Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan's Blog, page 159
May 11, 2013
The PRoblem with PR
Back when I first started to be a journalist, I entered with no preconceived notions in my head. To me, everyone was equal--from sub editors to reporters to page designers--and obviously the editor in chief was the head of it all, but the rest of us were all monkeys with typewriters. Before I joined my first job, I was given a little aptitude test (do they still do that?) where they make you fill out lots of pages about who you are and what you read and then line edit a story for mistakes and then you do a little essay about some random topic. Mine was "My Autobiography" and perhaps not surprising for someone who has basically been writing their memoirs online for like, OH TEN YEARS, I filled up some twenty pages. I have a lot to say about myself. It's a problem.
Anyway, so maybe if I hadn't been such a little enthu cutlet, the fate of my career path would have been completely different. They took one look at it--and my ill-informed views on the news page of the form I had to fill out--and shunted me straight into features or lifestyle reporting, where, now, a decade later, I still lurk, lurkingly. Being in lifestyle reporting is mostly just you and your colleagues thinking things like a trend story on fabrics are far more important issues than they actually are, but on the other hand, they are also the pages that are read the most. One other distinguishing thing about the lifestyle reporter is that you work very closely with PR people, far more closely than your bretheren in crime or sports, because the PR represents the people you want to talk to for your story.
That was 10 years ago. PR and journalism lived in a happy ecosystem where you understood that both kind of needed each other, but you also respected that the other person had to do their job.
I did a story for the latest issue of Motherland Magazine on Kingdom Of Dreams in Gurgaon. It began as just a "what IS the Kingdom of Dreams?" story and then as I was doing my research, I began to see a lot of news stories online about their financials, which I thought made an interesting path for the story to take. With the help of the editor, I wrote what can be summed up as: kitschy and OTT, who is the Kingdom Of Dreams' audience and are they actually losing money? We had to speak to the PR person in order to get some quotes from the director and for the photographer to take pictures. I even sent them a list of questions I was planning to ask--including about their financials--and they patched me through to the director. He declined to comment on the rent issue, I put that into the story and then sent it off and since this was three or four months ago, promptly forgot all about it till yesterday.
My phone rang and in my ear, a cross female voice, "You made a typo in the director's name!" she said. "Oh sorry," said I, "But you need to get in touch with the editor as I can't do a retraction, I don't work there." I made to hang up but then she went on: "LISTEN, PR PEOPLE ARE ONLY DOING THEIR JOB, YOU CAN'T SAY THEY "BOMBARD" YOU WITH PRESS RELEASES." I was getting cross now, and told her she couldn't pick on my language choices. "YES BUT YOU CAN'T USE THE WORD BOMBARD!" "Well, then maybe I should stop getting press releases from you every five minutes," I snapped back. "We'll remove you from our mailing list," she said and I said, "FINE" and I thought that was the end of that.
Until, new rant: "YOU CAN'T QUOTE OLD NEWS REPORTS IN A LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE, YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS QUOTING NEWS REPORTS." I told her quite shortly that it wasn't up to her to define what Motherland was (for the record: one of the finest long form magazines in the country with excellent writing) and then she slammed the phone down.
All this PR has done is now alienate a member of the media to such an extent that not only will I not be writing about them in the future, I will actively encourage my friends not to go there. Which may seem like not much, considering I'm only little ol' me, someone she thought insignificant enough to shout at on the phone, but hey, every little thing counts. Which is why business-savvy brands like Flipkart and even Airtel respond to you instantly when you tweet with a complaint. The power is with the social media masses. Which doesn't seem like a great way to do your job, if your job--as I understand it--is to be a liasion between your client and the press.
What I can't understand is when this became okay--to call a journalist and yell at them if you don't like something. Dude, as long as your thing is in the public space, I am free to yell from the rooftops that I hate it. Another PR called to tell me I couldn't "write a bad review" about her client's place. I told her I went anonymously and paid for my meal, but she was mid-rant and also hung up. This is despicable, rude behaviour, and completely unprofessional. If I were lying--for example, if I were saying that the owners were murderers or whatever--then it becomes a legal grey area, slander or something, but you cannot by any stretch, ask a journalist to remove/change a story when the facts are true.
It's not just the PR--although they are the worst culprits--there was this guy I interviewed back in January who has some tailoring service or something. Cute little story, I spoke to him for like half an hour with interview questions, he answered and I wrote it up. Nothing fudged, nothing bad--just straight up "this is what happened". He harangued me for days after that asking me to take it down because "he didn't know I was going to publish it". Yes, I normally call people at 9.30 pm and ask them a list of detailed questions about their job because I want to chat. Finally, fed up of his shouting, I took it down, and honestly, I will never write about it again (not even here to bitch about him, because that brand no longer gets even a teeny tiny bit of publicity from me.)
Marketing and Public Relations people! THIS. IS. NOT. OKAY. You are not only NOT doing your job, you're doing the OPPOSITE of your job. This is not public "relations", it's public "break ups". Also, pissed off or not, it's extremely rude to shout at anyone, even if you perceive them to be lower on the food chain than yourselves.
What are other very un-media-savvy brands? Have you had a crap experience? Add your thoughts in the comments, it would be nice to see it's not just me getting the short end of the stick!
Anyway, so maybe if I hadn't been such a little enthu cutlet, the fate of my career path would have been completely different. They took one look at it--and my ill-informed views on the news page of the form I had to fill out--and shunted me straight into features or lifestyle reporting, where, now, a decade later, I still lurk, lurkingly. Being in lifestyle reporting is mostly just you and your colleagues thinking things like a trend story on fabrics are far more important issues than they actually are, but on the other hand, they are also the pages that are read the most. One other distinguishing thing about the lifestyle reporter is that you work very closely with PR people, far more closely than your bretheren in crime or sports, because the PR represents the people you want to talk to for your story.
That was 10 years ago. PR and journalism lived in a happy ecosystem where you understood that both kind of needed each other, but you also respected that the other person had to do their job.
I did a story for the latest issue of Motherland Magazine on Kingdom Of Dreams in Gurgaon. It began as just a "what IS the Kingdom of Dreams?" story and then as I was doing my research, I began to see a lot of news stories online about their financials, which I thought made an interesting path for the story to take. With the help of the editor, I wrote what can be summed up as: kitschy and OTT, who is the Kingdom Of Dreams' audience and are they actually losing money? We had to speak to the PR person in order to get some quotes from the director and for the photographer to take pictures. I even sent them a list of questions I was planning to ask--including about their financials--and they patched me through to the director. He declined to comment on the rent issue, I put that into the story and then sent it off and since this was three or four months ago, promptly forgot all about it till yesterday.
My phone rang and in my ear, a cross female voice, "You made a typo in the director's name!" she said. "Oh sorry," said I, "But you need to get in touch with the editor as I can't do a retraction, I don't work there." I made to hang up but then she went on: "LISTEN, PR PEOPLE ARE ONLY DOING THEIR JOB, YOU CAN'T SAY THEY "BOMBARD" YOU WITH PRESS RELEASES." I was getting cross now, and told her she couldn't pick on my language choices. "YES BUT YOU CAN'T USE THE WORD BOMBARD!" "Well, then maybe I should stop getting press releases from you every five minutes," I snapped back. "We'll remove you from our mailing list," she said and I said, "FINE" and I thought that was the end of that.
Until, new rant: "YOU CAN'T QUOTE OLD NEWS REPORTS IN A LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE, YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS QUOTING NEWS REPORTS." I told her quite shortly that it wasn't up to her to define what Motherland was (for the record: one of the finest long form magazines in the country with excellent writing) and then she slammed the phone down.
All this PR has done is now alienate a member of the media to such an extent that not only will I not be writing about them in the future, I will actively encourage my friends not to go there. Which may seem like not much, considering I'm only little ol' me, someone she thought insignificant enough to shout at on the phone, but hey, every little thing counts. Which is why business-savvy brands like Flipkart and even Airtel respond to you instantly when you tweet with a complaint. The power is with the social media masses. Which doesn't seem like a great way to do your job, if your job--as I understand it--is to be a liasion between your client and the press.
What I can't understand is when this became okay--to call a journalist and yell at them if you don't like something. Dude, as long as your thing is in the public space, I am free to yell from the rooftops that I hate it. Another PR called to tell me I couldn't "write a bad review" about her client's place. I told her I went anonymously and paid for my meal, but she was mid-rant and also hung up. This is despicable, rude behaviour, and completely unprofessional. If I were lying--for example, if I were saying that the owners were murderers or whatever--then it becomes a legal grey area, slander or something, but you cannot by any stretch, ask a journalist to remove/change a story when the facts are true.
It's not just the PR--although they are the worst culprits--there was this guy I interviewed back in January who has some tailoring service or something. Cute little story, I spoke to him for like half an hour with interview questions, he answered and I wrote it up. Nothing fudged, nothing bad--just straight up "this is what happened". He harangued me for days after that asking me to take it down because "he didn't know I was going to publish it". Yes, I normally call people at 9.30 pm and ask them a list of detailed questions about their job because I want to chat. Finally, fed up of his shouting, I took it down, and honestly, I will never write about it again (not even here to bitch about him, because that brand no longer gets even a teeny tiny bit of publicity from me.)
Marketing and Public Relations people! THIS. IS. NOT. OKAY. You are not only NOT doing your job, you're doing the OPPOSITE of your job. This is not public "relations", it's public "break ups". Also, pissed off or not, it's extremely rude to shout at anyone, even if you perceive them to be lower on the food chain than yourselves.
What are other very un-media-savvy brands? Have you had a crap experience? Add your thoughts in the comments, it would be nice to see it's not just me getting the short end of the stick!
