Making Sense Of The News!

Yes, guess we need to be thankful these days that we don't exchange the word news for "nonsense"....truly what is it that defines news in this day of the electronic media revolution and online journalism. There used to be a time when we were told to go out and find hard news stories - "When a dog bites a man it is not news, remember the news element comes in when man bites dog".......one used to simply chuckle and go on one's way wondering what on earth was the matter with a crazy profession where people waited for the incredulous to happen.....after all wasn't truth often stranger than fiction anyway? Well, it would certainly appear so in 21st Century India, where I am scribbling from these days.....there're about 20 different news channels, including the vernacular ones (and woe betide that we leave them behind!)....the last couple of days have been a stunning case in point that it is only the negative news stories that make for sensational press, and ensure air time.....Vishwananthan Anand being slighted by the HRD Ministry when a South Indian University had proposed his name for an honorary doctorate....and the subsequent machinations in the world of red tape and real politik, monopolised the media frenzy when it came to being affronted....the media channels appeared more chagrined than diplomatic, suave Vishy Anand, who true to his reputation as a man of few words had little to say on the incident except that he wanted his country back, and to politely refuse the doctorate, which the HRD Ministry managed to proffer as a delayed bit of troubleshooting.....of course to the average man on the street, who was completely unaware of what the whole brouhaha was about in the first place, and why on earth the babus at the HRD were asking for proof of the Midas of Madras' (that's Anand's sobriquet by the way for the uninitiated)......the whole incident seemed completely bizzare! Atleast the only good thing to come of it seems to be the temporary repreive that it seems to have given the Common Wealth Games, which has been in the news for all the wrong reasons in the last couple of months, first thanks to all the corruption scandals linked to it, then for the poor infrstructural shape that the national capital was in a month prior to the spectacle thanks to the incessant rains and flooding, and also for all the international names of top athletes and sportspeople that were dropping like flies from the list of expected participants initially drawn up. When will the powers-that-be realise that only where there's smoke is there a fire for starters....if we keep ensuring that the country is in the news for all the wrong reasons, then perhaps we should not be too surprised that India and Indians everywhere are being much maligned and looked down upon by the rest of the world....why on earth can the press and media stop trying to grab eyeballs and TRP's for a change, and get seriously into the act of building the nation, or helping it to thrive? Is that really so "un-doable" after all for a billion-and-a-half people (and still counting) to achieve if they really want to see India become an economic powerhouse by 2050, as predicted at Davos? Why are we sitting there - prisoners to our idiot boxes, and not helping to define what news and information content we would like to see? Surely if we set the agenda, then the news emananting from India, about India, need not be all bad...surely we can find something nice to say about the weather, the state of the organising committee, the indefatigable will of the average hard-working Indian, who struggles against all odds, in what seems a futile battle to improve his lot and put food on the gtable, while aspiring to lift himself and his family from the quagmire to a decent standard of life......surely somewhere out there there are stories that the masochistic media can find of bravery and courage, of people saving the lives of total strangers, of the great economic and social benefits that hosting the Common Wealth Games can have for India....little things that warm the cockles of our hearts.....for, hey guys, here's a news flash....we are human beings after all, not machines, and it feels good sometimes to see, hear and believe in our humanity!

A Life Less Ordinary....

As we go about our daily lives, fetching, carrying, organising, planning - have you ever wondered what makes one life more special than another? Is it only high achievers and ambitious people that can stake a claim to leading fantastic and even extraordinary lives, that us lesser mortals can only look at enviously....so do they also serve who only stand and wait?Do people like mothers, housewives and helpers ever help to make a difference?Well of course they do....we know that, we need no affirmations to tell us that those people are the most vital part of our lives - and help make the world go round in fact.....but do they ever get the recognition they deserve? In more cases than ever in the 21st Century they are forgotten, or considered appendages that only obstruct growth. So to all those mom who gave up their youth and fun, so that their kids could appreciate and feel a sense of warm security, thank you. There is more merit in being able to shape another human being than in wearing several corporate medals and badges of honour.....even if the acheievements of motherhood happen to be grey hairs and more creases on one's face tha anything else!

Of Ash, Flights & Food

It really is true today that no man is an island.....sitting in Dubai on a brilliant, sunshine morning, you may look at that newspaper which tells you on the front page that the cancelled flights due to the Icelandic Volcano Ash impairing visibility has set the Gulf and Arab airlines back by 67 million dollars....."WHO CARES?!" tends to be your attitude, and not unsurprisingly, you would not be even considered selfish for voicing those sentiments. But, like it or not, we all better care,it appears......hypermarkets in Dubai are voicing concerns about dwindling stocks of fresh food from European markets....so you may get up tomorrow, go to your neighbourhood Spinneys or grocery and find the shelves that are always replete with succulent fruit and meat and cold cuts from Europe, the gorgeous Australian pears and New Zealand apples all gone.....what then? Aha....now that is making you sit up and take notice, isn't it? Especially in markets like Abu Dhabi and Dubai, where we are so much at the mercy of the rest of the world when it comes to even our daily basic supplies, one just cannot underestimate the importance of the marvellous connectivity we share with the world, being such a geographical meeting point for the East and West.....so perhaps it is as critical for us to worry about when flight connections will be restored, as for those poor stranded passengers at airports in Europe or Dubai...

