Everyday day in my life

I may be one of those lucky few who is not besieged with ten calls a day from call centres, trying to sell a credit card, a personal loan or for that matter Club-Mahindra holidays. Either Reliance India Mobile hasn’t gotten around to selling its database or I am just plain lucky.
Nevertheless, that does not mean I do not get any calls. Due to the nature of my job, I get lots of calls from public relations professionals (or I am wondering if you have two minutes types). And this is how a typical call goes:
Trin Trin
Me: Hello…
Caller: Hi. This is Shafalica calling from Next Generation Image Management ( Image Management, Peter Drucker must be turning in his grave). Is that Vivek?
Me (in a rather bored voice): Ji. Boliye.
Shafalica: I was wondering whether you had two minutes? (For the uninitiated wondering is the most oft used word by Public Relations and Corporate Communication Professionals. They seem to wonder about everything when they interact with journalists. Now what has her wondering got to do with me having two minutes, you’ll have to ask her)
Me: Yes, Mam. Tell me. (now trying not to sound bored)
Shafalica: We have this client called Rose Wealth Management (Management again. Drucker must be back to original position now, since he must have turned again). There CEO Mr Vishal Mansukhani would like to contribute to your newspaper. (Contribute is another favourite with PR guys. What does it mean? When I was new to the profession, I even tried telling some PR guys that if their client wants to contribute to the newspaper he should be talking to my CFO and not me.)
Me: What does he want to contribute?
Shafalica: I was wondering (phir se) if you would be interested in an article from his side. ( Now that gets me interested. An article, written by somebody else. So that means less work for one day. And more than that since he is a corporate guy, he won’t charge. Bole to, free. So suddenly, we are talking ‘win-win’ management here)
Me: Hmmm. An article. So what does he want to write on?
Shafalica: I was wondering (Ok. I won’t count this one) if you had any ideas on what he could contribute on? (This is where the communication breaks down, totally. If I have an idea, wouldn’t I rather write it myself, than give it to another person to work on? Those who write on a regular basis will understand that figuring out what to write is the most difficult part. Writing it out is much easier. This is a simple thing that most PR professional who handle financial institutions (coz those are the ones I largely deal with) don’t seem to understand. More than that if the person they are trying to sell to me, doesn’t even have a clue on what he wants to write, what sort of an expert is he supposed to be? And even if he doesn’t have any idea, I am sure, the PR professional, can do some research on her own, and can come up with a few ideas. Or the idea is simply to get their piece and photograph into the newspaper. In this day and age, jo dikhta hai wo bikta hai, so content doesn’t really matter. And I really mean this. I had rejected an article a few months back because it was plagiarised and a couple of days back, I saw the same article published in another newspaper, which has got editions all across India. Or is it just a case of laziness. Since most human beings are lazy (including me) we would like others to do your work.)
Me: No. I don’t have any ideas (And even if I had, why should I give them to you. I am tempted to scream. But I don’t)
Shafalica (now at a loss of words. Given that she will now have to think): Hmmm. Let me talk to Mr Manshukhani, and ask him what he is comfortable writing on and then get back to you.
Me: Sure.
Shafalica: Bye.
Me: Bye.

Of Chicklit, Manpreet Singh Goni and Meenakshi Reddy Madhvan

There's no such thing as the perfect person, only idiosyncrasies that cancel out other idiosyncrasies and that too for a brief magical time that's bound to end - Meenakshi Reddy Madhvan in her new book You Are Here

Am not much into reading chicklit but picked up Meenakshi Reddy Madhvan’s much hyped first book “You Are Here” from Crosswords yesterday. Reddy is a blogger who blogs compulsively on http://thecompulsiveconfessor.blogspot.com/ and from what one hears, its her writing on the blog that got her the book contract from Penguin.
So why did I pick up the book? Well to be very honest I liked the first fifty pages of the book, that I happened to read at the bookstore. The logic being if I am to be seen around reading this book, it at least be interesting.
From what I read I could see things happening in the same way all around me. (You Are Here is a story of Arshi, a public relations professional who is seeing a journalist, till she of course breaks up with him, and all the bigger questions in life start popping up in her head. And then she meets another guy, who is confused about her or at least pretends to, when he doesn’t feel like kissing her).
Also I am a sucker for good one liners, and the first fifty pages, had some good one liners (like the one at the start.)
More than all this most first books, which come out of personal experience are not a bad read. Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone, is a very good example and so is Gregory David Roberts’ Shantaram. And of course, Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things which largely chronicles her growing up years in Kerala. Bhagat has gone from bad to worse with his second and third books and Roberts and Roy haven’t gotten around to writing another book.
Ok. I think I am deviating. Back to Madhvan and her writing.
Let me give you an analogy that will best explain Madhvan’s writing. One of the best performers in the Indian Premier Leauge was Chennai Superkings player Manpreet Singh Goni. He bowled fantastically, fielded well and even batted well in crucial situations. MSD could easily back on MSG. The Indian selectors were clearly watching. And when the squad for Asia cup was announced Goni was a part of the team. He played two matches in Asia Cup and in both the matches his bowling was insipid and dull to say the least. The point I am trying to make is that it is one thing bowling four quality overs in a twenty twenty match and totally another trying to bowl ten goods overs in a one day international. And forget playing test cricket.
Similarly writing a 500 word blog which the world reads and goes gaga over is one skill and writing a two fifty page book which has 100,000 words is totally another thing all together. Writing blogs is like twenty twenty cricket. Writing a novel, is at least like playing a 50 over one day international, if not like playing a test match.
So the writing for the first fifty pages (the portion I was able to read at the bookstore and that made me buy the book) is interesting. After that the book becomes boring and the writing pretty mediocre. Her lucid style of writing on the blog is clearly not visible in much of the book.
And that brings me to my learning from the whole issue. I have been pondering on writing a book for sometime (you know if what Reddy has to write can make for a story, I surely have more profound experiences in life). Having read this book, I have come to the conclusion that its one thing writing 500 word blogs and 800 word newspaper articles (which I write for a living) and its totally another thing writing a 100,000 word book. I am not ready for it as yet………..