Along the line, at railway gate No. 58

My dear students, friends, colleagues and well-wishers,

Today, 5 March 2009, I complete 58 years. Along the railway line of my life, I stand at railway gate No. 58. For all these years coming freely to me, I am grateful to my mother, the late Amy, and my father, the late Denis, and to our Mother Earth, for whom I know I have not cared enough, when I look at the way I selfishly care for my family, students, friends and work colleagues.

I am also playing my second innings now. For this, I am thankful to modern medicine, the Pune Heart Brigade (phone 1050), my wife Kalpana and daughter Pallavi, neighbours, friends and my brother-in-law Rajeev, who rushed me to hospital. Having survived my heart attack of 2 September 2006, unlike so many of my good friends and relatives, life is new and always fresh.

Sometime back Kajal Iyer tagged me, asking to know 25 random things about me. I took part for fun. But I am now going to rewrite the FB note I made then, and edit that list to write up this auto-sketch – at railway gate No. 58.

*****

Why at railway gate No. 58? Simply because I am the eldest son of a railwayman, who used to get transferred from place to place. So I know what it is be on the move like a gypsy. And therefore I can appreciate settling down and setting down roots. What would I give in exchange for all the money in the world? A chance to meet even one of my school-mates from that “lost childhood” when I was a little boy in the small railway towns of Jabalpur and Nagpur (1956-57), Solapur (1957-58) and Manmad (1958-61).

As I recall that journey, let me honour my mother, one of India’s greatest playback singers, hailed in the late 1940s as the “Lata Mangeshkar of the Konkani stage” – Amy Pinto, nee Mary Therese D'Cruz (1925-69). I’m older now than her then by 14 years; she died at the age of 44. Nearing 40 years since she died, yet she sings within my heart.

Confined to the four walls of our home, she taught us, her children – her Class of Three; after 1962, it was a Class of Four. I used to be a great one for gathering piles of books as prizes in school, till my mother learned me the lesson, “If you can, compete – with yourself”.

Also let me shower flowers on the fair name of my father, Denis John Pinto (1923-2001), an upright and God-fearing man, who put up with endless pain, suffering and deprivation because … “Honesty is the best policy”. The other person as equally upright is my father-in-law, Prof. K.L. Joshi (born 1922).

*****

When I was in my early 20s and the hippies wore flowers in San Fransisco, I used to have long hair up to my shoulders; later I grew a beard. This was the result of the world-wide protests against the unjust war in Vietnam and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), a part of my growing-up years in school and college – a deep and permanent influence. Also let me mention the dearly-held musical relics, including the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger.

I can’t remember the day when I was not in love – with words. So my first crush was virtual, even before the Personal Computer – Agnes – appearing on the pages of the Charles Dickens novel, “David Copperfield”. Now the love in my life, after my love-marriage wife Kalpana, is my daughter J.K. Pallavi. I remember the three years in the cold and wet of Leeds, Yorkshire, England, taking care of her in a back-to-back basement when she was barely three, while my wife did her Ph.D. (And what of my friends, without whom I could have not known that friendship can match up to love?)

I have spent years, off and on, in Mumbai. First as a little boy in the mid-1950s; then in school, college, etc. (1961-73); again after the Emergency (1977-82). What do I miss about Mumbai (I shan’t call it Bombay as the imperial English did)? The trundling trams, when I was a little boy; uncrowded local trains and red BEST buses on a Sunday morning; the common crows, sparrows, mynahs; the great struggle of the textile workers against the robber mill-owners; red flags in a worker morcha at Azad Maidan; the heady mix of faces and tongues from all over India; the discipline on the roads. Above all, the entwined couples clasping hands in municipal gardens ...

What do I NOT miss about Mumbai? The idle rich, gambling on the stock market, who have raped the city; the skyscrapers that blot out the sky; the private vehicles that kill and maim far worse and more deep than terrorist guns; the curse of the Shiv Sena and their ilk, who have brought shame to the glorious inheritors of Chhatrapati Shivaji ...

To give you some more feel and touch for the passing show of my life, here goes. My favourite movie critic, Pauline Kael of the New York Times, who dubbed the “Sound of Music” as the “Sound of Mucous”. A few of my favourite things: the red mud, swaying coconut trees and the fish curry rice of Mangalore; the lilt of my Konkani mother tongue; a few drops of kaju feni, soft cotton garments. And always, books.

Besides, love and peace, compassion for the poor moves me beyond tears. Alongside this post on my blog, I have catalogued my values and beliefs, as well as quotes from my favourite authors and a list of books and websites, including some by my students.

*****

What made me sketch this auto-bio? In a way, groping to prepare for the reality of aging, at the threshold of retirement. Can I retire? Maybe not, in the sense that I’ll stop working. But I shall retire from doing what I do not like. I am coming to grips with work on different terms.

Along the line, at railway gate No. 58, I also await the student, who may exceed me, who may dare to go beyond imagination, against the tide. To whom I can entrust the torch given to me by my ancestors and teachers.

First, my English teacher from Standard VII in St Stanislaus School, Bandra, Mumbai, during 1962-63. Mrs Philomena D’Souza (nee Valladares) used to give us five topics to write one essay every week; I wrote on all five; Mrs Valladares corrected all five, sometimes rewrote them in her own neat hand-writing! Where have all the great Goan gurus gone?

