Losing Music

It was sometime in 2016. I was on a late night flight back home. I landed, took a rickshaw back home, and was shuffling things in my backpack to organise it. Rest of the journey was uneventful. Twenty-four hours later, I realised, my iPod Classic was not with me. Had I forgotten it in the aircraft? In the rickshaw? I couldn’t recall. And not knowing where to start searching for it, even if I could, was the end of it. And life has never been the same again.

I loved iTunes and my iPod Classic for the features; mostly for the fantastic organisation of music it allowed. IMO, there hasn’t been better navigation of music since the wheel. Sadly, Apple killed the iPod Classic a while ago, and a better (or equivalent) alternative was never released. (Nope, iPhone wasn’t the alternative.)

Over the years, I plodded along with many devices, apps, and options to recreate the experience to listen to my music. Many apps were downloaded, tried for weeks, discarded. Months went by, doing this: rinse and repeat. And I was spending an enormous amount of time identifying the ideal option, when I should have been listening to my favourite music.

Years later, here I am, settling for a sub-par option, all of my music still not available to me, but managing somehow. I’ve made a few playlists that work for me, but they aren’t as refined as the ones I had before 2016. I am learning skip songs (which I don’t like to do: they shouldn’t have been in the playlist in the first place) and have to use the unsmart methods to create and add to my playlists.

All that we depend on, breaks down somehow, somewhere. Parents get old and die, partners separate, jobs are lost, pandemics engulf, friends drift. We lose our favourite music devices. But life has to go on.

Let the music play.

Freshen up: Shower or Travel?

This writing challenge is not the only challenge I’ve taken up, if you were wondering. (which is a stupid thing to say, because why would you be wondering about that!) And sincere apologies – again – for starting a post about the challenge. This post however, has nothing to do with writing or the challenge of a-post-a-day.

Parentheses /pəˈrɛnθɨsiːz/ (singular, parenthesis /pəˈrɛnθɨsɨs/) (also called simply brackets, or round brackets, curved brackets, oval brackets, or, colloquially, parens /pəˈrɛnz/) contain material that serves to clarify, or is aside from the main point. A milder effect may be obtained by using a pair of commas as the delimiter, though if the sentence contains commas for other purposes, visual confusion may result.

In school, we used to call all enclosing symbols as brackets. Later, while working as a technical writer, I discovered that there were parentheses, (hard) brackets, (curly) braces, chevrons, angle brackets, and corner brackets. And apparently each one of them has a specific purpose. I’ll ignore them for this post.  (Because this post isn’t about brackets)

For a person who likes to travel a lot, I travel a lot less. (See? How I constructed that sentence? Smart, eh? Lot; Lot less?) Definitely less than I’d want to. I had promised myself, that come what may (I promised myself this in April, not in May), I’d travel at least once a month for at least three days. I did go out in May (Just so you know, I took up this challenge in April (like I said before)), but did not in June. But then this June was more like a curse, less like a boon. (OK, I just made that up because it rhymed – there’s no rule that says there cannot be rhyme in prose.) July is a bit more relaxed, so, in July I will fly. (Yes, I made that up too). And I won’t discuss the other months, because I already know the rhymes for all the other months, thanks to April, Come She Will (We fans, call it the 2-quarter song – because it goes from April-September).

So, for a person who likes to travel a lot, I travel a lot less. I wish I travelled more. The other day, an ex-colleague of mine advertised for a job of CTO for a travel startup. I thought, hmm, that would be fun (actually, I thought, that would be interesting; not fun; but fun sounds better). Not that I am qualified to be a CTO, yet, I thought about it, for a while. I then realised that the CTO would be sitting in one place, ensuring all the code and software is written, and not travelling. (It’s like being an accountant for a perfume company, or ground staff for an airline company, or something like that) I said to myself, no way, I’d take that job. Not that I am looking for a job, I am quite happy and excited about what I do.

But the travel bug continues to bite. As I write this post, I am ignoring all the scars and the pain (emotional, mind you, not physical) of all the biting that has happened in the past several months.

