Hello…No reply, Hello…No reply, Hello…Click, phone goes dead!!!

Something interesting happened today. I came into office as usual, at around 9 am. Other colleagues trickled in and by about 9.30, work was on in full swing. That’s how it usually happens. The only difference today was that the boss — managing director and creative director of the ad agency I work with — was out on a shooting. When he is not in office he calls at regular intervals to find out if all is going well. Sometimes we also have to clarify things.
Being Christmas-New Year season, there was plenty of work and we were all trying our best to keep deadlines even as we tried to keep up the quality of work.
Aishwarya, the office admin girl was being bombarded with calls on the office mobile. Clients calling asking for something or the other. The land line in office kept ringing off and on too. To help Aishwarya, I picked up a few calls, while she was busy on the cellphone. There was not much I could do to help them and all I did  was to tell them that Aishwarya is busy.
At around 11 am a call came. Aishwarya was on the mobile so I picked up this call. I said hello and the person on the other end said something. It was not a ‘hello’. It was something else.  I didn’t get what he said. So I said, “Pardon me, I didn’t get you. Come again, please.”
There was silence on the other end.
“Hello,” I said again.
Silence.
“Hello”
Silence.
“Hello”
Click, the phone goes dead from the other side and I am left listening to a beep beep.
This is something that irritates me no end. Imagine, My work needs concentration. And in the middle of something if the phone rings and I pick it up to hear silence and a click to disconnect, I am entitled to get irritated. Most often I abuse the joker who did that.
There are times when there is trouble with the line. But at 40+ plus I've attended enough calls to know whether it's a faulty line, or if it some stupid dumbass f***er who doesn't have the balls to speak up.
Anyway, in this case, I don’t think it was because there was some problem with the line. I could clearly hear sounds from the other end (vehicles honking etc). The guy at the other end had hung up, I was sure.
A few minutes later the phone rang again. I picked up and said hello.
“Hello,” said a female voice. “Is it MCC?” ( Media Creative Consultants, the advertising firm where I work as copywriter)
“Yes,” I said.
“Can I speak to Aishwarya?”
By then Aishwarya was done with the other call and she took this. Before handing her the receiver, I told her to ask the lady why she hung up earlier without speaking.
Aishwarya finished the call and then she told me that it was the lady’s husband who had called the first time. He was expecting Aishwarya’s voice and when he heard mine (they say I have a baritone voice) he didn’t know what to do. So he hung up!
What??? I couldn't believe it.
The man is an advocate, a corporate trainer, counselor etc etc. And he was confused when he heard a different voice on the phone? And didn’t know what to do, but just hang up?
Good lord! God save the guys who come to his training sessions!
Now, I am thinking...Why on earth do we expect a particular voice when we dial a number, especially an office phone? And why hang up if you didn’t get that voice? Ridiculous, isn't it?
Why don’t we learn telephone manners? Ask for the person we want to talk to. Identify ourselves. Ask the person whether it is a good time to talk. Apologise when you’ve got a wrong number etc. And for god sake not hang up without a word. When are we going to learn all this?

Why’re you honking, dude?

I dislike loud sounds, except for those rare occasions when I spend time with friends at a pub. That’s fine because I know what I am getting into…there will be loud music, girls and boys dancing and shouting, middle aged men and women pretending that age never caught up with them etc. The point is that I chose to be there, where loud music is loud and I can walk out anytime I feel like.

But it’s not like that always. There are times when I don’t want loud sounds around me. But unfortunately I live in a country where we are all bombarded with all kinds of sounds always, everywhere. We are a people who don’t consider sound as pollution. Any city or town you go, you find loudspeakers blaring out unpopular music (according to my taste) from a temple/church, or big speakers at someone’s wedding or political meetings where some person waxes eloquent about his the party.

I hate them all. I hate from my very guts those guys who honk for no apparent reason while driving. Every city in our country is infested with these senseless idiots! At least in this one trait our country is united.

I’m sick to death of these people. I absolutely despise them. I cannot come up with a good word for the feeling I have… I curse them; sometimes abuse them, using the foulest cuss words in all the languages I know. BTW, I know cuss words in languages in which I cannot converse! And still I am left seething with anger.

Anyway … I am sure a lot of you will share my feeling. But there is precious little we can do to bring a stop to it. I, in my own way, will continue fighting this menace. I would suggest you do that too.

I am yet to find out why people use their horn so much. When the signal turns from red to green, the dude behind you responds with a honk, even before he probably shifts his gear or starts his engine (in case he switched it off). Why? I don't understand. Hello! I am not sleeping! And I am not blind! I know that I have to move and I will even if you don't honk, you dumbass!

