Bhoof.

(Note: This post is dedicated to Poombashri, since she invented the word that is the title of this post. And also because this one word, to my mind, correctly sums up what I feel when I want to say 'Effing ___' but can't be arsed to.)

So anyway. There is nothing that takes the piss out of me faster than having no story to file on a Sunday. God knows there's nothing to file on a Sunday as it is, but this is crazy.

Also another thing to take the piss out of me is when I've been working/ goofing off/ sleeping with mouth open/ doing nothing internet-related and when I come back to check my Gmail, it very snootily tells me, 'You have been out of Gmail. You must log back in to enable services.' I swear if this was my kid hankering for constant attention and making me go out of the house and come back with a bucketful of candy just to get him talking to me again, I would hang him from the ceiling by his thumbs and whack his tush with a thin stick.

As it is, I punish Gmail by signing out entirely and logging onto Yahoo! with a :p directed at my fast-disappearing Gmail window. That generally fixes it.

Suffice it to say that Sunday takes the piss out of me. Why? Because nothing to do and no one to talk to in office have reduced me to playing Solitaire till my mouse finger hurts and I start being rude to my Gmail.

And also because there is no water in the loo because there's no one to start the motor. So it's actually great that there are other means to get the piss out of me, hyuk hyuk.

Wonderful world we live in...

It is probably a reflection of our culture that:
- Shahrukh Khan's six-pack is more famous this year than his role in Chak De! India.
- Chak De! India became a hit purely through relentless marketing and parading the girls all over the country for all sorts of events.
- News desks in many major newspapers are filled to overflowing with freshers who have no experience of reporting or editing or indeed, journalism.
- People take professional advice on switching jobs or careers from me. Why is that so strange? Because I am only two years old in the profession.
- One error of judgement, one politically incorrect move with your deskie, and your copies are screwed for no apparent reason.
- People fear committing mistakes more for the impending memos instead of the fact that making mistakes in a newspaper is just plain stupid.
- The words of such characters as Bal Thackeray, Dr Vijay Mallya, the Ambanis and even the Shobhaa Des is the truth.
- Editors either love looking foolish or are so used to it that they've accepted it internally, that they are, well...foolish most of the time.
- You enjoy a sudden break more than the weekly off.
- You look for more sudden breaks in the week.
- The higher-ups, in any organisation, can generally be trusted to scamp work and leave all the important work to you.
- They can also be trusted to suddenly reappear when the praise is being doled out. And then you realise you were not praised at all, the higher-up was.
- Most people in this industry don't have just an Achilles' Heel, they have his entire body. Which is why most people survive purely on the basis of emotional blackmail.
- Working in newspapers makes you sick of newspapers at the end of the day. Ditto for channels, I suppose.
- Every journalist looks for a second career in writing. At least there you have the right to breathe down the editor's neck when you want to without feeling guilty.
- The most knowledge is to be found not from Google or Wikipedia or even your colleagues, but senior journalists who have been around since the time they would typewrite their copies or go on junkets with portable fax machines.
- You can be a competent court reporter by being glued to your press reporter's chair from 11.00 am to 5.00 pm everyday.
- You can also be a reasonably good political, defense, crime and environment correspondent without moving out of your office.
- About 98 per cent reporters crowd press conferences for the food and oh yes, the drink.
- Most people would come up and speak to me when I was still with Mid Day. Now most of them turn up their noses and wait for me to acknowledge them since I come from some LS paper based in Pune. So much for individual reputation.
- A nobody like me gets to cover the Legislative proceedings while others more deserving have to wait their turn 10 years or more. MB is a case in point.
- Your rise to the top is judged not by the work you did through the years but by how much ass you licked. It's almost a KRA requirement.

What fun comes!

August and September have been good months as far as display, Page 1 coverage and overall news reporting went. Was a very profitable time, if it comes to that.

Today I sent a story on a Mumbai-based bicycle designer who can make a cycle for you based on whatever you want. If you want a double seat, you'll get it. If you want a lazy riding experience that doesn't tax you, you'll get that as well. Or if you're one of those freaks who actually use their cycles more for working out than fun, you'll get that, too.

I was charmed by the high potential this venture has for physically challenged persons. And the fact that Zubair Lodi (25), the owner and designer, actually believes that a vehicle for the physically challenged must make a fashion statement. "Everybody wants a happening end product," he told me this morning. "Why not have a cycle that is trendy, eye-catching and works best only for you?"