May 6, 2013
Cat In A Hot AC Vent
Yesterday morning, I came back from Bangalore at 9.30 am. It had been a weekend of six am flights--some down time in Bangalore on Sunday--but mostly, hectic, hectic activity. The readings went well, there was press and I felt a bit like a conquering heroine, book four all laid out in my mind, anxious to get back to work.
Usually, TC waits for me by the door. A lot of people ask me what happens to the cat while I'm away. I've been lucky to have help who genuinely like him, I've seen them chat to him, stroke his head, and he, in turn, butts his head against them, and waits for them to come in through the door, his tail swishing. I do an experimental away-for-the-weekend trip, don't tell them when I'm coming back, and then check in on him later, to see if he's well fed and watered, and for the most part, all he needs is someone to top up his food and water (two bowls of water in the summer, placed in different parts of the house, if there's no one to keep giving him fresh water) and to have the occasional chat with. In this regard, I'm so much more suited to having a cat than a dog, cats are creatures of habit, he doesn't care so much who's home, as long as he has food, and shifting him to another place would mean two days of trauma. When I was in England, summer of 2010, I left him at home for two months, giving friends the key, and they reported back to me, "Yes, he's alive and happy."
ANYhow. So, yesterday, no sign of the cat. Sometimes he hides, so I did my usual on top of cupboards, underneath the beds, but didn't see him. I wasn't too worried, he's a master hider, I've been panicked before and he's just strolled out of some crevice or shadow in which he concealed himself for the last 12 hours. I should've called him Houdini.
But then I noticed the window to my study was open. Let me tell you about this window. It's got a pretty heavy glass front, which you can open with some pulling. After the glass, is metal grill, teeny tiny rectangles. My cat had not only gotten the wood and glass bit open, he had squeezed himself through one of the little rectangles and gotten out.
Never underestimate an inside cat's fascination for the Great Outdoors.
I heard a miaow from the distance. My house has a little open space off the bedroom, I think it was originally for a washing machine, it's blue tiled, and has no glass to the window, just a metal net, but that's where I keep my cupboard and shoes and random boxes of things. Through this window, you can look into the terrace of the house adjoining it, and that's where my cat was, peering at me, miaowing hopefully. He had gotten on to the terrace of my house (locked, but with glass missing just wide enough for a cat to squeeze through), jumped on to the neighbouring terrace and couldn't jump back.
Many people want a pet and decide not to get one because of the "responsibility". I got TC on a whim, and I can honestly say that if it was now, I probably would've talked myself out of it. But he is one of the best decisions I ever made. Sure, he makes me mad, and I think I might have been a better housekeeper if there wasn't cat hair and poop and pee to deal with, but he keeps me grounded. And sane. Once you get a pet, you make the time. It's not a decision you have to weigh in your head a hundred times, because once you have your cat, you realise how easily your life can fit around the cat. I'm not saying be an irresponsible pet owner, but I feel we've made this such a weighty issue now, OH MY GOD, I DON'T HAVE THE TIME, that we're forgetting that animals can be squeezed into your regular day without too much fuss. Food, water, love. That's pretty much all you need. If you're really working a demanding job and have no time to babysit a kitten, get an older cat, they're already toilet trained and honestly, will give you HOURS of amusement. I promise. Especially if you want to be a writer. There's nothing like having a cat around to kick start your dormant writing needs.
Cat people are generally a completely different kettle of fish from dog people. We're not the people being up in arms online about you "not liking our furry children". For one thing, dogs might equal children, but cats are more like.. oh, needy roommates. We don't care if you don't care for our pets, our cats are wonderful, unique beings and you don't have to like them all, just like you may not like every person. We're not anal about our cats--you don't have to like them to like us. This also we know--if you spend time with our own personal, particular cat, you'll realise how awesome he or she is. I have a lot of friends who come in to my house warily, "I don't like cats" they say (can you imagine saying that to a dog person? You'd be killed) and within the course of the evening, my cat will (obviously, being the contrary animal he is) make a beeline for that one person who doesn't like him, and usually, the rest is history. Catstory. Plus, self cleaning, auto toilet trained.
All cats also have their inner jerk. I've seen mine, sitting on a table, lalala, and then, just casually, reaching out his paw and pushing everything on the table to the floor. Lalalala.
Stupid feline.
Back to my TC story. Called my landlord a zillion times, of course, he never picks up, in fact, I don't hear from him all month until the 1st, when I get a text, the same text, saying, "Rent due. Pls. tell when to collect." That's my only interaction with him, no matter if my house is burning down or I need a phone number. He just never answers. So, I went round the back. This particular patch of Nizamuddin West just about escapes being in the basti. You can see the basti all around it, the big Nizamuddin mosque is next door, the basti people come in and park their cars all the way down the road, there's a sliver of barbed wire on a wall, but that is all. From my house I can peer into the basti, two steps to the left, and my rent would be halved.
The landlady is a grumpy old lady with a thick mustache. She gave one of her helpers the key to the terrace next door, but also gave him strict instructions to make me leave the terrace ASAP. I found the cat quite quickly, lurking in a toilet, and grabbed him, preparing to take him down. He gave an almighty kick, scratched me in the stomach and leaped out of my arms into an AC vent. He gave me one backwards look and then fell into the vent, all the way down. This was made of heavy plated iron, super hot inside and on such a day, he would suffocate rapidly. Briefly, I heard him miaow from far below me.
"Okay, off the terrace now," said Old Minion.
"HELP ME," I said.
"I can't help you, she's told me to send you off the terrace."
I ran downstairs, calling to my cat at every wall, but no sound came through.
"I'm going to have to unscrew this," I told Young Minion.
"You can't do anything without checking with her," he said.
MUCH back and forth later, the landlady came out again. "Oh, he fell through the vent," she said, "Yeah, he's probably gonna die." I've never come so close to shaking someone. The vent led into an AC, I believe, which was in a room that was locked. "We can't open it," she said, "There's a cupboard in front of the door."
I think I would have just collapsed in one panicked mess on the ground just then, but my maid appeared. She'd been looking for the cat since 6 am, terrified at what would happen if I came home and found him missing. And she began to galvanise the basti.
Before I knew it, I was surrounded by people, all wanting to know what had happened. AC mechanics appeared. "I don't like working for this man," said the mechanic, indicating my landlord, "He never pays as much as he says he will." "I'LL PAY YOU WHATEVER IT TAKES," I said. And a woman looking at me sympathetically said quite sharply to him, "How can you think of money at a time like this?"
"Yeah, how CAN you?" chorused the basti.
Shamed, the AC mechanic began to look for his screw driver. In the meanwhile, the landlady's minions, previously uninterested, began to look alarmed at the lack of neighbourly goodwill. Hostile looks were tossed towards them. The landlady called me. "Your cat is in a cupboard," she said, crossly, "He's YOUR cat, you go get him." I could have kissed her, mustache and all.
Sure enough, there was TC, cowering in a cupboard, and when he saw all the people surrounding him, he decided Cupboard was Home and he was never ever going to leave it. I pulled, I yanked, but every time I loosened one paw, another hooked around the surface. He was suddenly Octopussy.
The huge men surrounding me were all like, "Oh no, he'll bite us" so it was me and the maid, working side by side, yanking him out of there. We got clawed and bitten, but we got him home, unbroken, except for a patch of fur that must have fallen out with the stress.
There aren't any major animal rescue stations in Delhi. There's Friendicoes, but they don't have the equipment to deal with a situation like this. Fire stations should technically be able to help, but I haven't tried. With people generally being mistrustful of domestic animals--and callous about their treatment, if you're in a similar situation, and I hope you never are, the best way to deal with it is to get people around you involved. Even if it's an animal no one can imagine loving, like a cat--I think explaining that my beloved DOG was in an AC vent might have led to slightly faster reactions--you need to humanize yourself and your animal. Don't be the rich urban brat who lives a life of privilege, no one knows you, and no one has to help you. Remember that there are still taboos about animals all across this country--an old maid of mine refused to go near my cat because she was like, "If he scratches me, I'll be cursed."--and people here are generally not comfortable with animals. But if you ask for help sincerely, chances are you'll get it.
[On the other hand, the people who own this house are a piece of work. Even if they didn't "get" it, what a thing to say. It explains a lot about why this house hasn't felt like home since I moved in, the landlord essentially looks at his tenants as money. Not that he has to be involved in everything, but there's no warmth or human connection, and the whole building is a bit like that, even the people on the first and second floor who have bought their homes from him. I'm not saying everyone has to get together and have parties or even pop over for a cup of sugar but it's SO every person for themselves that it's quite exhausting.]
List of animal rescue helplines in Delhi by Jaagruti.
Usually, TC waits for me by the door. A lot of people ask me what happens to the cat while I'm away. I've been lucky to have help who genuinely like him, I've seen them chat to him, stroke his head, and he, in turn, butts his head against them, and waits for them to come in through the door, his tail swishing. I do an experimental away-for-the-weekend trip, don't tell them when I'm coming back, and then check in on him later, to see if he's well fed and watered, and for the most part, all he needs is someone to top up his food and water (two bowls of water in the summer, placed in different parts of the house, if there's no one to keep giving him fresh water) and to have the occasional chat with. In this regard, I'm so much more suited to having a cat than a dog, cats are creatures of habit, he doesn't care so much who's home, as long as he has food, and shifting him to another place would mean two days of trauma. When I was in England, summer of 2010, I left him at home for two months, giving friends the key, and they reported back to me, "Yes, he's alive and happy."
ANYhow. So, yesterday, no sign of the cat. Sometimes he hides, so I did my usual on top of cupboards, underneath the beds, but didn't see him. I wasn't too worried, he's a master hider, I've been panicked before and he's just strolled out of some crevice or shadow in which he concealed himself for the last 12 hours. I should've called him Houdini.