All we need is psycho-gaga!

Boy meets girl,boys runs after girl, boy and girl run around trees, boy and girl face stiff familial resistance.....put up token fight,huge bust up with villain, boy and girl's family realise their mistakes, they are reunited....formulaic films that used to be the norm once upon a time, and we, the willing multitudes - used to enjoy going to the movies, getting our small packet of popcorn, if we were lucky, and sitting through three-and-a-half hours of a film, in less than desirable environments - simply for the dose of escapism from our stark realities - that they offered.....zoom forward three decades, and things have radically changed.....movies are now quite literally larger-than-life, with some sophisticated huncho backing every small venture, and some big corporate somewhere having an ulterior motive in wanting the film to be a runaway hit........the 21st Century has proved to be a throwing out of formula and embracing of the stark reality time - most films have some kind of a leitmotif - other than the routine pyaar - shaadi - what is fascinating, but perhaps not entirely unexpected - is the sudden focus on all things psychological and psychosomatic - it is not just the interesting undercurrents or psychological nuances that were obvious in films like Kismet Konnection - today there are much deeper psychologicasl messages - not just at a subliminal level - in your average Bollywood film.....why's that you wonder? Really? In Bollywood? you ask.....yes really.....My Name Is Khan is the most recent one to explore these subconscious depths of a problem - in his portayal of Rizwan Khan, a person suffering from Asperger's syndrome, Shah Rukh Khan is the most recent star to jump on the psyhology brandwagon.....Aamir Khan did it before him in his debut film as a producer with Taare Zameen Par....andKajol has always found herself part of such fasninating story lines whether as the hapless wife of a wanted terrorist in Fanaa where again the focus is the mind of the terrorist - to My Name Is Khan - where the approach is about proving a man being treated as "national combatant" to be a national hero in the real sense of the word......it looks like Hindi films, like everything else, have comes full circle, in their treatment of reality.

One Attitude Wherever In The World.....

Living in Dubai, we are always criticising the system, the maintenance people, the maids, the visa situation, the traffic, the eternal construction clearances and detours - all issues that we find in most growing young economies, and situations, which we would not bat an eyelid about in our native countries.....why? Is it the same inconsistency that makes us meticulously careful about littering in Dubai (sometimes) while it is almost the first thing we find ourselves doing when we get off the planes back home? Perhaps the same approach that makes us weather the weather and grub, filth and garbage on the roads in our home countries, while we grumble loudly to anyone who is listening, including the maintenance people (bear in mind these guys are even working religiously at 6 a.m. on Fridays, when the rest of the town is sound asleep in warm beds)if there is any mess on the streets here, or if the rains cause a mild disruption in our not-so-busy schedules? Where do we shed this whole attitude? Is it even possible to stop the rant and rave and become more responsible about venting spleen. How wonderful things would be if people could present the same face to everyone, and consider the whole world to be their home (only from the point of view of keeping it in ship shape and caring for it).....I bet it would be a small price to pay for everyone's peace of mind, if we could only get a harmonious attitude.Imagine not being subjected to whinging and whining, either at work or home.....I bet we could all get so much more done in half the time! And that would lead to the said quality time being spent outside of work, and at work as well. Hmm....utopia! :)

Everyone is equal in front of the Law??!!

Even as the news comes in that Shaikh Isa has been cleared of the torture alleagtions against him, for "apparently" beating an Afghan businessman and setting his body alight, there now emerges a counter strike by the defendant's lawyers that this was after all a case of the Shaikh being "victimised" and his mind being meddled with owing to some medication he was on.....does anyone in the cynical, 21st century world actually buy this story? Why is the legal system hell-bent on meting out punishment only to those less privileged? Is the not-so-well-to-do section of humanity worse than the lowest form of low life, and therefore entitled to only the harshest punishments? Having lived in the UAE for several years now, I've had the fortunate / unfortunate experience of seeing absolutely innocent people languishing in jails, for unwittingly bringing in some Khus-Khus (dried poppy seeds, a substance banned in this country, but a common spice in places like India), for flouting a visa rule although they may have had no control over their circumstances, for being caught eating or smoking during Ramadan, for so many other apparently simple misdemeanours.....while those in high places guilty of fraud, embezzlement and yes (sometimes even murder) get away scot free. It is time perhaps to make each person accountable, and therfore the legal system, less of a laughing stock, by shifting responsibility for action squarely on to the individual's shoulders.Until we do so, the world will continue to give the UAE little credit for being free and fair....essential prerequisites to step up its image as a dynamic economy.
To be quite honest, this is of course, not just UAE's problem. In India, the BJP party has some MLA's who make a habit of bumping off people who disagree with them on the slightest issue, in Italy Sylvio Berlusconi can because of his political clout get out of any legal wrangle, in France, Nicolas Sarkozy has the last word in what constitutes ethics, he hss the habit, by the way, of also changing his take on any point.....more frequently than women or the weather are rumoured to do! Reminds you of the Orwellian phrase from Animal Farm: "All animals are equal, some are more equal than the others." Will we ever see justice on God's green earth, or is the divine justice going to be the only kind that might be served.....