Why not indeed? Now if we only had office colleagues and relatives made-to-order.
---------------------------------

That's Zubair in the pic, astride one of his designs. The 25-year-old former car designer speaks of cycles the way a film director would speak of his leading lady - he is charmed and seduced, and fully confident in its ability. "Cycles are the only 'green vehicle' for our cities," he says. Probably one factor that would leave customers reluctant to invest in these cycles, though, is the cost. The bike may cost Rs 7,000 or more. But who said custom-made stuff was cheap? Besides, Zubair uses MS tubes and PUC pipes in the design, and the customer has full control over the weight, colour and accessories of the end product. Good idea? You bet. Zubair says he is looking to target the physically challenged sector big time.
So while the rest of us are choking our city in swanky cars, here's somebody who's thinking Green, and so what if he's doing it as a business?

Runaway...

And once again Jaan has lived up to his reputation of speaking to kids of all ages and sizes. But this time, he helped save an innocent boy from what would probably have thrown him into a murky future.

I must confess that ordinarily, I find the hubby's penchant for speaking to street urchins and giving them food and water (but mercifully, not shelter, yet) and sometimes unasked-for advice really irritating. Like most people, I like to think I'm practical, not petty. So when he called me and said he was with a kid from Pune, who had run away and was the son of a bigshot, I thought, "Here we go again..."

Meeting the boy and trying to extract one truthful answer out of it of him was not on the list of 'How I spend my Saturday evenings'. The child lied about everything - his address, what made him decamp from home, his father's phone number, his residential phone number, that he had a brother who was coming to Mumbai on a trip, everything. Mercifully he didn't lie about his father and the area he lived in. If not for the correct numbers supplied later on, goodness knows what the future of the child would be.

Finally, the parents arrived in the wee hours this morning. Hubby gave a statement to the police and everything. Bless his heart, he's still thinking about the boy and how to help him. I was so proud that he had the goodness of nature to help out and save one runaway from the horrors of this splendid city. And I am prouder still because he sincerely believes that he only did his duty as a citizen.

Though I cannot promise that I will not be irritated by Jaan's overenthusiasm in helping misguided little kids in seeing the light, at least this incident might take the edge off my irritation. Here's wishing all the best to Ms Practical.

Urban Development boo hoo hooo!

You have no idea how embarrassing it is to sit there anticipating, nay simply waiting, for your name to be called out for the grand prize and then when the prizes are called out, not only did you not win but you were so unceremoniously ignored that all you could do was scuttle out of there.

Jaan and I attended the first day of an urban development expo at Goregaon, and the organisers decided to liven things up by having awards given out for 'best examples of innovation and excellence in implement of projects related to urban infrastructure'. The awards are meant to reward the efforts of city governments and agencies.

So obviously Mumbai has to be a clear winner, right? Quite apart from all that tosh about being the financial capital of the country, we're just the BEST there is. They would have done better to just give us all three awards and be done with it.

Then they called out the three winners - Suryapet, Rampur and Indore.

Like Bridget Jones says, "Oh my bloody god and fuck."

Jaan and I paused for a split second, then collapsed into silent, sheepish giggles. Dunno about him, but I seriously thought we would win at least half a prize. And apparently our Municipal Commissioner and two of his sidekicks (read: additional municipal commissioners) also felt the same thing, because a moment after the assembly broke up, all three had scuttled out. Probably to look for three chullus.

So anyway. Point of the matter is, do not take for granted your own greatness, or the lack of it. Do not expect accolades to just walk into your lap without having earned them first. We have to learn that sincere effort reaps rewards. If we want to be rewarded, we must work hard and tenaciously and with good planning.

In other words, next year we're going to bribe our way into winning.

Reading a match

Never thought I would ever watch a cricket match, or indeed any sporting activity, in text form.

Today, as India and Pakistan took turns to alternatively clobber each other and then play badly, we didn't have the match running in office. Some technical glitch and non-payment of dues resulted in all our pay channels being unceremoniously cut off at the mains. Hope still hung about though as we thought DD Sports or DD National would telecast the match. But DD turned traitor as well.

Everybody took it to heart. The bosses, the minions, the chai-wallah, everybody. So much so that MB thundered, "Pawar kaka ke office mein cricket match nahin dekh sakte? This is a crime punishable under IPC."

Then Dixit sir came across cricbuzz.com which very ingeniously gives text updates in real time. So we 'watched' the match thus, to cite an example: Gambhir takes on Gul, and it's a FOUR! Gambhir slices away with a very clever gap between ______ and ______. That should take the pressure off India a bit."