People travel for different reasons, but all those who travel are enriched in some way or the other. Some travel to tell themselves, “I was here,” some travel to tell others, “I was here.” Some travel to see, some to eat, and some, to meet new people. Whatever the reason, travel is liberating. It unshackles us from the daily humdrum that we eventually begin to accept as the norm. I, for one, have never tried to analyse why I like to travel. I do show off on social media about where I am, making the then city dwellers envious. I post exotic (if you can call them that; they’re just local) photos of food that I eat. I usually do not care to take in the popular sights, but I’ll go along if my companion wants to.

No one has yet called me that, but you could call me the reluctant tourist.

I have rarely travelled alone, someone has always been with me, yet, I travel to be with myself. There’s something sticky about the city, that is always on you, unrelenting, an intangible gooey smear all over your self, which never leaves you alone. Of all the things that I enjoy when I travel, is the absence of that sticky, gooey thing. I do not detest it, for I am a city person, and love everything about a city. Yet, a short stint, being free of that layer is a sense of lightness that I cherish. It’s a feeling of freshness, like you have just had a nice shower. That sense of me, being with myself is all I seek. Apart from that, I really care little for what I do.

There may be some travel in July. I look forward to it.

But I won’t be taking up that CTO job. No.

Up in the Air

There’s too much of more. There’s a new fanatic in town, and her exposed argot has more words that end with -er.

Faster, smaller, thinner, longer. Sharper. And the sorts.

In Victor Hugo’s apt words, however, argot is the language of the dark; a language of misery.

Here’s a blurred photo.

It’s blurred. You cannot see much detail. There is hardly any specificity in the image. What does this mean for the image? Not for the photographer (that’s me, and I do not care much about what you think of me). Does it become a bad image because, alas, we cannot see the twist and the weave of the fibre that makes the thread that have revolted out of the binding Rexine?

A friend would take up this argument and talk of test cricket and the T20 format.

I’ll digress. If you don’t want to, skip the marked section.

<Start Digress>

I quit Flickr Pro and moved to 500px because it was a suggestion by a well known photographer. I hated it as soon as I saw the “top” photos. They just do not seem real to me. 500px is a muscle show of post-processing. Not that post-processing is bad. I use it all the time. I was looking for a word when I was discussing 500px with a friend. I didn’t find it then, I have it now.

Synthetic.

Over the years, the 500px platform went through a number of revisions and changes, growing together with technology and photographers, and keeping focus on the highest quality photos. Via 500px  (emphasis, mine)

500px offered a way to sell photographs, but I was not (and am not) interested in it, anyway. I’ve (mostly) quit 500px.

</End Digress> 

There is no doubt that our tastes are changing, our attention spans diminishing. We have lesser time for our friends and no time for ourselves. Enough research floating around to prove that. 2831215 is the phone number of the travel agent of my first company. This was when mobile phones didn’t exist. Now, I don’t even remember my fourth travel agent’s name. Hell, I don’t even remember if I use a travel agent anymore. I have to remind myself to add keywords to her address card. My choice of keywords defines what I will forget about her and what I might use to search for her. It’s exhausting, in a way. Her’e a worthwhile exercise – how many mobile numbers (of close friends or family) do you know by-heart?

I need to travel a bit. But I digress. (I should have warned you)

Adobe recently announced that the Creative Suite will now be cloud-based. To make the news worthwhile they included some super sharpening tools to the CS. (Now you know what triggered this post)

Apart from the irritating plugin that I *have* to use with browsers, I do not use any Adobe products because of their bloated sizes and prices. But this post is not about Adobe, at all. Software is a tool; it makes sense in a way that you use it. I find arguments about tools pointless. As long as you do your work well, the tool doesn’t matter. Hammer vs. Pestle. Mac vs. Win or Can vs. Nik. Same difference. 

This post is about simple questions.

How much sharper do we need our images to be? How slimmer should our phones be? How faster should our computers be? How much thinner should our laptops become?

And while the inanimates around us become more ‘-er’ and ‘-er’, what about us?

What ‘-er’ should we be striving for?

Sorry, Prannoy

I am really afraid of you now. And, no I am not being sarcastic. At all. I am afraid to write about the world around me as I see it. Which is the same as what you do; only, our mediums are different. There are others in my community that are willing to stand up and tell you why you are wrong or more such things. Not me; I am afraid.