But then I noticed the window to my study was open. Let me tell you about this window. It's got a pretty heavy glass front, which you can open with some pulling. After the glass, is metal grill, teeny tiny rectangles. My cat had not only gotten the wood and glass bit open, he had squeezed himself through one of the little rectangles and gotten out.
Never underestimate an inside cat's fascination for the Great Outdoors.
I heard a miaow from the distance. My house has a little open space off the bedroom, I think it was originally for a washing machine, it's blue tiled, and has no glass to the window, just a metal net, but that's where I keep my cupboard and shoes and random boxes of things. Through this window, you can look into the terrace of the house adjoining it, and that's where my cat was, peering at me, miaowing hopefully. He had gotten on to the terrace of my house (locked, but with glass missing just wide enough for a cat to squeeze through), jumped on to the neighbouring terrace and couldn't jump back.
Many people want a pet and decide not to get one because of the "responsibility". I got TC on a whim, and I can honestly say that if it was now, I probably would've talked myself out of it. But he is one of the best decisions I ever made. Sure, he makes me mad, and I think I might have been a better housekeeper if there wasn't cat hair and poop and pee to deal with, but he keeps me grounded. And sane. Once you get a pet, you make the time. It's not a decision you have to weigh in your head a hundred times, because once you have your cat, you realise how easily your life can fit around the cat. I'm not saying be an irresponsible pet owner, but I feel we've made this such a weighty issue now, OH MY GOD, I DON'T HAVE THE TIME, that we're forgetting that animals can be squeezed into your regular day without too much fuss. Food, water, love. That's pretty much all you need. If you're really working a demanding job and have no time to babysit a kitten, get an older cat, they're already toilet trained and honestly, will give you HOURS of amusement. I promise. Especially if you want to be a writer. There's nothing like having a cat around to kick start your dormant writing needs.
Cat people are generally a completely different kettle of fish from dog people. We're not the people being up in arms online about you "not liking our furry children". For one thing, dogs might equal children, but cats are more like.. oh, needy roommates. We don't care if you don't care for our pets, our cats are wonderful, unique beings and you don't have to like them all, just like you may not like every person. We're not anal about our cats--you don't have to like them to like us. This also we know--if you spend time with our own personal, particular cat, you'll realise how awesome he or she is. I have a lot of friends who come in to my house warily, "I don't like cats" they say (can you imagine saying that to a dog person? You'd be killed) and within the course of the evening, my cat will (obviously, being the contrary animal he is) make a beeline for that one person who doesn't like him, and usually, the rest is history. Catstory. Plus, self cleaning, auto toilet trained.
All cats also have their inner jerk. I've seen mine, sitting on a table, lalala, and then, just casually, reaching out his paw and pushing everything on the table to the floor. Lalalala.
Stupid feline.
Back to my TC story. Called my landlord a zillion times, of course, he never picks up, in fact, I don't hear from him all month until the 1st, when I get a text, the same text, saying, "Rent due. Pls. tell when to collect." That's my only interaction with him, no matter if my house is burning down or I need a phone number. He just never answers. So, I went round the back. This particular patch of Nizamuddin West just about escapes being in the basti. You can see the basti all around it, the big Nizamuddin mosque is next door, the basti people come in and park their cars all the way down the road, there's a sliver of barbed wire on a wall, but that is all. From my house I can peer into the basti, two steps to the left, and my rent would be halved.
The landlady is a grumpy old lady with a thick mustache. She gave one of her helpers the key to the terrace next door, but also gave him strict instructions to make me leave the terrace ASAP. I found the cat quite quickly, lurking in a toilet, and grabbed him, preparing to take him down. He gave an almighty kick, scratched me in the stomach and leaped out of my arms into an AC vent. He gave me one backwards look and then fell into the vent, all the way down. This was made of heavy plated iron, super hot inside and on such a day, he would suffocate rapidly. Briefly, I heard him miaow from far below me.
"Okay, off the terrace now," said Old Minion.
"HELP ME," I said.
"I can't help you, she's told me to send you off the terrace."
I ran downstairs, calling to my cat at every wall, but no sound came through.
"I'm going to have to unscrew this," I told Young Minion.
"You can't do anything without checking with her," he said.
MUCH back and forth later, the landlady came out again. "Oh, he fell through the vent," she said, "Yeah, he's probably gonna die." I've never come so close to shaking someone. The vent led into an AC, I believe, which was in a room that was locked. "We can't open it," she said, "There's a cupboard in front of the door."
I think I would have just collapsed in one panicked mess on the ground just then, but my maid appeared. She'd been looking for the cat since 6 am, terrified at what would happen if I came home and found him missing. And she began to galvanise the basti.
Before I knew it, I was surrounded by people, all wanting to know what had happened. AC mechanics appeared. "I don't like working for this man," said the mechanic, indicating my landlord, "He never pays as much as he says he will." "I'LL PAY YOU WHATEVER IT TAKES," I said. And a woman looking at me sympathetically said quite sharply to him, "How can you think of money at a time like this?"
"Yeah, how CAN you?" chorused the basti.
Shamed, the AC mechanic began to look for his screw driver. In the meanwhile, the landlady's minions, previously uninterested, began to look alarmed at the lack of neighbourly goodwill. Hostile looks were tossed towards them. The landlady called me. "Your cat is in a cupboard," she said, crossly, "He's YOUR cat, you go get him." I could have kissed her, mustache and all.
Sure enough, there was TC, cowering in a cupboard, and when he saw all the people surrounding him, he decided Cupboard was Home and he was never ever going to leave it. I pulled, I yanked, but every time I loosened one paw, another hooked around the surface. He was suddenly Octopussy.
The huge men surrounding me were all like, "Oh no, he'll bite us" so it was me and the maid, working side by side, yanking him out of there. We got clawed and bitten, but we got him home, unbroken, except for a patch of fur that must have fallen out with the stress.
There aren't any major animal rescue stations in Delhi. There's Friendicoes, but they don't have the equipment to deal with a situation like this. Fire stations should technically be able to help, but I haven't tried. With people generally being mistrustful of domestic animals--and callous about their treatment, if you're in a similar situation, and I hope you never are, the best way to deal with it is to get people around you involved. Even if it's an animal no one can imagine loving, like a cat--I think explaining that my beloved DOG was in an AC vent might have led to slightly faster reactions--you need to humanize yourself and your animal. Don't be the rich urban brat who lives a life of privilege, no one knows you, and no one has to help you. Remember that there are still taboos about animals all across this country--an old maid of mine refused to go near my cat because she was like, "If he scratches me, I'll be cursed."--and people here are generally not comfortable with animals. But if you ask for help sincerely, chances are you'll get it.
[On the other hand, the people who own this house are a piece of work. Even if they didn't "get" it, what a thing to say. It explains a lot about why this house hasn't felt like home since I moved in, the landlord essentially looks at his tenants as money. Not that he has to be involved in everything, but there's no warmth or human connection, and the whole building is a bit like that, even the people on the first and second floor who have bought their homes from him. I'm not saying everyone has to get together and have parties or even pop over for a cup of sugar but it's SO every person for themselves that it's quite exhausting.]
List of animal rescue helplines in Delhi by Jaagruti.
April 29, 2013
If it's Sunday, it must be Bangalore
Time for more book tour related travel!
This time, I'm heading down South on Friday morning, to my fatherland on Friday, and Bangalore on Saturday. Here are some copies of the invites, please share WIDELY.
Cochin, FRIDAY, MAY 3!!
6 pm
Penguin Store, Bay Pride Mall, Marine Drive, Shanmugham Road, Ernakulam
I'm excited about this, because my father says it's one of the prettiest bookstores ever--it's right on the sea front with a huge glass window you can watch the ships through. So I really hope readers in Cochin will be able to join me.
BANGALORE, SATURDAY MAY 4
6.30 pm!!
Oxford Bookstores!!
1 MG Mall, Upper Ground Floor, 1/2 Swami Vivekananda Road!!
Opposite Taj Vivanta!!
Psyched about Bangalore also, because a) the Good Thing is going to be there so it'll be a book launch reunion (yay) and b) I've been looking forward to having a chat with Sumeet Shetty for a while--he runs the biggest corporate book club in the country, and yes, I didn't know 'corporate' and 'book club' could go together either, so I'm wondering what his secret was of getting shirts to read. Plus, in Bangalore, I'd love to go out for drinks or whatever after, if anyone is free. (Cochin, I'd offer you the same deal, but I need to go see my gran.)
In both cities, I'll be giving writing tips, so aspiring authors and shy owners of manuscripts, please come with any questions you might have and I'll do my best to answer them.
This time, I'm heading down South on Friday morning, to my fatherland on Friday, and Bangalore on Saturday. Here are some copies of the invites, please share WIDELY.
Cochin, FRIDAY, MAY 3!!
6 pm
Penguin Store, Bay Pride Mall, Marine Drive, Shanmugham Road, Ernakulam
I'm excited about this, because my father says it's one of the prettiest bookstores ever--it's right on the sea front with a huge glass window you can watch the ships through. So I really hope readers in Cochin will be able to join me.
BANGALORE, SATURDAY MAY 4
6.30 pm!!
Oxford Bookstores!!
1 MG Mall, Upper Ground Floor, 1/2 Swami Vivekananda Road!!
Opposite Taj Vivanta!!
Psyched about Bangalore also, because a) the Good Thing is going to be there so it'll be a book launch reunion (yay) and b) I've been looking forward to having a chat with Sumeet Shetty for a while--he runs the biggest corporate book club in the country, and yes, I didn't know 'corporate' and 'book club' could go together either, so I'm wondering what his secret was of getting shirts to read. Plus, in Bangalore, I'd love to go out for drinks or whatever after, if anyone is free. (Cochin, I'd offer you the same deal, but I need to go see my gran.)