Dixit sir, MB, Umakant sir, Ajay and I actually imagined our way through the match. Since we couldn't see the visuals, we actually mapped out the field mentally, and helped on by cricbuzz' instructions, knew roughly how people played and why. Besides, the shouts from the neighbouring building signalled a wicket a split second before our virtual scoreboard flashed the same thing. And of course, the groans confirmed that the Indians were sometimes being silly or that the Pakistanis were playing really well.

Funnily enough, watching the fall of all the Pak wickets one after another on Aaj Tak later made me curiously disoriented. After having watched the match in a different medium with silence (save for the click of the mouse or our own ceaseless chatter), the sudden presence of visuals and commentary does tend to jar on the nerves.

Sunday sucks so she won't work

It's just not the same, is it, with a head cold and an aching throat, and sitting in office alone on a Sunday? Nothing's changed in office or even at home, but even the slightest difference in how I kept my papers yesterday and how I find them today is something I take as a personal insult.

Like all other Sundays, this one is also one of those slow, lazy kinds. Maybe three Sundays ago I worked my ass off on the Hyderabad package, but it's too morbid to hope for terror strikes to happen just so that you could keep yourself occupied on a Sunday. There's nothing on the ticker, nothing on other websites, nothing on my mind. One story down and the craving for tea continues, though, with my nose blocked I don't know if it's tea or coffee or something else I'm drinking.

Bleeaarrrghh. Nobody should work on a Sunday, especially us poor souls in the media. It's a holiday everywhere, for Chrissakes', what is the most that can happen in the city? I can confidently say that nothing of note has happened anywhere so far - probably some minister has given off a fart in his sleep or a pavement dweller has his head bashed in with a slab collapse. Either way, nothing worth reporting, unless of course there is a Pune angle to things. Like, you know, the dead pavement dweller was the second cousin of a Pune resident. Or the farting minister actually farted in a "Poo--nay..." refrain.

Sheesh, see what I mean? Working on Sundays is not good for my mental health. Bleeaarrrghhh.

Something's going on

And as always, it involves me.

As each day passes in this profession, when we're counting off the days we've spent working for one organisation and the minutes we spend actually working, when we're dragging ourselves out of bed despite the body rebelling against any movement and when we're so pumped up about a story that we just can't sit still, when we're picking ourselves up after seeing a well-written story being ass-fucked or not being used at all till the time that we're quietly taking in the praise for a job well done...we're forgetting one basic fact:

You're never going to grow up if you're never going to learn.

See, it's easy being a reporter. At least, easier than it was, say 10 years ago, when you didn't have the Internet doing all your researching for you. Easier than the time when there were no mobile phones and no two ways of sending an urgent copy. It's easy because now everyone's looking for newsspace. And because packaging is a bigger factor than content.

But it's tough being a reporter. Tougher now, because of so much mediocrity around you, you actually have to slap yourself hard if you get congratulated for a story, which in hindsight, wasn't such a big deal after all. Tougher also because the guys up there are older and jumpier, so they sit on you that much faster if you strut your stuff around much. And tough, oh yeah, because though we have everything - Convergence, big news reporting teams, satellite technology - some important factors have become extinct. You know, the usual...imagination, enterprise, hard work, knowledge.

Yeah, we're making a lot of money, much more than we used to. But we're making very little headway elsewhere.

The one that got away...

...was the one that should have been used a day after the Hyderabad blasts happened. Is not the greatest stories of all time, but still.

August 26, 2007

H/l: Easiest thing to make high intensity bombs
Intro: Metal scraps, ball bearings, nails, even discarded strips form the shrapnel outside a deadly chemical core. And the bomb is ready
Byline: Vrushali Lad

Mumbai: The explosives used in the twin blasts in Hyderabad city on Saturday evening were part of the ‘newly fashionable’ high explosives meant to cause maximum damage and loss of life, said retired army explosives expert Colonel M P Choudhary yesterday.

Speaking to The Herald, Col Choudhary said, “It is the terrorists’ intention to wreck maximum havoc in a public place using easy-to-procure substances. At Hyderabad too, the bombs were made using a combination of steel balls used in cycle tyres with a chemical core of an ammonium nitrate derivative.”

He also said that state police in such places as Hyderabad, Mumbai and other metros in the country, barring Delhi, were sadly lacking in any pre-emptive measures to nip such terrorist acts in the bud before they are carried out. “The Hyderabad blasts are just one in a series of intelligence failures in recent times,” he alleged.

Reiterating that the high-intensity bombs, which come under the Neogel-90 or Slurry category, are generally used in mining explosions and are industrial explosives, Col Choudhary said, “These explosives have a huge destructive capability, more than bombs using gelatin sticks but lesser than that of RDX.” The Neogel-90 bombs are also high-speed bombs, he said, with speeds of six to 10 kms per second.