Second, my Chemistry professor from B.Sc. in St Xavier’s College, Dhobitalao, Mumbai, during 1969-71. Prof V. V. Nadkarny, with his white open shirt, dhoti, and black round topi, taught me not only about organic molecules and carbon chains, but also about facing up to life. When arrogantly, I had refused to apolgise after back-answering a laboratory demonstrator, Prof Nadkarny apologised on my behalf though he was the Head of the Department then. His kind and free classes at his Dadar home, under the benign gaze of Ramakrishna Paramhansa, are with me today, though I do not use the chemistry I learned.

Third, the unlettered mofussil elders of village Kasarpimpalgaon, who taught me, “JoeP of KP”, to speak Marathi and learn of “sanskar” when, as a founder-member of the rural NGO called Vistas, I was working in the drought-prone areas of Pathardi taluka, Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra, during 1973-77.

“Those were the days, my friends,
We thought they’d never end,
We’d sing and dance for ever and a day.
We’d live the life we choose,
We thought we’d never lose,
For we were young and sure to have our way.”

The ones who are no more: Smita Patil, Norman “Vikram Salgaonkar” Dantas, Anna Salve. Now the rest (in alphabetical order): Biplab “Bulu” Basu, Vilma Colaco, Dominic D’Souza, Eric D’Souza, Glynis “Asha” D’Souza, John “Babuti” D’Souza, Lancy Fernandes, Nafisa Goga, Pradeep Guha, Ayesha Kagal, Aspi Mistry, Lakshmi “Buchy” Rameshwar Rao.

Fourth, the late Feriwala Francis and Bhabhi as well as the slum-dwellers of Kaju Tekdi, Bhandup, Mumbai, and my comrades at the CITU unit of Prabhakar Sanzgiri. During this same period, my participation as a founder general-secretary of the Lok Vidnyan Sanghatana not only immersed me in the popularisation of science but also introduced me to my Pune girl Kalpana Joshi, whom I married on 26 January 1982.

Fifth, my scribe seniors – S.D. Wagh, Taher Shaikh, Harry David, Y.V. Krishnamurthy – and delightful colleagues at the one and only “our very own” local English daily of Pune, Maharashtra Herald (estd. 1963), where I joined as a sub-editor on a salary of Rs.600 per month on 2 May 1983 and left as assistant editor in 1996.

Sixth, working since August 2006 with the eminent social worker, Shantilal Muttha, Founder and National President of the Bharatiya Jain Sanghatana on trustee empowerment and training programs.

And finally, my students in Pune where I have been teaching print journalism and communication as a regular visiting faculty since 1987, at the invitation and with the cooperation of Dr. Kiran Thakur, P.N. Paranjpe, Dr. Vishwas Mehendale, Prof M.S. Pillai, Ujjwal Chowdhury, Shashidhar Nanjundaiah, Dr. Keval Kumar and many others. If my students have learned anything from me, I have surely learned a lot from them.

*****

And so, at railway gate No. 58, I come full circle.

The packed local trains are the reason why I left the Mumbai that I love so much. When we were staying at Dadar in the late 60s, I used to travel 10 minutes by train from Dadar to school in Byculla. The locals were getting difficult. But my father was a railway officer and, therefore, we got a free First Class pass, so we missed the crush in the third class bogies.

When I joined St. Xavier's in 1967, the journey only got longer, 20-25 minutes from Dadar till VT. But in the first class it was still bearable. Fortunately, I escaped from the locals of Mumbai in 1973 and worked in village Maharashtra from 1973-77. If not for the horrors of the Indira Emergency, I may have never come back to Mumbai. When I got back, the trains were choking.

Slowly, travelling by local trains became a torture that I would dread. And when I was in Bhandup, the agony became too much to bear. Fortunately again, I got married and decided to move to Pune, where I also became a full-time journalist.

On the brink of 58, I dread travelling in Pune too. There are no trains here that can be packed (though I have heard that the locals to and from Lonavla are worse that the locals of Mumbai!!!).

But here we have our local variant of torture on the cruel roads, what I call the “chhote shaitan” – the two-wheelers that in the end may murder Pune, unless public transport improves.

Now the wheels are turning within the wheels. At railway gate No. 58.

Keep in touch. Take care.

Your support is my strength,
- Joe.

Pune, Thursday, 5th March 2009.

Really? Is this happening again to India?

My dear students,

Such a joy to report that my students share my blog: look at my posts and the number written by you. The trend started with sharp questions from Amith Prabhu (SIMC), which I tried to answer in “Working one’s way up and other queries”. Gauri Gharpure (Ranade) then sent me a quote about poetry and on an off-chance I decided to carry it because it had to do with "clarity" an issue that concerns journalists, “The Clarity of Poetry”.

Then came two excellent pieces from Smriti Mudgal (SIMC), who has her own blog, "Ambaree" in Hindi. She sent in a highly personal memoir about her love afair with the people of Mumbai: “Mumbai: a people with a sense of purpose”. Smriti then paid a fond tribute to her favourite school teacher: “To Chitra Ma’am … with love, Smriti”. Such is the stuff my blog is made up of (two prepositions at the end of one sentence!?!?!).

And to carry forward the torch for poetry, Baruk Feddabonn from Bangalore asks, “Should You Read Poetry?”.

My colleague, Abhay Vaidya of DNA, Pune, also replied to Amith with, “No room for gifts in journalism”.