All jobbed out!

Having just been told by the HR department of the Government TV network where I work that I have another 25 days to pack my bags and leave the unit, my services are no longer required, thank you very much, I have been gobsmacked for the second time in four months...why does someone get the sack for doing their job? What are some of the parameters to holding a job in Dubai? Looks definitely like hard work and integrity don't belong on the list at all. Possibly playing politics does, measuring up to people's liking you does, and celebrating the system definitely does earn you kudos which doing your work and being a nice person does not help accomplish for you.....curioser and curioser - like Alice would have said in Wonderland - it is a bit numbing and definitely the pressue that being unemployed after having had a job all your life, is a bit of a downer...do things happen for a reason - let's take the positive spin on that and say, definitely - there are reasons and reasons.....what is a good reason on God's Green Earth....nice to think, que sera sera, whatever will be will be, but definitely Dubai is a place where working to earn a living is expected of you - the same way as breathig is, for instance! I often wonder what would have happened if Issac Newton had felt similarly pressured, or Leonardo Davinci had been berated for spending time painting chapels, when he could be earning an honest wage?? Is great creativity often the casualty in our humdrum worlds, built to nurture a capitalist economy? Is creativity something that needs to be told to go to hell, if one must remain sane in a work place?? Let's work, work, work and go, go, go....as that inimitable cartoon character - the smurfs - would have put it.....here's to thrifty days and nights!

The Write Line: Today's News, Tomorrow's History??

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Pages+dissolving+into+pixels+and+back&artid=btnPJuRFHhI=&SectionID=108&MainSectionID=108&SectionName=cxWvYpmNp4fBHAeKn3LcnQ==&SEO

Today's News, Tomorrow's History??

The amazingly rapid strides that the media industry has taken since the first developments in printing and publishing never cease to baffle me. I only have to look around at the style in which we used to work in the press just ten years ago, and see what it is about today to draw back dewildered. How did so much change happen in so short a time?? Broadsheets, tabloids, online news letters, facebook, twitter, every given day, we hit a new method of disseminating the news and developments in our world truly making it a Global Village. When a friend asked me to do a piece for a popular Indian newspaper for the anniversary issue on the beginning of the decade, asking me to mull over the future of the newspaper itself, I actually did pause and plunge in thought........was there a real future of sorts for this wonderful medium, or was it doomed to die a not-so-slow death? For my generation the newspaper is still one of our great loves - a habit so difficult to break, we wont go there - I frequently need to answer arguments at home regarding why I need to subscribe to the newspaper and hold a printed, "hard copy" as they put it, in hand, when I could save that money and read all the news online.....how do you explain your penchant for the written word (not some screen posting that seems as ephemeral as a fleeting rainbow or the smoke trail left by a jet plane? To actually hold the newspaper in your hands, smell the printing ink that is just dry, to leaf through to your favourite sections of the paper, gives it a sense of immediacy, credibility, comfort if you like, which the online media can never take away from it...

The Life & Times of Dubai

Today's a day that Dubai-ites cherish - the fourth accession to the throne of their beloved Vice President and the Ruler of Dubai - His Highness Shaikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Matoum, who has just spent what can only be positively described as the most difficult year in his four-year dream run, as solid as one of the Godolphin Horses he is so fond of racing to victory at Endurance events around the world! It's not been an easy year, thanks mostly to Dubai's financial dbacle - being a city that is so much more at the mercy of international influences, Dubai has always been a confluence of so many different societies and cultures. The tributes for Shaikh Mohammed have come thick and fast - not many obviously from the international press that has had a field day of dragging Dubai over the coals for its being nothing more than a "hubris in the sand" or a "bubble that has finally burst" - for most Dubai-ites like me though, it has always been a story of marvels that went alongside all the tears - yes, we have unemployment, we certainly have labour camps, we have embezzlement, we have crimes and arson - but seriously, Dubai has managed to keep a lid on its problems and try to achieve great things regardless. A testimony is the fabulous Burj Dubai - History Rising - as it has been often described - many would question the necessity for a US $ 1.5 billion edifice that has been five years in the making at a time of financial crisis and deepening debt. But Dubai's leaders and people have always aimed big - it is the need to strive and achieve that has brought so many people to this city of dreams - and it is the leader's vaulting ambition to be the best now, that has triggered so many of those man-made marvels. Why not - has always been his attitude, and this alone, if nothing, promises that everything will be all right - despite, or indeed because of Dubai's detractors! So yes, we do need a Burj Dubai, if only to prove to the world that we may be down, but are certainly not out....let's toast the world's tallest, biggest, strongest and largest - and hope that the new decade is kinder to a city that has, when all is said and one, given so many people the opportunity to hold their heads high and declare proudly that they matter.