In both cities, I'll be giving writing tips, so aspiring authors and shy owners of manuscripts, please come with any questions you might have and I'll do my best to answer them.
April 27, 2013
This is when I miss you
Notes to my sibling who could have been, but wasn't.
I've spent my whole life justifying your absence. I make out that one is far better, far superior to two, and oh my god, don't get me started on three or four. Sure, it works for you, I say flippantly to my friends with sisters, friends with brothers. But think of all the advantages I had--my parents and I like a unit, the absence of you led to the three of us being a family very different from other people's families. I had pets---pets are better than you. I told myself stories on lonely afternoons---if you had been born, I never would have been a writer.
But maybe I would have told you stories. I can imagine you, you'd be younger, of course, even in my wildest imaginings, there's no room for an older sibling. You'd be younger, and you'd be a girl, and during our summer holidays, when it would be the period between lunch and Outside, as our parents napped, I'd make up stories for you. I'd pretend to be annoyed that you were always there, but I'd secretly sort of like it.
But maybe you would have been a boy. Can you imagine? I can't. Maybe you would have been active and running around and not interested in my stories. You might not have been a dreamy eyed quiet voiced boy, you might have been the sort who burped after lunch and cut the ears off my teddy bears and eaten all the chocolate in the refrigerator. When I imagine that you, I'm really happy you weren't born. You sound quite awful.
For the most part I miss you for selfish reasons:
I. It pisses me off that I will never be able to honestly write about sibling-love. I have no idea what it's meant to feel like, and as a result, I go over everything I write about siblings with a fine tooth comb looking for any stench of the maudlin hanging over it. If you were alive, I'd have one more experience.
II. I think I might be a more interesting person with five younger siblings. I'd be older--not age wise, but maybe in my brain?--and responsible-r, and many other things that you have denied me by not being born. I'm pretty sure I was an accident, why weren't you, lazy?
III. I don't want to be alone at the end of my life. I'd have liked for you to be around then, not just be adrift, without a family. You would have been a comfort--maybe not if we were estranged because you stole my boyfriend when you were 22, but maybe we'd make it up, and I'd be your daughter's favourite aunt.
IV. If I needed a donation of some kind, bone marrow or kidney, your being alive would have increased my chances.
I missed you more as a child than I think the generation of onlies today will miss their unborn siblings. I missed you at dinner time when we were all called home from the park, and everyone went home two-by-two and I lingered in the solitary gloam. I missed you when I fought with my parents--who could have been our parents--I missed having someone to roll my eyes at and be sympathetic to me.
But as I grew older and the fact of you grew less and less, the truth is, darling, I stopped thinking about you. I made up a twin when I was thirteen, not a real, true make-up, I knew I was kidding, and my friends knew I was kidding. I called you Shreyashri, and said that the reason you weren't around is because we didn't get along and so my parents had shipped you off to America. Even then, I couldn't think of a world where I'd be shipped off, I was too important in my little family, and so you had to go. Some people might have even believed me.
Today, I'm thinking about you. I'm thirty one years old, and I will never have a sibling. That time is gone, and being an Only is now a fact of my life. I know the things I've missed--shared holidays and one more person in my corner and a sort of best-friend-meets-family thing that I'm never going to have. I know the things I've gained--apart from material conveniences, a strange sure footedness around the world, the ability to amuse myself without external help, the love of solitude, a personality that makes friends easily. You could've gone either way, you could have been the person I couldn't bear to give up, you could have been the person I only spoke to once a year on your birthday, you could have been lovely, you could have been an asshole. I might have hated you and felt guilty about it, I might have loved you and loved loving you.
"Do you miss having a sibling?" is a question I get asked. Still get asked.
And the only honest answer is: "I don't know."
I've spent my whole life justifying your absence. I make out that one is far better, far superior to two, and oh my god, don't get me started on three or four. Sure, it works for you, I say flippantly to my friends with sisters, friends with brothers. But think of all the advantages I had--my parents and I like a unit, the absence of you led to the three of us being a family very different from other people's families. I had pets---pets are better than you. I told myself stories on lonely afternoons---if you had been born, I never would have been a writer.
But maybe I would have told you stories. I can imagine you, you'd be younger, of course, even in my wildest imaginings, there's no room for an older sibling. You'd be younger, and you'd be a girl, and during our summer holidays, when it would be the period between lunch and Outside, as our parents napped, I'd make up stories for you. I'd pretend to be annoyed that you were always there, but I'd secretly sort of like it.
But maybe you would have been a boy. Can you imagine? I can't. Maybe you would have been active and running around and not interested in my stories. You might not have been a dreamy eyed quiet voiced boy, you might have been the sort who burped after lunch and cut the ears off my teddy bears and eaten all the chocolate in the refrigerator. When I imagine that you, I'm really happy you weren't born. You sound quite awful.
For the most part I miss you for selfish reasons:
I. It pisses me off that I will never be able to honestly write about sibling-love. I have no idea what it's meant to feel like, and as a result, I go over everything I write about siblings with a fine tooth comb looking for any stench of the maudlin hanging over it. If you were alive, I'd have one more experience.
II. I think I might be a more interesting person with five younger siblings. I'd be older--not age wise, but maybe in my brain?--and responsible-r, and many other things that you have denied me by not being born. I'm pretty sure I was an accident, why weren't you, lazy?
III. I don't want to be alone at the end of my life. I'd have liked for you to be around then, not just be adrift, without a family. You would have been a comfort--maybe not if we were estranged because you stole my boyfriend when you were 22, but maybe we'd make it up, and I'd be your daughter's favourite aunt.
IV. If I needed a donation of some kind, bone marrow or kidney, your being alive would have increased my chances.
I missed you more as a child than I think the generation of onlies today will miss their unborn siblings. I missed you at dinner time when we were all called home from the park, and everyone went home two-by-two and I lingered in the solitary gloam. I missed you when I fought with my parents--who could have been our parents--I missed having someone to roll my eyes at and be sympathetic to me.
But as I grew older and the fact of you grew less and less, the truth is, darling, I stopped thinking about you. I made up a twin when I was thirteen, not a real, true make-up, I knew I was kidding, and my friends knew I was kidding. I called you Shreyashri, and said that the reason you weren't around is because we didn't get along and so my parents had shipped you off to America. Even then, I couldn't think of a world where I'd be shipped off, I was too important in my little family, and so you had to go. Some people might have even believed me.
Today, I'm thinking about you. I'm thirty one years old, and I will never have a sibling. That time is gone, and being an Only is now a fact of my life. I know the things I've missed--shared holidays and one more person in my corner and a sort of best-friend-meets-family thing that I'm never going to have. I know the things I've gained--apart from material conveniences, a strange sure footedness around the world, the ability to amuse myself without external help, the love of solitude, a personality that makes friends easily. You could've gone either way, you could have been the person I couldn't bear to give up, you could have been the person I only spoke to once a year on your birthday, you could have been lovely, you could have been an asshole. I might have hated you and felt guilty about it, I might have loved you and loved loving you.
"Do you miss having a sibling?" is a question I get asked. Still get asked.
And the only honest answer is: "I don't know."
April 17, 2013
Three Great Camera Apps For Android: A Bad Photographer Blames Her Camera Phone
Let's face it, it's hard to be a camera phone owner when your camera phone is just okay, and everyone around you has these dazzling 8 MP cameras or iPhones which could make even snot look pretty with the right filter. I have a practical, budget Android--I've been an Android user for the last five years--and while they don't last well for years and years (slow processors, bad battery life and so on), they do have some pretty cool free stuff that you can use to make your pictures pop and be the envy of your iPhone-y friends. (Okay, not the envy. You try explaining to someone with an Apple product how your thing may be just as nice as their thing. It never works.) I have the Sony Xperia Tipo, a perfectly nice phone, on which I have three camera apps which I use to edit my stuff. I've tried out several, and these seem to me the best.
1) For regular shooting, plus continuous bursts of photos and some pretty professional tools: Camera Zoom FX. This is the only app I have ever spent money on, and boy, is it worth it. The nice thing about buying something at the Play store is that you can migrate it to all your devices, so even if I were to upgrade to my next window shopping love, the Samsung Galaxy S3 (sharpest camera I've seen on an Android device thus far), I could move my Camera Zoom app with it. What's awesome about it? It lets you set your view to grid or rule of thirds arc, so you can always compose the best possible photo, plus, if you don't feel like downloading any other apps, you can use it to add filters and things too. These are some photos from my Shimla trip I tweaked with it:
Pretty nice, eh? I use this instead of my built-in phone camera app because in a situation I'm taking lots of photos, it lets me take them continuously, without stopping to edit or moderate.
2) For post process photo editing, Aviary. I came across this quite recently, but have really been enjoying putting it to use. It comes in handy once you take your picture and want to add some clarity or filters or crop it. I find this combined with Instagram makes for the perfect picture. It's super easy to use, so my usual process is shoot with Camera Zoom, then later, open the file with Aviary and add whatever tweaks I like. There's some stuff you can only use if you pay, but I find the free stuff quite adequate. Observe:
This photo has also been given a double filter with Instagram, but most of the work was done with Aviary. It looks clear, clean and professional, and I added a back lit tweak to make the sunglasses look like sun was streaming through them.
3) For sharing, Instagram. The filters and square-photo-only rule get boring after a while (you can use Aviary to crop a photo into a square much more intuitively than Instagram's regular crop) but it's so much fun to see how many little hearts your picture can manage. I love following other accounts too, specially zooborns for adorable daily updates of baby animals, and people from around the world. It inspires me to take great photos, and gives me several ideas of what I can do with my own pictures. Here are some pictures from the Zooborns feed. Can you say awwww?