Dr Vivek Pinto, my friend from school in Mumbai, who is currently in Tokyo, has also been emailing provocative and thoughtful links (see “Mumbai attacks: one man’s freedom-fighter is another man’s terrrorist”) faster than I can upload on a section of my blog, “Dr Vivek Pinto - Links”, devoted entirely and separately to his contributions.

*****

Now Baisakhi Roy-Tandon, a 2003 SIMC alumnus, who describes herself as “a home-maker, new mom and an avid knowledge-seeker” has sent in a poem, “Ennui.” I have touched it up, here and there, as usual.

Previously, a reporter with The Indian Express, Baisakhi is “sitting on the sidelines, reading up voraciously on history, past and present.” Check out her blog: “Kissing Kin” (“Be well, good, nice, old-fashioned”)

Let Baisakhi introduce “Ennui” in her own words:

*****

By Baisakhi Roy

‘Ennui’ was inspired by a feeling of hopelessness when the Mumbai attacks happened. I was far away in Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA, watching my precious city burn, as it had so many times in the past.

I almost laughed, “Really? Is this happening again?” Will we become another conflict zone like the Gaza Strip and Bosnia? Will it take another 50 years, to live in a peaceful India? This is what we have become: a mess of unresolved issues, a mess in which the glorious legacy of India has been lost and forgotten.

ENNUI

This is a time to gloat;
we are such pieces of work.
This is how we go about
our daily ennui.

We bathe in the sun;
We love, eat, and try to gain respect.
We amble,
gnawing into space.

We hate the sound of white noise,
”This is mine. This is yours”.
We croak, until hoarse.
Scratch, until we bleed.

We send our children
into prompt assemblies
to ask for wisdom:
Good thoughts, words and deeds.

We build our castles
and etherise our air.
Then ask for allegiance
to our whimsical gods.

We broker peace,
Sober in solidarity.
But hide our rancor
To light a wayward fire.

*****

Can you see the budding poets lurking among the journalists? Read the journalists who feel and write like poets. Join them. The pages of my blog, “Against the Tide”, shall be open to you, my dear students. For what greater joy is there for a teacher than to see one’s students go ahead, shining bright.

Your support is my strength.
- Joe.

Pune, Wednesday, 28 January 2009.

Should you read poetry?

My dear students,

When a student of mine from Ranade Institute, Gauri Gharpure in Kolkata, sent in a quote on poetry I used it in the post, "The clarity of poetry" because as a journalist I have been obsessed by clarity. I had no idea then that some of my readers were great admirers of poetry.

One of them, Baruk Feddaboon, based in Bangalore, has his own blog called "bottle broke" Click on the pic below to get into "bottle broke"

"The clarity of poetry" got eleven (11) comments. But it was the diversity of the comments that astonished me, considering this was not a blog for poets. One of my readers, Baruk Feddabonn, who is not one of my students from any of the places where I teach in Pune, had early on introduced himself and I kept thinking to myself, "Here is my Eklavya." So I asked him to do this piece on poetry for journalists.

I have touched up the piece here and there, as is the time-worn custom among subs. I hope Baruk will understand.

By Baruk Feddabonn

Should you read poetry? Hell, I don’t know. Can I tell you why or how to read poetry? Hell, I don’t know! What I do have to offer are a few thoughts on what I have, over the years, got from poems.



The following five pieces:

1. What is Real?
2. Hope
3. Perspectives
4. Weirdness
5. Language and Poetry

are based on poems and bits of poems, some well known, and some not so well known. I do hope these poems help in convincing you that poets are not necessarily the useless buggers they are often made out to be!

1. What is real?

“When Prime Minister Gujral
planned a visit to the city
bamboos sprang up from pavements
like a welcoming committee.

But when he came, he was
only the strident sounds of sirens
like warnings in war-time bombings.”

(When the Prime Minister Visits Shillong the Bamboos Watch in Silence; Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih)

I often hear attacks on poetry for not being ‘factual’. Somehow, not being factual is seen as a bad thing. But honestly, what are facts? And how important are they? A lot of poetry deals with the metaphorical and the imagination. Things are alluded to; often not ‘directly’ spoken of. But is that wrong?

In common language, we speak of the sun rising. ‘Factually’, that is untrue – the sun does no such thing. Nor does it set. The ‘rising’ and ‘setting’ of the sun are our human explanations or metaphors for the natural phenomenon of the earth moving around the sun!

So while the Prime Minister was not ‘factually’ the sound of sirens, that line aptly describes the distance the rulers, even in a democracy, keep from the ruled – visually (bamboos on pavements) and aurally (sirens). And that ‘only’ – describes, better than an entire sentence, the alienation, which the poet felt. So while not ‘factual’, the poem is ‘true’.

And now you decide. Will you transcend the facts and opt for the truth instead?

*****

2. Hope

“Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.”

(September 1, 1939; W.H. Auden)

Sometimes, switching on the evening news plunges me into despair. I see war, corporate greed and the non-stop destruction of the natural world. And this is only the news that is reported.

In the not-or-barely-reported news are farmer suicides, Bhopal victims and Binayak Sen. I watch the increasingly self-obsessed lives of the super-rich; the cynical manipulations of politicians and governments; the prostitution of religion to the dictates of power.

It’s easy to get lost in the darkness, at least for me, and I wonder whether it would not be easier, more practical, to pick up a gun. A messy proposition, yes, but maybe a simpler one?

And then I remember this poem.