Well, if everyone else is moving and I don’t, honking away to glory doesn’t help, it simply means there is something wrong with my car, and it won’t start. I don’t know what the guy behind me thinks…am I getting some sort of pleasure by not moving?

Every other city in the country observes a ‘no honking’ day (wonder if there is a ‘happy no honking day’ card!). Film stars, musicians, politicians, anybody who is somebody take part in campaign against the menace. But people’s love for their horn hasn’t come down one bit. They love their horn…they are ‘horn’y people!

If you ask me which city is the worst, I really can’t pick one. The competition is so stiff. I can tell you one thing. Kochi is bad, so is Hyderabad (For the last one month I am in Kochi after spending about eight months in Hyderabad). Kochi is a city which is described a quaint and serene and green, and what not.
It takes roughly an hour’s bus ride from my home to my office. So on a working day, I spend two hours suffering a high-octane cacophony in different tones, apart from the dust and the heat.

If I had my way I would fit a ring with sharp nails inside it to every driver’s b***s. And each time he presses on his horn, it would give a nice squeeze. How about that?

Life at Hans-I

Hyderabad was never in my scheme of things, but last December I landed in the twin cities to visit a friend. The visit stretched from days to weeks as I was in no rush to return to Chennai--I was freelancing for a few websites and I could work from anywhere. I don't know how it happened, but I landed a job in Hyderabad. As Chief Copy Editor of the newspaper The Hans India

They say once a journalist, always a journalist. I had moved from The Times Of India to a tech company in Pune, as a technical editor. And somewhere in my mind I had a craving to get back to mainstream media. So I didn't think twice when The Hans India came my way.

Everything I heard about the newspaper sounded like music to my ears. I was told that the managing director was a serious journo and a good guy with a lot of principles, ethics etc. The editor was one of the big names in the industry. And since it was newly-launched, there were challenges…to create a name, and a niche for the newspaper, to fight the already-established ones, and to bring out a just and fair newspaper in the city. I love challenges. So to me, it was everything I could have wished for.

Now, before I write a word further, let me make it very clear that certain things I'm going to say in the next few posts about my life at The Hans India are purely my opinions and views. It may not necessarily be the truth (as someone else sees it).

So there I was, a few days later, talking to the MD in his room. The meeting was short. Mr Murthy, came across as a person who knew what he wanted. “We are a pro-people, democratic newspaper. We don’t believe in sensationalizing things. We believe in bringing out news as it is,” he made things clear. Perfect!

I then met Mr PNV Nair, the editor. I’d heard a lot about Mr Nair. He is one of the greats in Indian journalism—a man who keeps a low profile, but is capable of turning around the fortunes of a newspaper. Nair told me how they worked, what they aspired for etc. I was asked how soon I could join. A few days, I said. I just couldn't wait.

A few days later, I joined. Nair introduced me to a gentleman who walked into his room...Shrikant Shenoy, the News Editor. Shenoy took me to his cabin. As we got into the typical initial chit-chat, Nair walked in. “So, where do you want him? You want to put him there?” Nair asked Shenoy, pointing upwards. Shrikant nodded yes. Where was ‘there’, I wondered. "Alright," said Nair as he strode out of the room, leaving Shrikant and me to continue our talk. A little later I realized that ‘there’ meant Hyderabad Hans, the daily city pullout, which was operating from the fifth floor (the main editorial desk was on third). So they wanted me with the supplement. I was cool with that.
Murthy, Nair and Shrikanth, all of them told me that the pullout needs a makeover--a better design and better stories, more light features etc. And that's what they expected of me. After looking closely at the supplement for the previous week or so, I too agreed...the pullout needed some serious changes.

The person heading the pullout will move to the bureau in a few days, Shrikant said. He suggested that I stick around and see how things worked. Sounded good to me…I too felt that hanging around and watching would give me better ideas and I would be able to figure out what needs change and how to go about it.

Next day onwards I was in office early. I sat next to RK, the man who was in-charge, watching the proceedings. The first thing I noticed was that there was no story list!. Even as RK walked into office, sometime in the afternoon, he had no clue about what was going to happen that day. Reporters filed whatever story they could manage. The first thing to be changed, I thought.

Stories reporters trickled in as the clocked ticked on. As and when the stories came, it was edited and just slapped on to the page! Second change, I thought. The designer just put it on the page with whatever visual he could manage. Four pages were done, of which half a page was movie listings etc. And that was it! I was zapped! In my 18 years of journalism, this is the first time I am seeing a newspaper work like this. I started to believe in miracles.