I promise, that starting today I will not watch any NDTV channel, lest I see something on it that I feel like writing about.

You see, I have huge respect for you, since I have grown up on The World this Week and your election specials. That was, of course, a long time ago. You and Vinod Dua were our champions when we were trying to get a grip on the Indian political system. We learnt a lot from you, then.

I promise, that starting today I will not watch any NDTV channel, infact, I will block it on my DTH, lest I accidentally browse through it.

There must be a word for it, for sure. I am not quite sure if it would qualify as media-terrorism or legal-terrorism. But terror has struck our hearts for sure. Bloggers around the country will have to measure each word and qualify each post before they click “Publish”. Funny, that it applies to bloggers but not to mainstream media, but I digress.

I promise, that starting today I will not watch any NDTV channel; I do realise it may harm your TRP, but then what does one blogger viewer mean to NDTV?

Haircut, while you wait…

Now, this is something that I have rarely done.

I have been waiting for the fine folks at WordPress to fix the Ocean Mist template and have been responding to the forums and giving feedback. In the meanwhile, I have been going to the blogs of the people who have been responding to the topic that I started, requesting support.

And, I stumble on this. Full Marks to Mark (One of the fine WordPress Folks) for finding this!!!

I haven’t been so pleasantly surprised in a long time! Remember – Headphones on your head, before you start!!!

Enjoy!!!!

Blogging Being

I like to believe in coincidences. That way it is easier to deal with happenstance than dissect and analyse the ‘bigger scheme‘ of things that we aren’t privy to.

A couple of days ago I found great food for thought (as much as I was tempted to say food for blog, I shall let the cliché survive) on Lorelle’s recent Blog Challenge post. Just the thought sounded yummy and I said so. But I had no idea what definition I would give. I had shied away from it some time ago, when I had asked the same question to a few bloggers. Blogging means a whole lot of things to me and at the time I put my comment on her post, all those meanings were happily rioting against the floodgates that barricade my otherwise unruly thoughts.

Coincide the above with: The day after I did AFJ’s tag, I thought I would give the ‘answer‘ to the tag. But no, it wasn’t meant to be. I ended up running from here to nowhere via everywhere including WordPress WordPress Support. (The fine folks I always talk about). The problem was quickly resolved. Now, the response post wasn’t critical. At all. It could have been posted even after this post – it wouldn’t have mattered. But just the thought of not being able to post on my blog…!
Blogging doesn’t define me (and thankfully so; given the fifteen-odd blogs that I presumably “write”, I would be easily diagnosed with multiple – (and somewhat split) personality syndrome). I do, however, define blogging, and yet the definition is elusive. I talk of the kind of definition that we have all grown accustomed to.

x is y with z features.

A few of you who have been long-standing victims of my obsession with words, meanings and contexts will know my dilemma. What meaning do you ascribe to something like blogging? It is always easier, I believe, to derive meaning of multiple contexts, and blogging lends itself just fine to multiple contexts.

Blogging is spaces. It is about the spaces that we inhabit, in the world or the worlds that we create for ourselves. We believe we know our space, we are protective about it, often possessive about it. A blog becomes just that and a bit more. It allows for a meandering exploration along those in-between white spaces in between our worlds; those that we don’t often notice and hardly care for. When we are in the white space, when we see from that vantage, we see a lot of colour. There is a vigorous sense of being alive.

Blogging is fear. It is about two types of fear. One that we are able to overcome, often through anonymous blogging, a way for expressing that the otherwise imposed social rules of engagement do not allow us to. This is not floccinaucinihilipilification. Some of the best bloggers are anonymous and it doesn’t change a thing about the beauty and insight in their writing. At the same time, blogging causes fear. Well, fear is too strong a word, but after a while the material attachment to the post-count, comments, stats and therefore the readers, brings a tense sense of holding on. The blog becomes as human as we are. It has flesh and blood – and it has feelings. The cycle continues.