Written on the eve of the Second World War, the poem by W.H. Auden speaks of the darkness and despair the world is under, trying to understand why. And though that question is never answered, there IS an answer – that what is important, in the end, is to see the “points of light”, and “show an affirming flame.”

I think I can try to do that!

*****

3. Perspectives

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;

(The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock; T.S. Eliot)

A close friend and I are currently arguing on facebook. He feels, to quote, that “the Israelis have their heads better screwed on than the Palestinians do.”

I utterly and absolutely disagree.

I see the Israeli state as a creation of terrorist incursion, whether the original Israel of the Bible, where God apparently told the Jews to wipe out the Canaanites, or the Israel created in 1947 on the strength of British guns. This friend, by the way, is a reasonable person (as much as we can pretend to be), and hates war as much as I do. But the argument goes on.

Point: many people watch sunsets - on beaches, in the mountains, even from the rooftops of urban homes. Some of us photograph the sunsets. I doubt, however, that anyone has made such a grisly and unlikely comparison, as Eliot does. And while I appreciate the comparison – I find it humorous – I know many people who do not.

While no wars have been fought on what sunsets should be compared to, many wars seem to have been fought for, what to me seem, silly reasons such as country and religion. Then again, maybe you don’t think these are silly reasons. Maybe, we can all benefit from understanding each other’s perspective.

*****

4. Weirdness

“Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.”

(Pied beauty; Gerard Manley Hopkins)

My grandfather was hardcore working class; when I say he built his house with his own hands, I mean that literally.

In a society dominated by an increasing desire for more power and status, Apu (Mizo familiar for grandfather) was suspicious of all things ‘big’ and ‘authoritative’, and proud, till the day he died, of working with his hands. Fiercely independent and bluntly outspoken, he made some very powerful enemies who almost succeeded in destroying him.

His name, appropriately, was Rualhleia, which loosely translated from the Mizo means ‘he who is not even’. He definitely had a lot of rough edges!

This poem by Hopkins reminds me of my grandfather, in its celebration of the strange, the common and the uneven.

We let others determine who we are and how we respond to the world. Being ‘acceptable’ is important, whatever the cost! Recently, I was berated by a colleague who thought it shameful that I did not, in my position in the company, drive a car.

I have been receiving a slew of emails telling me to forward them, if I am patriotic. I am constantly told that:
- the only hope for India is in the ‘new’ capitalist economy;
- I should be economically successful;
- I should buy more; from recognised brand names;
- crime is something the lower classes do;
- the army is good;
- beauty means fairness;
- I should want to marry, and have children, and care about what happens to the ‘family name’; and
- I should avoid 'weird' people who disagree with what society thinks of as 'acceptable'.

But I can’t do that. My Apu and I, we’ll stand by all that is “counter, original, spare, strange”.

*****

5. Language and Poetry

“I am a venereal sore in the private part of language”

(Cruelty; Namdeo Dhasal; translated by Dilip Chitre)

“Poetry must be raw, like a side of beef,
should drip blood, remind you of sweat
and dusty slaughter and the epidermal crunch
and the sudden bullet to the head.”

(What Poetry Means to Ernestina in Peril; Mona Zote)

“I’ll go for words,
Words are my forte.

Words stab and jab,
Heal, hurt,
Mask, unmask,
Paint pictures.

Words
Create.”

(Power of Words; Malsawm Hriatzuali Jacob)

Language is fascinating. You know how they say a picture speaks more than a thousand words? Sometimes a sentence speaks more than a thousand pictures!

Language can be used like:
a warm gentle hand; caressing, hugging, loving;
a wall, to separate and segregate;
a whip, to subdue and suppress;
a rock, to retaliate.

Language can be like a scream of horror.

Language can be:
loving, harsh, angry, cold;
questioning, pleading;
full of laughter one moment, solemn the next.

Language can elevate the common; tear down the proud. Language can calm, hurt; goad, encourage; dream.

Language is like a knife – that can chop up food or slit a throat.

*****

People ask me, “Why do I like poetry?”

I tell them, “Because poetry is to language what pottery is to mud.”




You may email Baruk Feddabonn at: baruk@provoke.co.in.

*****

Henceforth, I will sign off, borrowing a phrase by Sushma Nair (nee Menon), a student of mine from 1992 when SIMC used to be called "Symbiosis Institute of Journalism and Communication (SIJC)". She had had coined the phrase for me to use as the editor of Mile Sur Mera Tumhara, the house magazine of Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd, Pune, where I worked in PR and Corp Comm (don't be shocked!!) during 1996-2003. Thank you, Sushma.

I hope the New Year 2009 is taking good care of you. Keep in touch by phone, SMS, email or through the evergreen postman.

Your support is my strength,
- Joe.

Pune, 16th January 2009.

Celebrity journalists and pretty faces

My dear students,

Gift No. 3 from Santa Claus, before we have rung out the Old Year and rung in the New Year, recalling the famous poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

In the manner of Amith Prabhu (see “Working one’s way up and other queries”, 28 October 2008, on this blog), another of my students has put to me questions that have caused her some “disillusionment”.

The issues she raises are of “professional interest” to us all over the world as journalists, whether in print, on-line, or on-screen. I have borrowed freely from the raw material, contained in our messages to each other and written out this reply.

*****

She asks, “My question is about the whole personality culture (cult) that we have in journalism, especially the electronic media. I am not talking about the extensive coverage given to celebrities (celebs). I am talking about how journalists and editors themselves end up becoming personalities and how a smooth operator with connections is at times considered a better journalist than the ordinary guy who writes well. It is something that is more characteristic of TV, of course, because of the visual nature of the medium and our own preference for pretty faces to watch on TV.”