The few days flew by. RK moved to the news bureau. Officially I was to take charge. As I was driving to office that day, one thing kept playing on my mind--I was not introduced to the team. That is what is done in professionally run organisation, isn't it? At least, that's what I have seen.

Never mind, I said to myself, deciding not to let  such things hamper my mood. I walked into the Hyderabad Hans office. It's a hall where tables are arranged in a row. Vasu, the news coordinator, had taken RK’s chair. I should have been sitting there, primarily because it was next to the designer's seat and I could see what he was doing. Not that it was an issue. Any seat was good enough. It was not the seat that mattered, it was the work I did. At least, I thought so.

Life at Hans India-II

I started working with an enthusiasm that cannot be put in words. I was pure adrenalin rush, I was all pumped up and raring to go. I wanted to make a change, to make Hyderabad Hans really good. I knew I could do it.

For starters, I looked at reporters and their stories. After all that is where it all starts. I talked to them about their work, their issues, tried to figure out their strengths and their weaknesses. In a matter of days I knew who was good at what. I knew what to expect from every single reporter.

With all due respect to my reporter colleagues (most of them are in their early 20s), I found their writing to be lacking. Well, that’s nothing to worry about. I started like this, probably I was even worse. Everyone starts like this. What one needs to do is to watch, observe, learn and improve. Whenever I could, I gave them tips on writing. I told them how to find interesting stories, how to improve their stories by looking at different angles etc.

To improve their language I suggested a simple way. I told them: Read the stories you filed, the next day. Compare it with what you had actually written. See the changes the editors have made, and see how you can improve your language. I don’t know if they did it regularly, but I saw a lot of improvement in their writing.
I told reporters to call me every morning and discuss their stories with me. The intention was simple—I would have an idea about the day’s stories well in advance. Once I get an idea, I keep toying with it in my mind, even as I go about doing other stuff. By the time I reach office, I would have a skeleton in my mind…as to how the day’s edition would be like. That’s my way of working. Well, it’s nothing that I invented…I learned it from one of my seniors.

None of reporters called me regularly to discuss stories with me. Wonder why? I told them I could give you a few inputs too which may help them. After all, I’ve been around for some time. And in any case, discussing stories always brings benefits, ask any journo. But no, they never called.

Oh yeah! Sometimes they did. That was when they had a dearth of ideas. I had some of them calling up with a frantic “Sooraj, give me story ideas”. I have no issues… Always willing to help. I’ve done similar things too. At times while working, I’ve fallen short of stories and I rush to these guys with the same frantic tone…”Guys, find me some stories…I gotta fill up pages.” And they have always obliged and I am grateful for that.

And after a hard day’s work on the field, they have often stayed back late into the night, helping me at the desk because we were short of people. After filing their stories, they could have gone home, but they didn’t. Navin, Augustin, Varsha and Venu. Thanks guys. Not just for the help, but for making my life at The Hans India worth it!

Life at Hans-III

One of the first things I insisted on was a story list. Till I joined there was nothing of the sort at The Hans India. I couldn’t believe that a newspaper functioned without having a story list or ideas meetings. Well, miracles, like I said earlier.

I told all reporters that they had to give story ideas a day before. Of course, things can pop up at the last minute, everyone knows that. But planning in advance is mandatory. I told them to inform news coordinator Vasu every evening about their plans for the next day. Vasu was to make a story list and send it across to the higher ups and the whole team.

Now to tell you about Vasu, he is one of the finest human beings I have come across in my life. Always the perfect gentleman, he was always willing to lend a helping hand to his friends and colleagues.
On the work front, I would rate him No 1 among all the news coordinators I ever worked with. He has a huge number of contacts. Any story you wanted, any person you wanted to meet and interview, he’d arrange it for you. A hard-working and dedicated person, before leaving work every night, he meticulously made the story list and emailed it. No matter how late it was.

Now, here’s the problem. His story lists were vague. Ideally a story list should give you at least three pieces of information. What the story is, who is doing it and what time the desk can expect it. Only then can the desk plan, albeit with a sketchy idea. Vasu’s list just mentioned a place and the reporter! For example it would say ‘Nehru Zoological Garden’, Reporter: Varsha. Now, how am I supposed to figure out what the story is about? Can anyone enlighten me? At times he assigns reporters to find out what is happening at some place….like a cultural organization. But then he should put that on the list with something like ‘Details awatied’. Till the day I left, I never had the pleasure of seeing a complete story list from Vasu.
He doesn’t come from a newspaper background. So he doesn’t know the nuances of editing or page-making. He is a quick learner, but you can’t learn ‘18 years of experience’ in a few days or weeks or even months.