Blogging is judgement. Of every word that dims a few pixels on your screen. Of every post that was born of a thought that refused to disintegrate and crumble at the feet of your neurons; that insisted on being born. Of every reader who reads your post and says something, or doesn’t. Of the blog round the corner that often times does a tad better than my blog. Of the blog round the corner that often times does a tad worse than my blog. In these hallowed halls, where you become the judge and the accused in half-duplex, all is seen through a discerning eye. All is sliced up and spiced up, and given a permanent place, assigned a value.

Blogging, however, is mostly expression. An otherwise delinquent thought becomes a well-behaved angel and sits smartly in a post. And a million such, together create that wonderful experience that is not the author; the blog is seldom the author – it is the author’s projection of colourful thoughts like a festive London Eye on a moonless night, spinning at its own happy whim and in its own blissful frenzy.

And yet I haven’t done any justice to what blogging means to me. The most important context of it all; the most elusive: a blog’s cajoling nature that urges you to articulate more and articulate better (which has yet to work perfectly for me, what with the high level of abstraction that my discrete words adorn).

Ever had a dream, when you felt that you were in a deep dark abyss, falling and rising at the same time, lit up at both ends? Then you know what I mean.

And 300, It Is

It’s like a dash – the last reserves of your energy to get there – to the ribbon. The exhilarating feel of the ribbon on the chest – in days to come: the invisible cut of the infra-red beam by the first cell of your body that severs it.

The tea-maker told me a hundred posts ago that I had cheated – and I shall indulge in such cheating once again, this time five more times than the last time. Technically, I have possibly crossed the 300th, because WordPress failed to import a few posts from February 2006. But I am neither complaining nor disclaiming. You could say I am getting better at cheating.

It’s almost a burden – when you are just a few steps away from the milestone. Better get it off you chest.

But I want to rest a while. Do things that are equally as close to heart.

I read a lot about blogging – as a phenomenon, as a tool, arguments for and against it. I talked with a few people about the meaning of it all – and their perceptions. I have questioned myself enough about the purpose – because I am a firm believer in purpose.

And I stumbled on posts like this. I found kindred spirits.

In the recent past, most of my posts have abstracted themselves out of the context in which they were conceived. I have been questioned about that. Even blamed of the potential nonsensical-ness of it all. The comments have been waning. If there is pleasure in incidents and gory details of who said what – then there is always the movie gossip magazine. I once began writing a post which now has twelve words of unfinished text after I read this post that referred to this post. I don’t think I make a difference to the world. This blog is too inconsequential to be able to do that. Most blogs are. What my blog does however, is make a difference to who I am and how I see things. It allows me to express what I think, know from others what they think about what I think. It provides me a way to fine tune my thinking. To recalibrate my notions of things. Its one thing to have a thought – a completely different to be able to express it in the right way.

A small digression here: making a difference is often not a conscious choice. It comes out of a context. Imagine Mahatma Gandhi wasn’t thrown out of a train in South Africa. It’s almost destiny; (as much as I hate to admit it) the trigger is what helps make a difference.

Those rare days, when that one spike in a WordPress blog stat graph nearly touches the sky, and yet is pulled down by the day before and the day after. The one day Gaizabonts was featured on Desipundit. It’s as my artist friend tells me – huge canvases – those are the ones that sell.

The mark of how much your blog is your personal diary vs. an expression for others to see is the number of times that you go to your blog and check the stats and your sitemeter and such. What would we be if we just spoke with ourselves – where and what would be the significance of Web 2.0?

Blogging in isolation of the world to see and respond to is a thought. I wonder then, why such blogs aren’t private. All blogging services offer that. I enjoy the adulation I get out of blogging; I won’t deny it.

30-odd years of life and only 300 thoughts in three years (and a bit) is not a call for celebration, what is, however, is that this is a beginning. 4000, perhaps in the next. Wishful thinker.

I’ll see you after a while. Maybe short, maybe long, but a while it will be.

Cheers!

Undignified Indignation

Yet another forward doing the rounds. This time about an army officer’s death shadowed by the media coverage of a movie-star’s court case in an arms handling case.

The forward is replete with sentiments and anger and crude rhetoric of the coverage of movie-star’s case. In fact, I learnt more about the case about the movie-star when I read the forward than I have seen in the media. It barely touches upon the valiant soldier’s death.

