No attribution required. It would take away the surprise factor. The exclusivity factor too. And it would be like striking your own feet with the axe.
How a 20 second video clip can be stretched to a two minute story, I learnt here. My classroom had taught me to shorten a long sequence of shots into a compact and succinct package. The reverse was applicable here.
The simple knowledge of cutting clips on the editing machine was not enough. It required a professional editor who had this godly skill of “playing” with the clips.
HOW true was the video clip, WHO had posted it, WHERE did the incident take place, WHEN did it happen and WHY. WHAT actually happened?
These 5 Ws and H were an important factor in the classroom. Here, the building up of the surprise factor is the only important component.
The discipline of verification has lost its dignified place. It was of prime importance in my classroom. Not very important here.
This is what I encounter.
Youtube being browsed incessantly. Video downloads. A new script written and voice over done. A lot of effects applied on the editing machine. And, package ready.
No outdoor shoot. No reporter. No cameraperson required.
Hey! That’s plagiarism, I express articulately. A dozen eyebrows raised. Another half a dozen eyes turn towards me. I realise my ‘mistake’.
“That’s what all other channels are doing”, the assistant producer and my team leader tells me.
I now fathom how various amazing videos are being shown in channels across the country. And that too astounding videos from far off lands.
No attribution required. It would take away the surprise factor. The exclusivity factor too. And it would be like striking your own feet with the axe.
How a 20 second video clip can be stretched to a two minute story, I learnt here. My classroom had taught me to shorten a long sequence of shots into a compact and succinct package. The reverse was applicable here.
The simple knowledge of cutting clips on the editing machine was not enough. It required a professional editor who had this godly skill of “playing” with the clips.
HOW true was the video clip, WHO had posted it, WHERE did the incident take place, WHEN did it happen and WHY. WHAT actually happened?
These 5 Ws and H were an important factor in the classroom. Here, the building up of the surprise factor is the only important component.
The discipline of verification has lost its dignified place. It was of prime importance in my classroom. Not very important here.
The Other Indian...2
This time I shall harp on another aspect of the other Indian that has fascinated me since my childhood. Not about my estranged friend that I told you earlier about. But a feature of the santhal community on the whole.
The sight of a hunted swine hung upside down on a bamboo stick stretching on the shoulders of two dark men has always grabbed my attention. The mark of the pierced arrow still there on the body of the animal. At times, the arrow too keeps slinging from its original place, where the beast was hit by these primitive hunters.
The spectacle carries me straight to the hills, into the hunting expedition of my fellow friends. I too begin to imagine myself as one of the hunters bravely chasing the animals, bow and arrow in hand. My hunting dogs backing me up to find the animals.
These are the real hunters I feel, unlike the nawabs or Bollywood actors who often get penalized for their love for the game. Hunting, unlike these natives is not their need. It is only for amusement that they hunt. Safely mounted on their jeep and armed with guns.
There are however only few such spectacles now. Most of the natives have given up the sport. They work as labourers now and get Rs 60 or 70 for a day’s work. Owing to large scale unscrupulous felling the region once known for its thick and extensive forests is now bereft of much of its jungle wealth. The number of boars in the depreciated jungle has also come down considerably.
The sight of a hunted swine hung upside down on a bamboo stick stretching on the shoulders of two dark men has always grabbed my attention. The mark of the pierced arrow still there on the body of the animal. At times, the arrow too keeps slinging from its original place, where the beast was hit by these primitive hunters.
The spectacle carries me straight to the hills, into the hunting expedition of my fellow friends. I too begin to imagine myself as one of the hunters bravely chasing the animals, bow and arrow in hand. My hunting dogs backing me up to find the animals.
These are the real hunters I feel, unlike the nawabs or Bollywood actors who often get penalized for their love for the game. Hunting, unlike these natives is not their need. It is only for amusement that they hunt. Safely mounted on their jeep and armed with guns.
There are however only few such spectacles now. Most of the natives have given up the sport. They work as labourers now and get Rs 60 or 70 for a day’s work. Owing to large scale unscrupulous felling the region once known for its thick and extensive forests is now bereft of much of its jungle wealth. The number of boars in the depreciated jungle has also come down considerably.
India's Garbage Guru
Waste segregation at Eco Wise Pix: Babu
Did it hurt you when someone called your country the dirtiest in the world? Did you ever react on seeing an empty packet lying on the streets? Or on the stinking garbage dump of your colony?
Well! This man did. And in a big way. Manik Thapar had decided “to clean up his country” quite early enough when he was doing his MBA in Michigan in the USA.
It was with this motive that he set up the Eco Wise Waste Management Pvt. Ltd., a waste management company in Noida two years ago. He was just 23 years of age then.