I have chosen the headline for this piece, “Celebrity journalists and pretty faces” from her question itself. Celebrity journalists are not the exclusive creation of TV. They existed much earlier and thrive in the print media today also. One species of celebrity journalist goes by the name: “syndicated columnist”. Readers have their own favourites and some even change papers when their pet columnist switches allegiance.

In a hard-hitting book, “Journalism: truth or dare?” (Oxford, 2003), Ian Hargreaves, the BBC and FT journalist who became a journalism professor at Cardiff, is concerned about “the end of journalism” and “the polarisation of the news media with, at one end, badly paid and sometimes inadequately trained young people in smaller newspapers, radio stations and magazines, and at the other (end), a handful of celebrity journalists who present television shows or write columns for the big newspapers and earn show-business salaries.”

Hargreaves makes this observation based on his experience with British, European and US newspapers, but I can vouch personally and from the expereinces of senior colleagues, friends and my students, that this is true in India also.

In a cruel piece, the late Dhiren Bhagat (1957-88), wrote a poison piece in "The Contemporary Conservative (Viking, 1990) about a certain famed columinist, let us dub him “PQR”. Dhiren Bhagat entitled the piece, “Why PQR can’t think straight.” When I first chanced upon it, I was stunned speechless by its naked frankness. Now I know how factual Dhiren Bhagat is. That Dalit-baiting columnist still thrives, churning out stuff that Dhiren Bhagat said deserves to be “flushed down the toilet.”

This slick gentleman does not have a pretty face, nor is is his style with words, gripping. But he is “a smooth operator with connections” and part of a coterie of cronies that believes in “you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours”. And, therefore, he is still “syndicated”, a jargon for the simpler “racket”. Is it surprising then that such unethical practices carry over into TV and create “glam scribes” on the small screen?

*****

Our student then poses the dilemma with which she grapples daily, “How does one keep working in the face of this obvious bias towards the celebrity journalist? How does one deal with the fact that a Shobaa De is probably going to be more famous and earn more perks than a P Sainath?”

But should that really surprise us, honest journalists, who have our eyes and ears to the ground?

Shobaa De gossips about her cats and dogs and other party animals, immersed in the trivial pass-times of the idle rich, where “the pursuit of happiness” has decayed into “the happiness of pursuit.” Beyond a tiny circle, in which her sponsors and advertisers bribe the mass media to ensure her notoriety, De is unknown.

The rural affairs editor of The Hindu, P Sainath is concerned about agrarian distress and farmer suicides and about the impact that LPG (liberalisation, privatisation, globalisation) is having on agriculture. But farmers (alive or dead) or their widows and orphans do not consume the newspapers, which have transmogrified themselves into brands.

Ignore the fame, which is actually notoriety. Speaking about war, Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) felt that as long as people saw war as "wicked", they would accept it. But as soon as war became "vulgar", the people will reject it. The same logic applies to the "vulgar" fame of the celebrity journalist, propped up by the bribes of sponsors and advertisers. A lot of PR and Corp Comm also goes into building up the images of such dubious characters.

*****

Our student continues, “Whatever specialised course you do (in places like SIMC, where she was a student), it doesn’t actually prepare you for the reality of actual professional life. Maybe it’s the realisation that certain ideas were naive and that not everything goes as you want it to that caused this dissillusionment.”

Nothing in our student career prepares us for life itself. The university of life is one of its kind and never to be replicated in our frail educational institutions.

But she herself describes a technique she uses, which I recommend highly to all my students and all those who get depressed by the adventures of the celebrity journalists and who want to keep their sanity.

She writes, “On my clipboard, I have made a habit of pinning up a paper listing all the praise that I get for my blogs or my coverage on Facebook and Orkut from perfectly random people. It’s mails like these that keep the hope alive and make one feel that somewhere you are doing the right thing. Sometimes, I lose sight of the fact that I should work for these people who watch me.”

I would also recommend strong doses of Studs Terkel.

After her first question, which I have discussed above, I spoke with her on the phone (and if you, dear students, have a problem don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and speak your heart out). I picked up a sad undertone in her voice and I told her to firmly keep in front of her eyes the ordinary reader or viewer. I think my advice registered, for she goes on, “Thanks for reminding me about that. And thank you for the phone call. I guess I do take things a little to heart; has always been a weakness and I am trying to grow out of it.”

I told her, and tell all of you who get depressed by the antics of the celebrity journalist, that you are one among the chosen few. That if it pains and hurts, you know you are on the correct path. Beware of the sycophants. Listen to the blowing wind ... that is where the readers speak ...

Warmest smiles in the times of ... disillusionment,
- Joe.
Pune, 28 December 2008.

Mumbai attacks: one man's freedom-fighter is another man's terrorist

My dear students,

Just like the proverb, “One man’s food is another man’s poison”, so also we may argue that one man’s freedom-fighter is another man’s terrorist or militant. I deliberately chose a provocative headline to focus on the place of perception and “ways of seeing” in journalism.

Ever since my school-mate Dr Vivek Pinto got to my blog, he has been deluging me with links, which he is sure (and I agree), will be useful for my students and anyone interested in the topics I take up “Against the Tide”.