I see this indignation around and it irks me even more – not about what our media chooses to cover – but how we look at the world around us. The only premise of media companies is coverage and circulation. It has got nothing to do with the news. If you understand this premise, you wont believe in injustice as much as you do. This particular forward, while attempting to raise awareness of a soldiers death, puts it at the same level as the case of the movie-star. It intends to seek the same time that was spent on a crass case. The author of the forward should have known better. Starting a chain mail just trivialises the issue even more – as more people I know have started ignoring forwards.

A soldier’s story doesn’t need prime time. Your very ability to freely start a chain mail is due to the soldier. My ability to write about it is due to the soldier. Our ability to sleep well and get up the next day and restart this discussion is due to the soldier. All the freedom available to us, every waking moment is due to the soldier.

Deep down, I am happy that a soldier’s blood is not the focus of the media – they would end up commercialising that one last value amongst men that remains pure and noble.

21 December 2056

It was on the Thursday, 21 December 2006 that someone had first imagined it. It has been exactly fifty years since; and it is now a reality. On 21 December 2056, the first ‘LE DVD’ was launched officially and open to subscription to the public.

Smartly, launched just a few days before the festive season, the LE DVD now allows you to carry all your memories with you on a single disk for just 9.99. For those of us who would like to share our life experience with others, there is also a website hosting service available at 24.99. It allows your friends to view comment and link up to their own LE DVD experiences creating the most amazing experience of the life that you have lived.

What is the LE DVD?
The LE DVD, is the output of a simple procedure that collects all memories from your mind (even from the recesses that you do not have access to) and creates a single full motion video on a DVD that you can play off any CPD2 that you have, including your TV and handheld device. Your entire life, from the time you took your first breath is available in full motion video (DVD Quality) for all the time that you had your eyes open. Any items that you had forgotten are available to you at the click of a thought. The most interesting feature of the LE DVD is the community feature – because only when a chapter in your LE DVD is linked with a friends’ LE DVD chapter, you can see yourself. As you may have guessed, your friends have to be linked through a Mind Tag to create this wonderful immersive experience.

For the time when you were asleep, it converts only audio at this time; however, folks at LE are working the next versions of LE which will be able to convert your dreams to full-motion video.

How do I get an LE DVD?
The entire procedure takes less than an hour and is a completely non-invasive and harmless procedure that has now been certified by Global Electronics & Media for Medicine Management Association (GEMMMA) as a safe procedure. See the links below – to find your nearest LE Centre.

What do you get?
For just 9.99 you get a single media device with all your life experience in full motion video that plays on any CPD2 as an interactive module. You can search the device by dates, time, people, events, places and keywords. The procedure is completely secure and requires your MPA (Mind Password Authentication) to display the video. Using your MPA protocol, you can choose chapters in the LE DVD that can be viewed by the public or a select few in the LE DVD community. Access control is completely yours and comes with some sophisticated access control features.

How does it work?
It is really simple; you just plug the LE DVD into your preferred CPD2 and Think Play. Use the interactive features to view the entire Life Experience as a single show (it also remembers where you left off, a useful book-marking feature) or choose to view certain periods or items related to certain people only. Using latest technology, your entire Life Experience is converted to NLP4-friendly format and does natural language searches too. Use VR3 (sold separately for 16.99 and a worthwhile add-on) to just remember and say out loud a dialogue that happened and you get perfect results of events in your Life Experience.

How do you use it?
Well, that’s up to you isn’t it?

A Year Ago…

…and five days, I was here:

The Creative Answer

The answer to Creative All Around is now posted as a comment. If you are still planning on solving it yourself, avoid the comments.

Creative All Around

 

Creative reflection eludes a thinking individual very easily.
Run in circles if you’d like to verify.
Escape is impossible when you are stuck inside.
Around the grid revolves abstract creativity bound together.
Think about what you seek in this act.
I could tell, but the mystery would evade.
Venetian moats around the city flow like rivers.
Even various intellectuals travel an elusive rounded circumference.

 

My early attempt at riddles. Can you guess what it is? The answer is in there, so are the hints. Have fun! (The image is just a filler, but helps, in a funny way)

Folks, who have seen this before and know about it, control yourself.