Well, those are my camera recs for Android. Do you have awesome tips you'd like to share? Then we can make a collective for other People Without iPhones!
1) For regular shooting, plus continuous bursts of photos and some pretty professional tools: Camera Zoom FX. This is the only app I have ever spent money on, and boy, is it worth it. The nice thing about buying something at the Play store is that you can migrate it to all your devices, so even if I were to upgrade to my next window shopping love, the Samsung Galaxy S3 (sharpest camera I've seen on an Android device thus far), I could move my Camera Zoom app with it. What's awesome about it? It lets you set your view to grid or rule of thirds arc, so you can always compose the best possible photo, plus, if you don't feel like downloading any other apps, you can use it to add filters and things too. These are some photos from my Shimla trip I tweaked with it:
Pretty nice, eh? I use this instead of my built-in phone camera app because in a situation I'm taking lots of photos, it lets me take them continuously, without stopping to edit or moderate.
2) For post process photo editing, Aviary. I came across this quite recently, but have really been enjoying putting it to use. It comes in handy once you take your picture and want to add some clarity or filters or crop it. I find this combined with Instagram makes for the perfect picture. It's super easy to use, so my usual process is shoot with Camera Zoom, then later, open the file with Aviary and add whatever tweaks I like. There's some stuff you can only use if you pay, but I find the free stuff quite adequate. Observe:
This photo has also been given a double filter with Instagram, but most of the work was done with Aviary. It looks clear, clean and professional, and I added a back lit tweak to make the sunglasses look like sun was streaming through them.
3) For sharing, Instagram. The filters and square-photo-only rule get boring after a while (you can use Aviary to crop a photo into a square much more intuitively than Instagram's regular crop) but it's so much fun to see how many little hearts your picture can manage. I love following other accounts too, specially zooborns for adorable daily updates of baby animals, and people from around the world. It inspires me to take great photos, and gives me several ideas of what I can do with my own pictures. Here are some pictures from the Zooborns feed. Can you say awwww?
Well, those are my camera recs for Android. Do you have awesome tips you'd like to share? Then we can make a collective for other People Without iPhones!
April 11, 2013
The Con Master: An Update
If you cast your eye gently to the right, you'll see my number one most read post is about Anirudh Aiyar, called Do You Know This Man? Since that post was written in 2010, I have received SO. MANY. EMAILS about him, basically telling me what he's been doing all over the place, that I thought it deserved a part two.
So, here's what happened since the last time we spoke about him deceiving a friend of mine.
The most interesting story I heard about ol' AA, was a collection of news links that a reader mailed me. It turns out that he has had some run-ins with the law. In 2007, he was caught by the Colaba police for walking out of a restaurant without paying the bill and going to Mukesh Ambani's house and asking for a job.
Then there was a bizarre kidnapping case where he reported two UK based girls missing and that someone had called him asking for a ransom of... Rs 350 crore. Yeah. This was in 2006.
And then there's the story, also from 2006, about him issuing a bunch of cheques for a flat and they all bounced. It's a bit of a sadder story though, because allegedly he put his grandmother in a nursing home and that cheque bounced too. But, don't feel TOO bad for him because this also happened:
I've also been getting a lot of emails, the most recent one I'm not going to publish, but suffice to say, dear reader, that it's very likely that he does NOT have custody of two small children because his wife and friend died in a car crash. Unless he had them in the last three years.
Excerpts from reader emails:
and:
and from the comments:
and lots more in the comments section.
The interesting thing is how many other con stories there were, it was like people got together to share who they'd been cheated by, not just this guy but a famous blogger apparently (still guessing who it is!) and a chick and loads of other people going around the country deceiving people, for what? A sick sense of control?
The whole Bitty Mohanty thing made me think of Anirudh Aiyar again, and the most recent email, promising to marry someone (the one I alluded to earlier, with the fact that he has custody of two children). But also, I must say, over the years, when the hurt faded away from our memories, I'm beginning to regard him with a certain fascination. How is he doing it with mostly the same name? Isn't he scared of being caught? Does he know people are discussing him on the internet? I guess none of the things he's doing--except for the stealing--is a crime, and even with theft, he's only choosing to steal little things, small amounts of cash, defaulting on a bill and so on, which most people won't have the patience to take him to court for. Still, it's interesting to know he's still at large, still playing, who knows, maybe he'll wash up in your city next. Or my doorstep. Can't imagine I'm his favourite person at the moment.
So, here's what happened since the last time we spoke about him deceiving a friend of mine.
The most interesting story I heard about ol' AA, was a collection of news links that a reader mailed me. It turns out that he has had some run-ins with the law. In 2007, he was caught by the Colaba police for walking out of a restaurant without paying the bill and going to Mukesh Ambani's house and asking for a job.
On Thursday, Iyer was arrested by the Colaba police after he did not pay the Rs 1,800 bill at Tendulkar’s in Colaba.
He was warned by the court and released after he promised the judge he would return to his hometown down south. But this is not the first time Iyer has been caught by the police.
He was brought to the Colaba police station earlier this month after he failed to pay for his dinner at Faryana Restaurant in Colaba. A few days later, he created a scene outside Ambani’s Cuffe Parade home claiming the Reliance big man had promised him a job. The security had to call the police.
Then there was a bizarre kidnapping case where he reported two UK based girls missing and that someone had called him asking for a ransom of... Rs 350 crore. Yeah. This was in 2006.
Mani told the Deccan police that on January 15, he received a call from an unknown person, demanding Rs 350 crore for the release of two friends — Yasmin Khan (28) and Sheetal Khanna (27), both residents of London.
According to the police, Mani said that Yasmin and Sheetal arrived in India on January 15 and were proceeding to Pune in a Cool Cab. They took a halt at Lonavla and disappeared, Mani told the police.
Assistant commissioner of police Dilip Shepal told TOI that Mani claimed to be a representative of UKbased IT firm, Core Solutions.
His educational background was stated as B.Com (external) and according to Mani, the two girls included his "former and current girlfriend".
Mani told the police that he was looking after the expansion plans of the UKbased firm and the two girls had come to India to meet him.
And then there's the story, also from 2006, about him issuing a bunch of cheques for a flat and they all bounced. It's a bit of a sadder story though, because allegedly he put his grandmother in a nursing home and that cheque bounced too. But, don't feel TOO bad for him because this also happened:
According to Pardeshi, Mani had stayed at Hotel Sun-n-Sand on Bund Garden Road on February 16 and 17. He allegedly issued a cheque of over Rs two lakh to the hotel saying that he was going to stay for a month. He was asked to leave when the cheque bounced.
Mani had also issued cheques of Rs 41 lakh and Rs 16 lakh to car dealers for a Pajero and a Sonata which also bounced. The cars were not delivered to Mani.
I've also been getting a lot of emails, the most recent one I'm not going to publish, but suffice to say, dear reader, that it's very likely that he does NOT have custody of two small children because his wife and friend died in a car crash. Unless he had them in the last three years.
Excerpts from reader emails:
Last year (August 2009), he came to my apartment through another roommate for a week saying similar story that he worked in PWC, and that he was some director in PWC and he later started a VC ( venture Capital) called hyper capital , and now he is awaiting some fund to be transferred through some one in London to start graphic novel company. He talks pretty well, he kind of got hold of my roommate with his talks. later he got into some weird calls to US( ended up in 10K in a month of telephone bill, and when numbers were traced all were phone SEX ) , and he pretty much depended on roommate even for food.He even tried to cheat our house owner with some weird real estate deals. . Things got worse when he couldn't pay 10K he took from my roommate , and he started pressurizing his to pay back the earliest.
One day , this guy left the house , giving the key to neighbor saying he got his money wired transferred from the "London" investor and that he is going to Tirupati. He informed my roommate that the 10K is kept in our house shelf.
When we came back, he took his laptop, SLR camera and there was no sign of the 10K in the shelf . It took this event for my roommate to realize this guy is a crook. we did some background check , and found he has cheated a call center with similar stories, he had many fake names. To be honest , he has just completed CA inter . All Harvard, LSE, London, NY stuffs are lies. 2 days later he called the roomate , and said he is happy now , that he got his money transferred, and we said about the money not there in the shelf , he tried to blame it on the neighbour. We planned a plot, to get this guy back to Chennai , we acted as if we believed him. Also, I felt as he is a pervert, and he act as a Casanova for whom any girl will fall for. He even said his network with some senior VP of citi bank , who is working on the money transfer .A day after that , the guy came to our house, As planned we trapped him , and got him arrested . Through some influence , we did get the laptop and SLR camera , which he has sold at Chennai and bangalore respectively for very meager amount. Also, he did spent the money on his stay in lavish hotels in Bangalore and Tirupati.
He was in Chennai central Jail till jan, by then I moved to US.
and:
I guess I was one of his prey's too. I met him at Landmark, Pune. This guy came up to me and started a conversation, telling me that his car (some big expensive one!) had broken down and he had given it to the work shop and was passing time at Landmark. Then, we went to grab a cup of coffee. We met again after a duration of 6 months I guess for coffee.
He told me all these stories, that you have mentioned in your blog with exact same details. Only the last part of him falling sick is something I am unaware of, as I lost touch with him. I think he must have mentioned your friend, Ira also to me, maybe with a different name. It's really disgusting what he does. I always had a little doubt in him, because whatever big big future plans he used to have never seemed to quite work out. I never saw him coming from Mumbai to Pune in any of his cars. And, no cell phone! A little hard to believe.
and from the comments:
I know Anirudh since 1997 and we studied C.A. foundation course together in Madras. Since he couldn't get into a proper college he decided to do his B.Com through correspondence from University of Madras. Prior to that he was from Shishya School in Madras (Adyar). His mother did die in 1997 and I was actually there at the funeral. I felt pity for him and was in touch with him till 2002 after which I couldn't take his nonsense and decided he was not the kind of person I wanted to be friends with. Very surprising he was a C.A. Foundation Rank holder in 1997 (he wrote the November 1997 Exam). Post his C.A. Foundation he got into PWC through his mother's influence (she died soon after that). He has a younger brother who is far more decent and I believe he is in Australia right now.