Among his many links, one such gem is a thoughtful piece entitled, “Separating the Terror and the Terrorists” by Clark Hoyt, published in the New York Times (NYT) on 13 December 2008. Dr Vivek Pinto sent this topical piece for you, my dear students, because the issues that it instigates are "beyond mere semantics and word-play".

Somewhat like the reader’s editor or ombudsman in ethical Indian newspapers, Mr Hoyt, who became the NYT’s third public editor on May 14, 2007, is “the readers’ representative and responds to complaints and comments from the public and monitors the NYT’s journalistic practices. The public editor works outside of the reporting and editing structure of the NYT.”

The following is my edited version of Mr Hoyt’s biography. “After starting his newspaper career in 1966, Mr. Hoyt began working at the Detroit Free Press in 1968. He became Washington correspondent for The Miami Herald in 1970 and was later news editor of its Washington bureau. He was named managing editor of the Wichita (Kansas) Eagle-Beacon from 1981-85, before returning to Washington where he became bureau chief in 1987.

“He was Knight Ridder's vice president/news from 1993-99. And from 1999 until the sale of Knight Ridder, he was Washington editor, where the bureau received much praise in recent years for its aggressive reporting. Its journalists have won the George Polk, Overseas Press Club and Headliners awards, among many others.

“In 1973 Mr. Hoyt shared the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting with Robert S. Boyd for their coverage of Democratic vice presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton's history of treatment for severe depression. Mr Hoyt is a director of the foundation of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and a former chairman of the National Press Foundation. He is a graduate of Columbia College.”

*****

Though Dr Vivek Pinto sent me Mr Hoyt’s piece at once on 14 December, I have waited ten days -- for our emotions to cool down -- before putting it up. Maybe, I should have put it up at once, because some of you may have been grappling with some of the issues Mr Hoyt incites. But I prefer, from personal experience, to take things up in a detached way. One of the stalwarts of the Indian freedom struggle, Gobind Vallabh Pant, a chief minister of U.P., used to day, “Thanda karke khao.”

I have supplied Mr Hoyt’s bio-data, because I want you to take seriously what world-class professionals like him are saying. It will not do for journalists like us in India to be swayed by the local tide, especially the kind of mind-numbing repeats that were unloaded on Indian TV in the name of “breaking news” during the three days of 26-28 November 2008 and, following that relentless hammering, the jingoistic calls to “war” being made in the name of fighting against terror.

I am reminded of the Goebbels-like hysteria unleashed across the USA by Bush, Cheney & Co. after 11 September 2001. Later, the Bush administration manipulated “26/11” to justify the invasions of Afghanistan and then Iraq. No wonder, an Iraqi TV journalist has become a hero after flinging his shoes at Mr Bush in Baghdad. You may refer to my 5 November 2008 post, “From Bush to Obama – The Killing will Continue”, for the drift of my arguments.

*****

Dr Vivek Pinto is a research fellow at the International Christian University, Tokyo. After his doctorate in the US, he taught there for some time; before moving to Japan. Earlier, he had worked for a few years at Kishore Bharati, a pioneering NGO in science education at a village in Hoshangabad district, Madhya Pradesh, en route to Jabalpur on the Itarsi line. Kishore Bharati was founded by Anil Sadgopal, a molecular biologist at TIFR, who was disillusioned with the way science was taught in schools and with his own research work.

Wishing you that joy and peace of Christmas, which only sharing with our less-fortunate fellow human beings can bring.

My warmest of regards in these cold nights,
- Joe.
Pune, 24 December 2008.

No room for gifts in journalism

By Abhay Vaidya

I entered the profession in Pune in 1987, after my journalism degree from the University of Pune's Department of Communication and Journalism (popularly know as “Ranade Institute”).

Almost every single Press Conference (PC) then concluded with a “gift-giving ceremony”, during which the organisers would hand each journalist a gift-wrapped box. It would mostly be a costly pen. Sometimes, the gifts would be far more expensive – a clock, a wrist-watch, digital organiser or some such thing – depending on whether the PC was organised by some business entity.

It would sadden some of us immensely when poorly-funded NGOs or labour unions, calling a PC about some wage dispute, also succumbed to this practice of giving gifts to journalists, on the advice of their PR consultants.

There were some of us who were extremely uncomfortable with this convention. It would often be a nuisance for us to refuse these gifts because the PR person and the PC organisers would plead with us to “accept their token of love and affection”. The usual practice was to take the gifts home or give them away to grateful peons at office, turn-by-turn, or, as one journalist did, give them to some charity.

One particular incident alarmed the Pune journalists, when this business of "the giving and taking of gifts" soiled the reputation of the entire fraternity. A small furniture dealer had called a PC, one afternoon. He was advised by some journalists to re-schedule the PC at night, after work, when things could be discussed “in a relaxed environment” (over drinks and dinner). The person obliged; the PC was a happy-happy affair with a lot of mirth and wise-cracks.

Then came the issue of the parting gift.

Someone in the room suggested that a raffle be held and that one of the revolving office chairs that the dealer was launching be given away as a gift to the winner. Everyone liked the idea and someone won the chair. There was then a murmur about others being left out so, finally, the dealer had chairs delivered to the homes of each of the journalists present at that PC.

Normally, evening PCs would have high attendance from anyone “posing” as a journalist, because of the drinks-dinner-gifts culture. At another PC, the organiser complained that a mini tape recorder had been stolen; the suspicion fell on someone “posing” as a journalist.