Two years on, the company collects garbage from six sectors of Noida on the outskirts of India’s capital, New Delhi. The recycle firm caters to 25,000 households and many big commercial and industrial establishments like the Haldirams and GE. This might well be a step to solve the garbage problem of Indian cities.
Environmental pollution
In India, Delhi alone generates nearly 7,000 tons of garbage per day, states Vatavaran, a Delhi based NGO involved in waste management. Most of this waste is dumped untreated in the landfills which are mostly open dumps.
“There is no scientific landfill site in all of India”, asserts Manik. There are various health problems directly associated with it.
Such landfills not only contaminate the ground water but also emanate dangerous gases like carbon dioxide and methane. Treating them in plants like the Eco Wise recycles most of the junk, so that only around 25 percent of the waste goes to the landfill site.
Treatment of waste
Ecowise collects garbage from households and also from some big commercial and industrial clients like the Haldirams and GE. “The waste is segregated and divided into bio-degradable and non biodegradable waste. The biodegradable waste is further converted into compost” explains Manik in his friendly tone.
Wet waste which consists mostly of kitchen waste is converted into organic and vermiculture compost. Cow dung and worms are used for this. The organic manure is sold at Re 1 per kg while the compost is sold at Rs 40 per kg.
So! Along with the cleaning campaign, the CEO is also making a lot of money. And it is not only him who benefits from it. “My venture saves the Noida Authority Rs 9 lakh a day”, asserts the young entrepreneurial.
I cannot but admire this bold initiative of the mature youngster. After all "Who wants to invest in garbage?"
The other Indian?
My college closed up for the summer and I get to my ancestral home. Borio is a small village in the Sahibganj district (earlier in Santhal Pargana district) of Jharkhand.
I stand at the door and watch the buffaloes being taken for grazing in the fields. When I was small I ran and tried climbing on one of them. Unsuccessful almost each time, I often fell on the ground and hurt myself. The country animal was too huge for my small size.
Now, I am confident I can climb it and would not fall. But I cannot try the sport. What will people think? The herd comes to an end with the grazier sitting comfortably on the last black beast and playing on his flute. I envied him as a child.
Does he represent “the other India” that the media far away in the capital often complacently refers to? Or that Rahul Gandhi is trying to discover in his travels to the villages - the India that is dispossessed and forgotten? The question perturbs me. And I resolve to find an answer.
I follow this cattle-grazer. I know he speaks a different language (Santhali) and is a “Santhal” – a tribe that the villagers still look down upon. But also one which had played an active role in India’s freedom struggle. He is little aware of his clan’s achievements and has now yielded to the criticism of his “dikku” adversary. (“Dikku” is the Santhali term for the non-Santhals)
The buffaloes graze in the open fields. Some descend into the dirty swamp of rainwater and lie there, motionless. Their black body dyed into a brown complexion. As the sun ascends the sky, the grazier keeps playing his flute as if entertaining his herd of animals.
Its noon. My newfound companion sits under a banyan tree to have his lunch. Rice and onion. That’s the menu on his leaf plate. It raises my appetite too. I return to my house and find my grandmother waiting for me on the dining table.
The menu here is a more extensive one. Rice, dal(pulses), brinjal bhaja, salad and my favourite variety of fish, katla.
As I take my lunch, I cannot but give a thought to my estranged friend.
I stand at the door and watch the buffaloes being taken for grazing in the fields. When I was small I ran and tried climbing on one of them. Unsuccessful almost each time, I often fell on the ground and hurt myself. The country animal was too huge for my small size.
Now, I am confident I can climb it and would not fall. But I cannot try the sport. What will people think? The herd comes to an end with the grazier sitting comfortably on the last black beast and playing on his flute. I envied him as a child.
Does he represent “the other India” that the media far away in the capital often complacently refers to? Or that Rahul Gandhi is trying to discover in his travels to the villages - the India that is dispossessed and forgotten? The question perturbs me. And I resolve to find an answer.
I follow this cattle-grazer. I know he speaks a different language (Santhali) and is a “Santhal” – a tribe that the villagers still look down upon. But also one which had played an active role in India’s freedom struggle. He is little aware of his clan’s achievements and has now yielded to the criticism of his “dikku” adversary. (“Dikku” is the Santhali term for the non-Santhals)
The buffaloes graze in the open fields. Some descend into the dirty swamp of rainwater and lie there, motionless. Their black body dyed into a brown complexion. As the sun ascends the sky, the grazier keeps playing his flute as if entertaining his herd of animals.
Its noon. My newfound companion sits under a banyan tree to have his lunch. Rice and onion. That’s the menu on his leaf plate. It raises my appetite too. I return to my house and find my grandmother waiting for me on the dining table.
The menu here is a more extensive one. Rice, dal(pulses), brinjal bhaja, salad and my favourite variety of fish, katla.
As I take my lunch, I cannot but give a thought to my estranged friend.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