It first appeared at Deep Recess, here. Spend some time with it, till the block is overcome.

3,938

2,999 on November 13th, 2006.

A dozen days later, 3,938 (now that I am not addicted to round figures). What can I say, you guys rock!

The Winter of Words

Words seem to be the autumn/winter theme.

They are failing to make meaning in some instances or falling short in others. Their translation from a language to another causes the loss in meaning or the intention is lost in the incomplete use of words.

Elsewhere, their sheer utterance in a weave – so that a set thought gets translated through words for us to understand.

Boyzone said it best I guess, the ultimate resignation to reality and nature of words:

it’s only words
and words are all I have

But then they are good friends too, these words, because they work better than silence. The meaning of silence is relatively more relative than words. And till such time ESP becomes common, we have to try and understand our friends better – know that they can only help only as much as we will allow them – like most good friends.

But these words, I tell you, sometimes…

Eyes Wide Shut

It’s about six-forty in the morning and I just finished Blink, by Malcom Gladwell. I have yet to read The Tipping Point by the same author, but now, I am not sure that I will.

The problem with any book is its reputation – especially if there is a lot of it. For some reason – it kept reminding me of Freakonomics – only this was esoteric on the dull side.

There is a trend (I am not sure who started it) of looking at the world as if suddenly we are finding new things. These books go on with examples and experiences – and it just seems never ending. Some examples are interesting – but then it does get boring after a while. India Unbound, The World is Flat (left it halfway), and now Blink. I am given to believe that the Tipping Point is similar. I call these, the “books that tell us what we know”. And I may add, “that we choose not to know”. Possibly we are bang in between a revolution of how we see our world – and these are the small changes that we dont notice. Hmm. Need to read Tipping Point.

Freakonomics stands out – because the relationships that it talks of – are curious, to say the least.

Blink is a good book, mind you, nothing wrong with it – but it failed to impress. At least as much as the promise that people said it held. The theory that the book talks about is absolutely bang on! And I should have known. I don’t pick up books recommended by some people. Then many people talk about it – I know all the more I shouldn’t pick it up. But then you feel left out – because everyone is talking about it. That is not the Blink moment. The moment I choose not to pick it up is the Blink moment.

Recommended only if you want to be told, with never ending examples of, what you possibly already know. Yawn, need to get forty blinks…er…winks, or more.

Rivalry, Imports, & Anonymity

WordPress and Blogger can’t handle volumes of content. It’s like a friendship that is not. It did import all my other blogs (with <30-odd posts) but broke down when it had to import 200+ from Gaizabonts. Doesn’t matter; I got most of them. Healthy rivalry is just a phrase – I guess – in reality. Or, obviously, I did something wrong.
Did I lose something important? Now, unless I have a comparison tool – I will never know. Rest assured – I won’t try. I know February 2006 didn’t get imported and WordPress wasn’t able to restore the BlogSpot template back to what it was – so that section looks like I don’t know the <p> and <br> tags at all.

Doesn’t matter.

WordPress doesn’t know who I am – neither does Blogspot. I am just an ID to either of them. Who I am – matters to the people who visit my either blog (including those who are getting used to Gaizabonts on WordPress). Therefore this question of identity.

End of the day, I am an ID; I am an IP address, I am a blogger. I saw two serious posts about the merits and demerits of anonymous blogging here and here. I know some anonymous bloggers – I like their blogs. Actually there are three types of bloggers I know. Anonymous, semi-anonymous, and non-anonymous. (What’s the opposite of anonymous?) Their degree of anonymity hasn’t deterred me from going to their blog – neither has their anonymity every made me want to know their ‘real’ identity. Eradicate that anonymity; and it gives even more perspective to what I read.