These two incidents, in particular, alarmed many journalists. A few of us in the executive committee of the Pune Union of Working Journalists (PUWJ) decided to call a meeting on the subject.

I vividly remember that meeting in the basement of the Savarkar Bhavan (near Bal Gandharva Rangmandir, Shivajinagar, Pune), because there was a heated discussion. Many of my seniors, such as the late Varunraj Bhide of Sakal; the late BM Purandare of the Times of India; Anand Agashe, currently Editor-Director of the Sakaal Media Group; Kiran Thakur, then Bureau Chief (UNI), and who recently retired as the Head of the Department from which I passed out; and others participated.

One group had then proposed that the PUWJ should not only ban press conferences after 9pm but also introduce a rule that no gifts should be distributed at PCs.

There was no unanimity on the subject and the meeting was inconclusive. The issue, however, became a talking point in Pune and Mumbai, because I ran a news-item about the PUWJ discussion in the Mumbai edition of The Times of India (there was no Pune edition then).

***

There are countless anecdotes of how low journalists can stoop to receive gifts.

PR firms and executives don't hesitate to give gift-vouchers or even cash in envelopes. One well known journalist in Delhi was not present for a PC, but wanted his gift and instructed the PR person to have it delivered.

In Mumbai, there are journalists who have tie-ups with pan-wallahs outside their offices so that they can deposit their gifts with them before entering their office building. I heard of some journalists in Mumbai enquiring about gifts being doled out and then deciding to attend PCs.

The issue of journalists accepting gifts has been discussed at the highest level in our profession, from time to time. I remember Arun Shourie calling for a comprehensive Code of Conduct for journalists.

I also recall an edit-page article by, I think, C. R. Irani in The Statesman. That article mentioned that during interviews for a business journalist, one candidate proposed that instead of receiving a salary, he would instead pay the company some amount for being appointed as a business journalist. In that article, which appeared in the mid-1990s, Irani estimated that a business journalist in Mumbai could make upto Rs.70,000/- per month through gifts and gift-cheques.

Sometime in the 1990s, The Times of India, where I worked for about 14 years in Pune and Washington DC, USA, introduced a "no-gifts policy" for their journalists. People coming with gift boxes, particularly during Diwali and New Year, are politely instructed by the security desk to take back the gifts.

The variety of PCs, I attended in Washington DC, USA, were conducted professionally and there was no gift-giving.

When the subject of gifts comes up, I fondly refer to my 1994 copy of The Washington Post Deskbook on Style which begins with a chapter on "Standards and Ethics" by one of the great gurus of journalism, Ben Bradlee.

Bradlee says it there: “We pay our own way. We accept no gifts from news sources…”

Gifts in journalism are a form of bribe and should be declined.

One can be fastidious about it, as is one of my colleagues, who refuses to accept even a pen, because he says journalism is the source of his livelihood, so he will not write with a pen gifted at a PC.

I have not been as fastidious as my friend and have accepted gifts on certain occasions, based on my judgement. On other occasions, I have given a return-gift in the form of a book, as I did with a politician who sent me two books of JRD Tata's letters and keynote speeches.

I remember the story of our former President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam declining to accept an expensive crystal and mentioning how, as a child, he was taught by his father not to accept gifts that came with a purpose.

There is no room for gifts in journalism.

Abhay Vaidya,
Pune, 3 December 2008.

(Mr. Vaidya is currently Deputy Resident Editor of the Pune edition of DNA. His email ID is abhaypvaidya@gmail.com. His contribution was made, at my request, in response to queries raised by Smita Aggarwal and Amith Prabhu (see my post "Working one's way up and other queries" . I am grateful to him for sharing his experiences in his typical forthright manner - shorn of adjectives and adverbs; packed with facts. - Joe.)

Working one's way up and other queries

Dear students,

You have been gracious to read my blog and respond. In a personal email to me, rather than a direct comment on my blog, which is what I prefer, Amith Prabhu asks about:
a) the importance of working one’s way up, rather than wanting to be in top posts and failing miserably, which some manage to do.
b) the difference between work in a PR consultancy and Corporate Communication. Many students in communications are confused with this, and I feel a good Corp Comm professional should have PR consultancy experience.
c) the growing need for ethics and discipline in careers.

Let me take the areas, one by one. I’ll take up (b) first. And then (a) and (c) together.

b) The difference between work in a PR consultancy and Corporate Communication. Many students in communications are confused with this, and I feel a good Corp Comm professional should have PR consultancy experience.

The difference between any field of communication arises due to “where you are”.

For example, by personal communication, we mean “one-on-one” communication where we speak with someone -- face-to-face in a meeting or over a meal; on the phone; send an SMS by mobile phone; write a letter or email. This communication is always two-way; in the case of letters, SMS or email, there is a time lag. The idea of “chat” came up in order to enhance the two-way feel, while on the mobile or computer.

Then we have “one-on-many” communication – personally as in a lecture, a public speech; in writing, as in a newspaper or magazine; in the form of listening to the disembodied voice on radio; or the semblance (illusion) of voice and person on TV; access to the Internet. Here it’s essentially one-way communication, though we have efforts at enhancing feedback, through letters to the editor (in print); phone-ins (on radio and TV); online websites of papers and TV channels, etc. Also this blog!

What about “many-to-one” communication? In the form of impact on the individual person from various messages bombarding him/her through various channels like daily life (in the home, family, street, at work); through print, music, radio, TV, the Internet, etc. You can add to this list.