Anirudh was always the kind of guy who would create a make-shift world around him and try to deceive others. He never had any ambitions in life and was a born loser. I never thought he would be a professional conman. He used to buy cars every 6 months as if money was falling out of the skies. It sometimes made me feel like I hadn't achieved anything as yet since we were only students then.
A few months back I received a phone call from Madras (I now live in UK). Turns out the call is from Anirudh. He tried to give me the same sob story but I wasn't but his crap. I figured he got my number from Facebook and the first thing I did after the call was delete my number from FB.
Just about 15 days later, I got 2 messages on FB from his room-mates at Madras. The letter is as below:
Karthikeyan Vaidhyanathan 09 September 2009 at 19:36 Report
Hi,
This is Karthikeyan from Chennai, India. Do you know Anirudh Aiyar, who is a common friend in our Facebook list? Do you have his contact number? Please reply. Thank you.
Vivek Venkateswar 26 September 2009 at 09:07
Hi Karthik... Anirudh's contact details are on his profile on facebook.
Sent via Facebook Mobile
Karthikeyan Vaidhyanathan 26 September 2009 at 21:52 Report
but it is nothing but my apartment number :( thats y i asked you. Sorry to disturb you. But we caught him. He had accepted everything when we handed over him to police...
Vivek Venkateswar 05 October 2009 at 12:42
What is he is the Police for?
Karthikeyan Vaidhyanathan 08 November 2009 at 11:06 Report
for theft of camera and laptop and some other issues also
Vivek Venkateswar 09 November 2009 at 11:22
I am shocked... If he has stolen, he needs to be with the police.
Karthikeyan Vaidhyanathan 09 November 2009 at 18:28 Report
he did :( even we didnt expect that... but he did... do u know him? why he became like that?
Vivek Venkateswar 11 November 2009 at 10:26
I really don't know what happened to him... We were very close friends from 1997 to 2002 and studied for our CA together... Didn't really want to keep in touch with him after that as he was getting into wrong company... Guess this is what happens!!!
and lots more in the comments section.
The interesting thing is how many other con stories there were, it was like people got together to share who they'd been cheated by, not just this guy but a famous blogger apparently (still guessing who it is!) and a chick and loads of other people going around the country deceiving people, for what? A sick sense of control?
The whole Bitty Mohanty thing made me think of Anirudh Aiyar again, and the most recent email, promising to marry someone (the one I alluded to earlier, with the fact that he has custody of two children). But also, I must say, over the years, when the hurt faded away from our memories, I'm beginning to regard him with a certain fascination. How is he doing it with mostly the same name? Isn't he scared of being caught? Does he know people are discussing him on the internet? I guess none of the things he's doing--except for the stealing--is a crime, and even with theft, he's only choosing to steal little things, small amounts of cash, defaulting on a bill and so on, which most people won't have the patience to take him to court for. Still, it's interesting to know he's still at large, still playing, who knows, maybe he'll wash up in your city next. Or my doorstep. Can't imagine I'm his favourite person at the moment.
April 9, 2013
Somebody left the gate open, you know we got lost on the way
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<i>(listen to the song as you're reading this post)</i><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At 28, I found myself back in Delhi, minus one fiancé and a
city I still loved. Now, nearly three years later, I look back at that person with a certain wonder. I can remember the heartbreak, the emotional exhaustion, but it seems as if it happened to someone else, in a different story entirely. That wasn't really me. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I like to say Bombay is my spiritual home, but it was in Delhi that I began to find myself once more, Delhi that smoothed the edges, Delhi that lent itself to dates and more work than I could manage and a full-to-bustling social life, even as I complained about the city, missing Bombay with more passion than I ever missed my ex. And it was in a small annexe in Delhi, an upgraded servant's quarters, that I decided to stop waiting for The Future, and make it happen right now.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All my life, I think, I've been waiting. Some periods are just general waiting, like Godot, a train that will never come in, your goal fuzzy, but "soon" everything will be "different". Some periods were more specific: when I get married, when I have children, when I get a different job, when I move, when I make more money. It was tied up to a great extent to the idea of family, I didn't think I <i>wouldn't</i> have a family, it was always there, waiting to be checked off my list, and so "one day", I would have this perfect house, with the perfect man and perfect little babies. The man and babies were a bit meh, but the house would be large and glorious and perfect for entertaining. I could never afford the kind of house I wanted <i>alone</i> in Bombay, so conveniently it tied in with the man--my relationship and my beautiful Perry Road flat went hand-in-hand, breaking up with one was breaking up with both. Moving to Delhi, I picked a single person's house, what more could I want than two rooms, a kitchenette and a bathroom? No matter that the rooms were small and square, that the bed filled up pretty much all the bedroom, that more than five people couldn't sit in the drawing room, it was my teeny tiny hole-in-the-wall, the one flat I've ever had that belonged entirely to me--no roommates, no sex-with-benefits (where benefits = shared rent). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Slowly, as I began to grow into the idea of my thirties, only a year away, I also began to evaluate my life. I learned how to cook. I bought nice cheese. I didn't have <i>that</i> much more money, Delhi is not magic, and I was still a freelancer, but my money seemed like it was going further than it used to. I made cocktails for friends parties, kissed several handsome men, and drank red wine. Within the year, I had moved into a new flat, one with so many rooms that I felt lost in it, but one that made me feel every inch like I had arrived. Here I am, this is the future, this is now, and there's no more waiting. I signed another two books, I took yoga, I met a man who stayed when I was ready to meet him. My life that had seemed so narrow, so shrunken, had expanded beyond belief.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, when I think about it, I'm not even sure I <i>want</i> to get married any more. I mean, it sounds nice, don't get me wrong, the idea of committing to someone with a formal contract, but on the other hand, there's so much else for me to do. I'm not missing someone in my life, I have a partner, and even though he is far away, he is here a lot of the time, and I see him if not <i>as much</i> as I would like to but at least <i>more</i> than you'd expect two people in two different cities to be able to manage. Being apart gives me time to think about life's big decisions, and at least I know it's a life without compromise. This is me in my flat, my messy flat with ashtrays and magazines and cat litter trays (three, because the damn animal is super picky and will just poop on the floor if everything is not spic and span), this could be Scary Spinster Life, the one I dreaded when I was in my teens, but I'm not a spinster and I'm not married and that is okay. I stopped waiting. That sounds like a terrible self-help book: How I Stopped Waiting And Started Living, but hey, it happened to me.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%... style="font-size: x-small;">(psst: have you read my new book yet?) </span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<script language="javascript" src="http://rpc.blogrolling.com/display.ph..." type="text/javascript"></script><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogsp..." height="1" width="1"/>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<i>(listen to the song as you're reading this post)</i><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At 28, I found myself back in Delhi, minus one fiancé and a
city I still loved. Now, nearly three years later, I look back at that person with a certain wonder. I can remember the heartbreak, the emotional exhaustion, but it seems as if it happened to someone else, in a different story entirely. That wasn't really me. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I like to say Bombay is my spiritual home, but it was in Delhi that I began to find myself once more, Delhi that smoothed the edges, Delhi that lent itself to dates and more work than I could manage and a full-to-bustling social life, even as I complained about the city, missing Bombay with more passion than I ever missed my ex. And it was in a small annexe in Delhi, an upgraded servant's quarters, that I decided to stop waiting for The Future, and make it happen right now.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All my life, I think, I've been waiting. Some periods are just general waiting, like Godot, a train that will never come in, your goal fuzzy, but "soon" everything will be "different". Some periods were more specific: when I get married, when I have children, when I get a different job, when I move, when I make more money. It was tied up to a great extent to the idea of family, I didn't think I <i>wouldn't</i> have a family, it was always there, waiting to be checked off my list, and so "one day", I would have this perfect house, with the perfect man and perfect little babies. The man and babies were a bit meh, but the house would be large and glorious and perfect for entertaining. I could never afford the kind of house I wanted <i>alone</i> in Bombay, so conveniently it tied in with the man--my relationship and my beautiful Perry Road flat went hand-in-hand, breaking up with one was breaking up with both. Moving to Delhi, I picked a single person's house, what more could I want than two rooms, a kitchenette and a bathroom? No matter that the rooms were small and square, that the bed filled up pretty much all the bedroom, that more than five people couldn't sit in the drawing room, it was my teeny tiny hole-in-the-wall, the one flat I've ever had that belonged entirely to me--no roommates, no sex-with-benefits (where benefits = shared rent). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Slowly, as I began to grow into the idea of my thirties, only a year away, I also began to evaluate my life. I learned how to cook. I bought nice cheese. I didn't have <i>that</i> much more money, Delhi is not magic, and I was still a freelancer, but my money seemed like it was going further than it used to. I made cocktails for friends parties, kissed several handsome men, and drank red wine. Within the year, I had moved into a new flat, one with so many rooms that I felt lost in it, but one that made me feel every inch like I had arrived. Here I am, this is the future, this is now, and there's no more waiting. I signed another two books, I took yoga, I met a man who stayed when I was ready to meet him. My life that had seemed so narrow, so shrunken, had expanded beyond belief.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, when I think about it, I'm not even sure I <i>want</i> to get married any more. I mean, it sounds nice, don't get me wrong, the idea of committing to someone with a formal contract, but on the other hand, there's so much else for me to do. I'm not missing someone in my life, I have a partner, and even though he is far away, he is here a lot of the time, and I see him if not <i>as much</i> as I would like to but at least <i>more</i> than you'd expect two people in two different cities to be able to manage. Being apart gives me time to think about life's big decisions, and at least I know it's a life without compromise. This is me in my flat, my messy flat with ashtrays and magazines and cat litter trays (three, because the damn animal is super picky and will just poop on the floor if everything is not spic and span), this could be Scary Spinster Life, the one I dreaded when I was in my teens, but I'm not a spinster and I'm not married and that is okay. I stopped waiting. That sounds like a terrible self-help book: How I Stopped Waiting And Started Living, but hey, it happened to me.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%... style="font-size: x-small;">(psst: have you read my new book yet?) </span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<script language="javascript" src="http://rpc.blogrolling.com/display.ph..." type="text/javascript"></script><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogsp..." height="1" width="1"/>
April 2, 2013
Things
Things that are free:
1) A vast portion of the internet, including Facebook, Twitter, blogs, THIS blog (yay), and if you look hard enough, television, books and movies.