I have always wondered: why blog anonymously – so I left a comment on one such post. The reason to remain anonymous – is protection – of some sort – you have of course seen Eraser and the likes. Don’t get me wrong – I love pseudonym-based writing – it is an alternate ego – which needs to be expressed. My blog doesn’t say something insipid like “Blog of Atul Sabnis”: Gaizabonts is an alter ego – of sorts. I submit – I tried anonymous blogging (and of course this is just me), but I found it futile. I found my writing there very similar to what I write here. I mean, apart from using four-letter words with ease, starting with the sixth letter in the alphabet. I wondered if that was the only freedom of being anonymous – I didn’t get a convincing answer. There may be more – I haven’t experienced those forms of freedom. Using names that are one lettered – is of no use either. I could as well use one here – but to protect some one else’s identity.

Our deepest and darkest secret of all – is the one that never finds expression. It is for us to keep – live with it; deal with it. Even in an anonymous blog – will your darkest secret find expression? All else is a pretty open book. Most anonymous bloggers should go through their blog – and see where they are compromising someone else’s identity. They don’t – most of them don’t. I have known (and keep visiting) some sincere anon or otherwise bloggers – they take a life experience and present it without any colour – open for debate and interpretation.

A psychiatrist friend of mine may have a completely different take on this (S, don’t get into this)

There is enough flak as it is about bloggers from the media – we are apparently people who can’t make it to a tea party with Arundhati Ghosh or we are just sulking. Let them be – for an industry that has sacrificed punctuation to convenience, I’ll rest my case. Whether all bloggers are writers who never got the publisher’s contracts or are opportunists – doesn’t matter. The media? Ignore them – their ability to match anything that is even Web 0.9 is a huge doubt. Read an online article on the website of the largest circulating paper in India – you will know what I mean. What part is the ad? What part is the article? If you ever decipher – let me know. They don’t feed us news – they feed ads. One RSS feed states: “PM’s grandsons may be discharged on Saturday” – sometimes I wonder if they have one reporter (who potentially blogs anonymously) per RSS feed. (Three feeds in three hours about the grandsons?)

It is a cultural phenomenon – finally. What you can do in front of the world – can you do it in your blog? That is the Q. The answer is – probably not. And that is all right. This is not about guts – it is about choice. For anyone to remain anonymous or not – is a factor of their own release from the clutches of cultural confinement.

As I finish this post (for some time now), only one thought keeps raising its hand for attention: we have enough problems dealing with the one identity we have.

No News is Good News

Maybe I am losing touch with reality, but I am saddened by the news – that’s what they call it now. Maybe I am just getting old. Maybe it is what they call generation gap. Newspapers are the conscience keepers of the nation – if this be it – then we sure do have a trashy conscience.

A long distance away from home, when I log in to see how my city is doing, the second piece of news is about how a reporter posed as a beggar and discovered that Mumbai is a generous city.

I am saddened because this is not news. Mid-Day sent its own reporter, Prashant Rangnekar to pose as a beggar, and this event was then covered as news. News, according to the dictionary is, “Information about recent events or happenings, especially as reported by newspapers, periodicals, radio, or television.” Here I see that “news” is being created – more for the purpose of entertainment than for information. I recently read Digital Fortress by Dan Brown and, while the book is a work of fiction, he seemed to agree that it was more entertainment than information. This may still be information – that Mumbai donates generously. Frankly, do you relate? Undercover reporting has brought great news to the fore.

But this?

While being the beggar, did Mr. Rangnekar feel the need to find out the cause of so many beggars in the city, did he attempt to find a solution to this problem? Did he create awareness of the indifference of the government to this shameful sight in the city? I am near paranoid that this is a potential career guide for the slightly insane and the immensely failed.

And it’s not as if the newspapers don’t know this. They do this with extreme awareness. They even advertise, questioning what trash we read. The recent DNA ads in Mumbai and a few radio and TV spots were all asking us what news means to us. Newspapers and TV channels do surveys of how well informed the youth is about the country’s history. They poke fun and laugh at the ignorance of the youth. Sad – they don’t realize they are ridiculing themselves. They obviously haven’t done a good job of informing the youth. I am sure the youth knows about which celebrity wore what for the last Friday’s bash and who is breaking up with whom. They are well informed about this. It’s almost as if getting a question paper out of syllabus! I’d love to do this same survey of the radio and TV hosts – check if they knew who our first president was and why we celebrate Teachers’ Day, before the producer hands them the cheat-sheet.

Forget the ability to answer, we have lost the ability to question.