He was practically running the whole show. He was interacting with reporters and photographers and organizing good stories. Great! That’s his job, and he was the best, and I truly appreciated his efforts with all my heart.

Now, here’s the problem. He doesn’t stop at that. Maybe he doesn’t know the difference between being a news coordinator and an in-charge. Now it was not Vasu’s fault. The management should make it clear to everyone what his/her role is while joining. I assume they never did it. I was never introduced to the team. But when Mr Murthy introduced me to someone else he would say, “This is Sooraj, he is in-charge of Hyderabad Hans.” Wonder if he said that while introducing Vasu also!

I had no issues with Vasu handling the edition. The only problem—I had to butt in and make changes when the design looked drab, when headlines were dry, and when stories were dull. I tried putting it across in a subtle way—tried telling him to stick to what he does best, which is calling up people, arranging stories and pictures. I would take care of the rest—editing, designing etc.

I really don’t know if he understood my hints. If he did, he just chose to ignore it. And I never pushed further.

Life at Hans India-IV

The editing department of Hyderabad Hans was pretty weak. No, not in terms work quality, but in terms of numbers. There were just the two of us—Murali and yours truly.

Considering that Murali came to office only at around 6 pm (The duty time ideally starts at 3 pm), we were practically ‘one-and-a-half men’ (I start at 3 pm, and Murali came half way through). Murali stayed back after work is done and did something. I don’t know what. He said that he doesn’t mind staying late, no matter how late, but he cannot come early. What purpose does that serve???!!!

Now, Murali was a wonderful editor. Give him any story and he could change it around. And you get it as close as it can get to being a perfect story. His grammar was immaculate, his words were measured and exact, and his headings were definitely catchy.

Now, for the problems. For one he came late. He rushed into office every day, in a mad hurry…as if that ‘rush’ would make up for the lost three hours. But after that there was absolutely no rush. He ‘sat’ on stories for ages. He went on and on. I am yet to understand why a senior person like Murali didn’t understand the importance of timing.

In a newspaper environment, timing is as important as anything else. If you don’t finish editing on time, the page gets delayed. If the page gets delayed, printing gets delayed. And if printing is delayed, obviously the paper won’t reach the distributor on time. A distributor is not exclusive to a newspaper, he may have several other newspapers to deliver. Why would he delay delivering those to his customers? Why would he wait for our newspaper to reach before starting out? That too, a newly-launched newspaper which didn’t have the numbers of other established ones.

When I joined I was told that timings were sacrosanct, both my Mr Murthy and Mr Nair. I assured them that I’d do all I can to pull back timings. Of course I understood the importance of timing. Ideally, we had to send off the pages to print by 9 pm. Now it was going at around midnight, which is causing a lot of issues.
Well the first thing to do is to set a deadline—for filing stories, editing and pagemaking. If the page has to go at 9 pm, we stop taking stories at 7pm. It would take another two hours to fix all ends and send the page for printing.

So when Murali turned up at 6, a lot of work is done. Then, Murali ‘sat’ on a story. Meanwhile, I was doing everything—editing stories, doing press releases etc. In between, I had to fix headlines on the page, give captions for pictures, look at the layout, pictures etc.

To add to it, Murali used to go through stories I edited. Come on guys, gimme a break… after 18 years, I think I know a little bit of editing, probably I could write a few lines of correct English! I may not be a genius, but I am not a dud!!

I tried telling Murali this. Being a senior person, I put it across very subtly. Once I said: “Murali sir, I have edited it. You don’t have to do it again. In case you are going through it, just look for mistakes I may have made.” No, he had to ‘sit’ on it and change what I wrote.

This was going on, and pages got delayed. I have no issues about anyone changing what I did. But it has to be better (well that’s a relative subject), and timing has to kept.

One day I told Murali that editing is a never-ending process. You can do it till Kingdom come. Give any story to three persons, they can also make changes and edit it again and again. Now when we are hard-pressed for time, the thing to do is to send off the pages as quickly as possible, with the least amount of mistakes. He still didn’t get it. Was that rocket science? Somebody?

Life at Hans India-V

Days rolled by, work went on, life moved on. I found a way to work amicably with all my colleagues. I used their plus points, and worked around their minus points.