2) Nice walks.
3) 5 pm music time.
4) Smells.
5) The joy of a good parking spot. The joy of holding hands with someone whose hands aren't sweaty or flabby or pulling you along. The joy of seeing a friend after a long time. The joy of having nothing to do on a Sunday. Joys.
6) Sadness is also free, but expensive in the long run.
Things that give me the heebie jeebies:
1) The word 'nipple'.
2) Using 'loose' when you mean 'lose'.
3) Dirty dishes.
Things I love this week:
1) This bag from Zara.
Things I could eat pretty much all the time:
1) Chicken wings with blue cheese dip, but then if they don't taste the same in real life as they do in my head, it's always disappointing.
Things it would be nice to have:
1) A diplomatic passport.
Things that don't necessarily make me a BAD person but err on the side of Very Human:
1) Making faces in my head when couples I don't like have lovey-dovey pictures on Facebook.
2) Similarly, making faces at baby photos belonging to new parents I don't like.
3) Similarly AGAIN, brief, bare glee in a bad review of an author I don't like as a person.
Things I do to compensate on whatever Bad Karma the previous one might get me:
1) Slowing down the car to let old, nervous people cross the road. (But this could also be compensating for the bad temper I get into whenever same old people ask me to switch lower berths for uppers in a train.)
I'm going to hell, essentially.
I also constantly resist the urge to say 'Fuck you' on Twitter to stupid people who @ me with something dumb in response to one of my tweets. Does this count?
Things I like on Twitter this morning:
Things I like on Instagram this morning:
From @dailydoodlegram
From @supriyasodhi
From @jethromullen
1) A vast portion of the internet, including Facebook, Twitter, blogs, THIS blog (yay), and if you look hard enough, television, books and movies.
2) Nice walks.
3) 5 pm music time.
4) Smells.
5) The joy of a good parking spot. The joy of holding hands with someone whose hands aren't sweaty or flabby or pulling you along. The joy of seeing a friend after a long time. The joy of having nothing to do on a Sunday. Joys.
6) Sadness is also free, but expensive in the long run.
Things that give me the heebie jeebies:
1) The word 'nipple'.
2) Using 'loose' when you mean 'lose'.
3) Dirty dishes.
Things I love this week:
1) This bag from Zara.
Things I could eat pretty much all the time:
1) Chicken wings with blue cheese dip, but then if they don't taste the same in real life as they do in my head, it's always disappointing.
Things it would be nice to have:
1) A diplomatic passport.
Things that don't necessarily make me a BAD person but err on the side of Very Human:
1) Making faces in my head when couples I don't like have lovey-dovey pictures on Facebook.
2) Similarly, making faces at baby photos belonging to new parents I don't like.
3) Similarly AGAIN, brief, bare glee in a bad review of an author I don't like as a person.
Things I do to compensate on whatever Bad Karma the previous one might get me:
1) Slowing down the car to let old, nervous people cross the road. (But this could also be compensating for the bad temper I get into whenever same old people ask me to switch lower berths for uppers in a train.)
I'm going to hell, essentially.
I also constantly resist the urge to say 'Fuck you' on Twitter to stupid people who @ me with something dumb in response to one of my tweets. Does this count?
Things I like on Twitter this morning:
I'm at that awkward eve-of-30 stage when I'm not sure if it's offensive or flattering to be told I look 25.
— Diksha Basu (@dikshabasu) April 3, 2013
You will experience your billionth second of life when you are 31-years-old.
— UberFacts (@UberFacts) April 2, 2013
If Game Of Thrones took place entirely on Facebook: Season 3, Episode 1. funni.ly/YZvzXQ
— someecards (@someecards) April 2, 2013
Love conquers all. Unless a couple is trying to decide where to eat. That conquers love.
— caprice crane (@capricecrane) April 2, 2013
Things I like on Instagram this morning:
From @dailydoodlegram
From @supriyasodhi
From @jethromullen
March 27, 2013
Live blogging: a day in the life of a Coup
As promised yesterday, I'm going to be live blogging our entire work day. Some of you (and I hate you) are away for the long weekend, but others, like me, if traffic is anything to go by, are on their way to or at work today, and so, this is basically for you.
9.35 am: Cast of characters. Mansi (on the left) is the co-founder of Brown Paper Bag, here from Bombay for the launch of this thing. She's very small with a very big personality. Kakul is a recent hire here in Delhi, fresh from advertising, and she is very hipster, adding to my movie collection each week with indie films. Note: we all have Macbooks. I don't know what this says about us.
9.38 am: I've just finished my second mango of the season. We're tossing about things like 'One Coup Card to rule them all'. Not it for the role of a Hobbit. Or Gollum for that matter.
9.43 am: Picasa is proving problematic. It's still one of my favourite photo editors, specially for adding text to images, but the save-a-version doesn't automatically come up in your photo album. On the other hand, the nice thing about everyone having the same laptop is that it makes troubleshooting quite easy.
9.46 am: Mansi made these little promotional banners:
and
9.48 am: Text by Kanika Parab, the other founder, who is sitting in Bombay far away from all the fun. Her Twitter feed is great though, teeny tiny short stories.
9.53 am: Testing the landing page. Look how pretty!
9.56 am: We're in Mansi's cousin's room. It's full of photo collages and stuffed animals. I feel about 80 years old now.
10.03 am: Do you know how hard it is to read and write about food constantly when you haven't had breakfast yet? POOR OLD ME.
10.09 am: I've just been offered breakfast, thanks to that last update. Wow. Effective.
10.14 am: Kakul tells me sadly that she's from marketing, not advertising. "There's a WORLD of difference," she claims.
10.17 am: I had to Google 'how to calculate a discount'. I KNEW maths classes torturing me all through school were a complete mistake.
10.27 am: WHY IS NO ONE AWAKE YET? It's a THURSDAY.
10.30 am: So, one of the spaces we picked is this awesome underground bar (I know you know where I mean, and if you don't, well, the easiest solution is really to get on board with the card) (Not-so-subtle plug) and it's BEAUTIFUL, always smells like cinnamon and with a very cool way of getting in. But, they had a problem with being mentioned anywhere on the Coup Card literature because, well, they wanted to be a little bit secret still, despite all the reviews everywhere. That was tricky. We're just adding them as a "secret spot". (I'm pretty much there at least twice a month, and it would be more, except the red wine is all imported and so my bill turns out quite large, and ta-dah, here's another Plug.) (But if anything gets me to drive 15 km from Nizamuddin just for a drink, you know it's good.)
10.43 am: Another place we decided on was Carnatic Cafe. Have you been? They have pretty much the best dosas I've had in the city. Turns out the owner is an anthropologist, who did some work in villages before moving to Delhi. That doesn't have much to do with the dosas, but they play jazz music.
11.16 am: OH. MY. GOD we're almost ready to launch. This is thrilling. We're all on the edge of our chairs. If you want early bird access email coupATbpbweekendDOTcom
11.28 am: So excited I can't even eat my sandwich.
11.35 am: Another photo: This is my version.
And Kakul's version:
11.37 am: ANDDDDD... WE'RE LIVE. From our Twitter feed:
15% off Delhi’s 20 top restaurants. Rs 1,200 for 6 months. 4 family members on a one card. Use in Mumbai for free: http://www.coupcard.in .
11.44 am: If you've bought one, say hi!
12.22 pm: Hot debate on Twitter about our T&C regarding family members. You can add four people to a card, but to make sure you're not handing it out to pals, we decided to make the last name common. OBVS, this means some people, like my parents, will have to make a way around it, but ultimately, if you have any piece of paper proving you're related to these people (even a marriage license!) you can use the same card.
12.41 pm: The card is priced at Rs 1,200. You can use it on any size table. We're not letting you use it for your boyfriend/girlfriend, because we want to be able to afford it. Obviously anyone can exploit this with a common surname, but we're hoping you won't.
12.43 pm: TWENTY FIVE SALES!!
12.51 pm: GAH TECHNICAL THINGS. How I wish I could code a website.
1.09 pm: Holy jesus, how people are up in arms about last name thing. Scan a copy of your marriage license if you don't have the same last name, and we'll add your spouse. Scan a copy of your birth certificate and we'll add your parents. This is just the best way we could get around making it fool proof. And that's the last I'm saying on the subject.
1.17 pm: Goodness, one hundred sold already.
1.35 pm: DRA-HA-MA!! A competing Delhi website has launched their membership card today as well. We took a screen shot of the prices, you know, coz we're corporate espionage-y like that. (Click to see a bigger image.)
12.08 pm: We just ordered lunch from Asian Haus, which I l-o-v-e. (Also on the card.) My favourite things so far are the Hawker noodles and Cantonese chilli chicken, but the girls are vegetarian and so I try to quench my cravings with eggplant.