***

I am getting into basic communication (like R.P. in “Basic Journalism”), because similar principles are applicable to PR and Corp Comm. Ask yourself the question, “Where am I, the sender of messages, vis-à-vis my publics”?

If you are in a mass media organisation like a paper, website, radio/TV station, then you are in direct contact with the general public, giving you enormous power (without responsibility?).

In a PR consultancy, that is, located outside corporate entities and the mass media, you work for individual clients (generally companies, but also maybe individuals), whose messages you try to direct towards specific “publics” – like the client’s customers, share-holders, investors, suppliers, dealers, employees (current and potential), the government, and even rivals or competitors.

In Corporate Communication, you are located right inside the corporate entity, like a private limited company. Here your “publics” are the customers, employees (current and potential), suppliers, vendors, dealers. But you are in communication with them in a much more direct and personal way than if you were in a PR consultancy or mass media. Actually, in Corp Comm, you would be dealing with your advertisement agency and your PR consultancy also in order to influence your “publics”.

***

Since I have worked in newspapers, and come up from the ranks – right from the stringer level in 1977, to sub-editor in 1983, to chief-sub in 1984, to assistant editor in 1989 and finally as editor of a newspaper in 2004 (with a seven-year stint in Corp Comm from 1996-2003) – I have seen the world of mass communication from “both sides”.

My advice would be: do a stint in mass media first – print, radio, TV, online. Then, if you wish, do a stint in Corp Comm to get a feel for the corporate world from the inside. And then go into a PR consultancy. This is like moving from the wider world into more specialised worlds. It helps to have the bigger view first and then get closer down to the specifics.

Dear students, I feel a good PR consultant should have mass media and, then, Corp Comm experience – in that order. But you can go the other way too: PR experience first and then Corp Comm. The important thing to do, while reflecting on your experiences and learning your lessons, is to constantly ask yourself the basic communication question, “Where am I, the sender of messages, vis-à-vis my publics”?

Your ability to influence the opinion of your “publics” is critically dependent on where you are located in the chain. This is because of the issue of “credibility”.

The most insidious power of the corporate world (with the help of PR agencies) to influence the opinions of people is due to its money-power (lobbying) and, therefore, its ability to buy journalists and the mass media directly or indirectly. More of this ideology stuff, later.

But let me come back to your question. Yes, you need experience in both Corp Comm and PR consultancy. But be careful, you tread dangerous territory: manipulation of news, filtering only what creates a favourable image of your client, etc. What I call, lying and deception.

Look at the collapse of the US stock markets due to “irresponsible lending” for housing in USA. At that time, though, credit was glorified; and investment banks and their securities were projected as being “safe bets”. Even today, in India, credit finance is available for housing and vehicles, without checking the ability to repay.

***

And now to the second part of Amith’s questions:
a) the importance of working one’s way up, rather than wanting to be in top posts and failing miserably, which some manage to do.
c) the growing need for ethics and discipline in careers.

Let me share my own experience. As I have narrated, I started as a sub-editor on 2 May 1983 at Maharashtra Herald, Pune with a salary of Rs.600/- and then rose slowly to become an editor in 2003 at Gomantak Times, Panaji, Goa: “working one’s way up”, as Amith puts it, for 20 years. The advantage is I know the ropes and the job/tasks at every level. Finally, when I was at the top and gave instructions, I knew what it’s like to implement orders. Also, the chances are that power does not go to my head and I am more likely to be considerate of journalists at lower levels.

I don’t know about it is like “wanting to be in top posts and failing miserably, which some manage to do”. Amith, or some other student of mine, will have to explain what it means to be in that situation.

***

As for the growing need for ethics, I would point to honesty and not allowing the marketing or circulation people to dictate what and how news is to be portrayed. Editors are capable of understanding the business side of a paper.

Let me refer you to C.P. Scott’s 1921 essay on the centenary of the Manchester Guardian where he says, “A newspaper has two sides to it. It is a business, like any other, and has to pay in the material sense in order to live. But is much more than a business; it is an institution; it reflects and it influences the life of a whole community …”

Scott goes on to identify character – “honesty, cleanness, courage, fairness, a sense of duty to the reader and the community”. Here you also find the famous lines, “Comment is free, but facts are sacred.” That seven-word line calls for an entire post on my blog.

The link is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2002/nov/29/1
Once you’ve read the essay, I’d like to discuss the matter further.

***

As for “discipline in careers”, stick to one job for at least one or two years, a sufficient time to learn. I would give the job three years to teach me; you may not want to be so patient. Recall the saying, “A rolling stone gathers no moss.” This means, if you change jobs too often, you may not give yourself enough time to accumulate experience. Also, identify what you want to learn and whom you’re going to learn it from. Fortunately, there are lots of serious journalists out there. I am compiling a list, which I will not post on my blog, but will send to you only on request.

Above all, dear students, do not allow money to decide what you’re doing. My experience and conversation with journalists tells me that the jobs that pay the most are also the ones that tie down your hands and feet; worse, you’ll also have to keep your eyes and ears shut too. We will discuss this issue at length some time.

Am I sounding scary? I don’t intend to; but it’s wise to be cautious, under the circumstances. When a student asked me in class, “Sir, what do you think of the market collapse?” I answered, “When thieves fall out, honest men (and women) come into their own.” Dear students, pluck the courage to remain honest.

Warm regards,

- Joe.