By then, I knew the writing style of each reporter like the back of my hand, I knew exactly how each would treat a story, use words and phrases etc. I could edit them ‘blindfolded’.  So my work was not too tough, except for the odd articles written by our stringer Saibaba.

A very pleasant, elderly gentleman, Saibaba took to journalism rather late. It’s never too late to learn anything. However, Saibaba never learnt the meaning of the word ‘brevity’. I doubt if he ever will. His stories were always 1000+ words. After one round of editing it comes down to 400-500. Another round, it’s just 300 or even less and to the point. Despite my telling him several times, he continued filing his ‘epics’. His phone calls were the same…long, long, long! I learnt to deal with him too.

Anyway, getting back to the story…

I easily tackled reporter’s work. Of course they were improving by the day. And thanks to their efforts and hard work, most of their stories didn’t need a total rewrite anymore. In fact, some of them were really good…hardly needed any editing.

I gave up on Murali. Come hell or high water, Murali ‘rushed’ into office at 6pm. So I used to give him one story and just let him be. In the meantime, I used to finish other stories. As I was starting on a story, I used to tell Sattar, the designer to come up with a good layout, I asked him for a word count too. By the time he was done to the layout, the story would be ready to be placed. Of course, I had to put brakes on Sattar’s gimmicks with Quark Express, but that was not a big issue.

The reporter team was also very helpful. On any given day, one of them would be at the desk, helping out. That made my life much easier.

I’m sure you’ve heard of people who get a ‘high’ from power…from being in a particular a post or position. I met one. They come in different types. Some are simply arrogant, some love the fact that they can ask others to do stuff…order people around, some others like it when people ask their permission for things, even to pee…And there are even some who get their kicks from signing leave forms and just hearing someone call them ‘sir’!!!

I don’t know what was Vasu’s high, but he definitely wasn’t an arrogant person. To this day, I value and treasure his friendship.

And so I let him be…He loved to talk to reporters, ask them what they are doing, tell them to do stuff etc. That was his job, and he was good. But something that bugged me was that he never once took any of my suggestions. Wonder why? Way of showing one's 'power'? So sad!

And he butted his head into the desk, giving direction etc. I just let him be, even though I had to get into ‘action’ very often.

I struggled to contain my laughter when once, during a meeting, Vasu told Mr Murthy: “Sir, I cannot go to HMTV (the telugu news channel the company owns) to coordinate for news. If I step out of the room, the desk work will suffer.” This, after Murali or I edited stories, gave captions and headlines and came up with good design suggestions.

“Dude, I am alive,” I wanted to scream, but I just let it go!

Life at Hans India-VI

About eight months after I joined, I took a holiday. When I returned to work, someone (I don’t remember who) said that the Editor Mr Nair had been asking for me the last two days. I immediately went downstairs to meet him. His secretary told me that he was out and that he would return in an hour or so.

But you know how it goes in a newspaper office. I got into the thick of things and completely forgot about it. I have this habit of doing a rewind once I get back home. I go through the entire day’s events. Right from the time I walked in to the time when the pages were sent off to print. That’s when I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten about Mr Nair.

The next day, the first thing I did was to go to Mr Nair’s office. After a short wait, I walked in. Mr Nair, who was working on his computer, looked up and said: “You’ve been asked to leave. Our experiment by hiring you has failed. According to reports we have received, you don’t even know how to edit. Every story you do, Murali has to go through it again.”

All this he said in one breath, and without another word, turned back to his computer and started working. I stood there stunned for about half a minute, unable to believe what I heard. Losing a job wasn’t what hurt me. I was sure that it was just a matter of a few days before I landed another job. What shocked me beyond belief was how they did it? And how Mr Nair conveyed it to me. I was too stunned to respond and mumbled something and walked off.

I left office and went to a friend’s place. This friend was a former colleague at Hans, who had the same experience—he walked into office one day and was told to leave immediately!! A senior person, who has a long association with Mr Nair asked just a couple of questions: “Did Nair look at you while he was speaking? I mean, did he look directly at you?”

“No,” I said.

“Did he discuss the issue with you or give you a chance to speak?”

“No.”

“Then it is not his decision. It must be from ‘above’.”

After spending a couple of hours at his place (he offered me rum), I returned home. All the while, there were a few questions haunting me. Why did they treat me like this? If I had not been up to their expectations, shouldn’t they have talked to me about my performance? Told me at least once that I have to buck up and perform better? Shouldn’t they have asked me if I had any problems? And if there were issues that could have been sorted out, shouldn’t they have done that? Why didn’t they do all that? Doesn’t a professional organization work like that? I am yet to find answers.