2.27 pm: Obviously so hungry that I made 2.08, 12.08, and then experienced a little moment of confusion where I looked at my post and thought, "Huh, they're taking a while."
3.34 pm: Post-lunch lull. We're all tired and sleepy but still super wired.
4.32 pm: Phone call! Heard from someone wanting to buy it. It reminds me of when I used to volunteer with this board exam middle-of-the-night helpline, telling students not to stress, except, um, not suicidal. And more exciting questions. Still, it's nice when your phone rings with a strange number and it's not Airtel.
4.58 pm: If you bring me coffee, I will love you forever. Promise.
4.59 pm: Places that serve awesome coffee on the card: Elma's & Cafe Turtle. I have most of my meetings and Sunday evening dessert cravings met at the Cafe Turtle in Nizamuddin East. AND Full Circle is giving us 10 per cent off books, which means you might not have to wait a day for Flipkart to deliver.
and
6.01 pm from Twitter: My live blog ends here, on twitter, with a hailstorm & black coffee. Can't get on blogger with my phone so here's where I say goodbye.
We had a good day. The live-blog was fun. Here's the website I've been talking about: www.coupcard.in.
And now back to our regular programming.
9.35 am: Cast of characters. Mansi (on the left) is the co-founder of Brown Paper Bag, here from Bombay for the launch of this thing. She's very small with a very big personality. Kakul is a recent hire here in Delhi, fresh from advertising, and she is very hipster, adding to my movie collection each week with indie films. Note: we all have Macbooks. I don't know what this says about us. 9.38 am: I've just finished my second mango of the season. We're tossing about things like 'One Coup Card to rule them all'. Not it for the role of a Hobbit. Or Gollum for that matter.
9.43 am: Picasa is proving problematic. It's still one of my favourite photo editors, specially for adding text to images, but the save-a-version doesn't automatically come up in your photo album. On the other hand, the nice thing about everyone having the same laptop is that it makes troubleshooting quite easy.
9.46 am: Mansi made these little promotional banners:
and
9.48 am: Text by Kanika Parab, the other founder, who is sitting in Bombay far away from all the fun. Her Twitter feed is great though, teeny tiny short stories.
9.53 am: Testing the landing page. Look how pretty!
9.56 am: We're in Mansi's cousin's room. It's full of photo collages and stuffed animals. I feel about 80 years old now.
10.03 am: Do you know how hard it is to read and write about food constantly when you haven't had breakfast yet? POOR OLD ME.
10.09 am: I've just been offered breakfast, thanks to that last update. Wow. Effective.
10.14 am: Kakul tells me sadly that she's from marketing, not advertising. "There's a WORLD of difference," she claims.
10.17 am: I had to Google 'how to calculate a discount'. I KNEW maths classes torturing me all through school were a complete mistake.
10.27 am: WHY IS NO ONE AWAKE YET? It's a THURSDAY.
10.30 am: So, one of the spaces we picked is this awesome underground bar (I know you know where I mean, and if you don't, well, the easiest solution is really to get on board with the card) (Not-so-subtle plug) and it's BEAUTIFUL, always smells like cinnamon and with a very cool way of getting in. But, they had a problem with being mentioned anywhere on the Coup Card literature because, well, they wanted to be a little bit secret still, despite all the reviews everywhere. That was tricky. We're just adding them as a "secret spot". (I'm pretty much there at least twice a month, and it would be more, except the red wine is all imported and so my bill turns out quite large, and ta-dah, here's another Plug.) (But if anything gets me to drive 15 km from Nizamuddin just for a drink, you know it's good.)
10.43 am: Another place we decided on was Carnatic Cafe. Have you been? They have pretty much the best dosas I've had in the city. Turns out the owner is an anthropologist, who did some work in villages before moving to Delhi. That doesn't have much to do with the dosas, but they play jazz music.
11.16 am: OH. MY. GOD we're almost ready to launch. This is thrilling. We're all on the edge of our chairs. If you want early bird access email coupATbpbweekendDOTcom
11.28 am: So excited I can't even eat my sandwich.
11.35 am: Another photo: This is my version.
And Kakul's version:
11.37 am: ANDDDDD... WE'RE LIVE. From our Twitter feed:
15% off Delhi’s 20 top restaurants. Rs 1,200 for 6 months. 4 family members on a one card. Use in Mumbai for free: http://www.coupcard.in .
11.44 am: If you've bought one, say hi!
12.22 pm: Hot debate on Twitter about our T&C regarding family members. You can add four people to a card, but to make sure you're not handing it out to pals, we decided to make the last name common. OBVS, this means some people, like my parents, will have to make a way around it, but ultimately, if you have any piece of paper proving you're related to these people (even a marriage license!) you can use the same card.
12.41 pm: The card is priced at Rs 1,200. You can use it on any size table. We're not letting you use it for your boyfriend/girlfriend, because we want to be able to afford it. Obviously anyone can exploit this with a common surname, but we're hoping you won't.
12.43 pm: TWENTY FIVE SALES!!
12.51 pm: GAH TECHNICAL THINGS. How I wish I could code a website.
1.09 pm: Holy jesus, how people are up in arms about last name thing. Scan a copy of your marriage license if you don't have the same last name, and we'll add your spouse. Scan a copy of your birth certificate and we'll add your parents. This is just the best way we could get around making it fool proof. And that's the last I'm saying on the subject.
1.17 pm: Goodness, one hundred sold already.
1.35 pm: DRA-HA-MA!! A competing Delhi website has launched their membership card today as well. We took a screen shot of the prices, you know, coz we're corporate espionage-y like that. (Click to see a bigger image.)
12.08 pm: We just ordered lunch from Asian Haus, which I l-o-v-e. (Also on the card.) My favourite things so far are the Hawker noodles and Cantonese chilli chicken, but the girls are vegetarian and so I try to quench my cravings with eggplant.
2.27 pm: Obviously so hungry that I made 2.08, 12.08, and then experienced a little moment of confusion where I looked at my post and thought, "Huh, they're taking a while."
3.34 pm: Post-lunch lull. We're all tired and sleepy but still super wired.
4.32 pm: Phone call! Heard from someone wanting to buy it. It reminds me of when I used to volunteer with this board exam middle-of-the-night helpline, telling students not to stress, except, um, not suicidal. And more exciting questions. Still, it's nice when your phone rings with a strange number and it's not Airtel.
4.58 pm: If you bring me coffee, I will love you forever. Promise.
4.59 pm: Places that serve awesome coffee on the card: Elma's & Cafe Turtle. I have most of my meetings and Sunday evening dessert cravings met at the Cafe Turtle in Nizamuddin East. AND Full Circle is giving us 10 per cent off books, which means you might not have to wait a day for Flipkart to deliver.
and
6.01 pm from Twitter: My live blog ends here, on twitter, with a hailstorm & black coffee. Can't get on blogger with my phone so here's where I say goodbye.
We had a good day. The live-blog was fun. Here's the website I've been talking about: www.coupcard.in.
And now back to our regular programming.
Something Other Than Writing
You know I rarely talk about my Real Job on here, it was a policy I started ages ago, back when I was with The Tabloid, and carried over with Indian Express, who objected to employees mentioning work stuff online, and then, I guess it became a habit. But, I'm going to blur the lines here a little bit, and actually bring up what I've been completely consumed with this last month: the bpb loyalty card, called the Coup Card, you buy it, you get 15 per cent off at Delhi's nicest places. (And I don't mean generic nice, I mean I've-actually-eaten-at-them-and-love-them nice.)
There I was all "Lalalalala, how hard can this be?" and there was the Universe, determined to prove exactly how hard it could be.
The Universe is quite a chutiya sometimes.
Most restaurants listened to our whole entire spiel and were So. Excited. To. Be.On. Board. But...
- "We can give you free bread instead of a discount."
- "Yeah, maybe not this financial year."
I mean, honestly. Who wants free bread, except starving Parisiennes in the 1700s? A polite refusal would've been okay, it's just that a couple of people were really rude, switching me from holier-than-thou journalist/writer to shown-the-door encyclopedia salesman quite fast. (Let's just say there's a particular French restaurant in GK 2 that's not getting my business ever again.) I guess I've been sort of spoiled by my profession of choice, I've never had to ask for anything except quotes, and while people were rude refusing interviews, I still had the whole I'm Better Than You bit on my side. (Yes, yes, a hack is a hack is a hack, but I was a noble hack. Like Clark Kent.)
Here's what we did:
* Made a list of all the restaurants we loved
* Went through Facebook to see if we had common friends with any of the restaurant owners. If we did, we called the common friend to ask for the number, called the owner and set up an appointment. If we didn't, we called the restaurant and then through some persuasive powers ("I'm with the press, I'm calling about a media query.") we got the owner's number. This was easier than I anticipated, maybe restaurants are less picky about passing out phone numbers.
* Met about four or five restaurant owners a day, going through the same thing. By point five, we could see them begin to give in and actually think about letting us have our way with them.
Ever since I've had a career, in fact, even before, when I was deciding which career, it was always about the writing. Writing is my skillset. That's pretty much all I bring to the table. But it's always nice to discover new skills--has this ever happened to you?--specially when you feel like your personality is all set and your career is moulded and so on and so forth. Turns out I have an appetite for strategising. Maybe in another universe, a road not taken, I'm running a huge company, wearing suits every day and glued to my phone. (Well, still glued to my phone in this one, so there's that.)
Right now, we're sitting around my living room, with a haze of cigarette smoke, and a table littered with coffee mugs and Nina Simone singing in the background, and all of us typing at the same time. It's very Newsroom and exciting, and tomorrow I'm going to live-blog our whole day, so if you're curious about how this whole thing is going down, you should come watch.