“These bombs have a destructive value more so because of the shrapnel used in them, besides the blast wave they give off on exploding. Anything or anyone in the path of the shrapnel would immediately be cut into pieces,” he said.

Interestingly, he explained, it is easy and cheap to assemble such high-intensity explosives at home as well. “There is a lacuna in monitoring the amounts of industrial explosives manufactured and sold, as against the licences and permissions that factories have from the central government,” he remarked.

However, the easiest bombs to assemble are those containing urea. “These are very deadly bombs, and quite easy to put together considering that urea can be purchased in quantities of tonnes at a time,” he said.

So just how easy it is for terrorists to get their hands on industrial explosives? Very easy, says Col Choudhary. “For example, if a manufacturer has the license for producing 1,000 kg of explosive, he might manufacture 1,500 kg and sell off the balance to terrorists. Or he can declare that he purchased 1,000 kg and that he used all of it. Then he can get off by selling some amount,” he explained.

He also mentioned that such places that are fast developing or are major contributors to the national economy are prime targets for terrorist attacks. “The idea behind attacking Hyderabad would be to deter foreign investment,” he said.

Box:
Know your bomb
- A bomb derives its name from its container. Hence, a bomb placed in a car would be a car bomb, and so on
- A bomb has a core of nitrate/ gelatin/ glycerine
- The core determines the force and speed of explosion
- The shrapnel comprises metal pieces, nails, ball bearings, or other scrap
- The bomb is triggered using a switch. Cell phones reportedly triggered the Hyderabad bombs
- The heat component at the blast site can reach up to 4,500 degree Celsius

This is how we package it...the Salman Khan story

H/l: Five years for Poacher Salman
Intro: Salman gets 5 years RI after Jodhpur court rejects appeal
OUR CORRESPONDENT

From: Vrushali Lad

Mumbai: Bollywood’s proverbial bad boy Salman Khan is in deep trouble again, after a Jodhpur trial court rejected his appeal against a five-year imprisonment in connection with the chinkara poaching case of 1998.

However, the bad boy in question was nowhere to be found yesterday, though industry sources confirmed that Khan had arrived in Mumbai in the early morning hours. He remained untraceable till about 4.00 p.m., prompting speculation that he had decamped to avoid arrest, when news of his being at home but unreachable started trickling in.

Khan’s lawyer Dipesh Mehta gave a televised statement that, “Salman is not absconding, he is at home. We are considered the terms of the revision application that we will file tomorrow, and the reason he did not remain present in court yesterday was that he was not directed by the court to do so.”

The actor had been convicted and sentenced to a year's imprisonment on April 10 last year by chief judicial magistrate B K Jain, who had also slapped a Rs 25,000 fine on him.

Interestingly, if Khan had been present in court yesterday as Judge Singhvi read out the order rejecting the appeal, he would have been arrested and sent to jail immediately. The court would be closed today and tomorrow owing to weekly off, following which Khan would next appeal against the sentence on Monday. However, the court will be closed on Tuesday on account of Raksha Bandhan. This means that if Khan had been arrested yesterday, he would have faced a minimum of five days in jail before being granted bail. As it is, Khan only bought a day's freedom more by remaining untraceable yesterday.

Yesterday, the Jodhpur District and Sessions judge Kamalraj Singhvi issued a non-bailable warrant against the star, who had reportedly returned to Mumbai on Thursday night after a 10-day shooting schedule in Hyderabad.

The infamous chinkara-shooting incident – in which Khan had gunned down three chinkaras over two days while shooting was on for the Barjatya film 'Hum Saath Saath Hain' – had initially landed the actor in Jodhpur Central Jail on April 10 last year for three days before being released on bail.

After the sentence was upheld yesterday, police teams from Rajasthan were deployed to bring Khan from Mumbai. Meanwhile, the actor’s legal team said it would file a revision petition in the Rajasthan High Court, as well apply for suspending the sentence and hearing his case on a priority basis.

Box #1:
Hunting in Jodhpur:
From 1992 onwards, Jodhpur courts have registered 72 cases of animal hunting, of which only three have resulted in convictions. Of these, Khan accounts for two – he allegedly used his .32 bore revolver to kill three chinkaras and a .22 bore rifle to shoot two black bucks, all in 1998.

The other conviction to date, that of Bheel Singh from Oshiya village, had been sentenced to three years RI in 2000 for killing a black buck and also gunning down a villager who tried to save the deer. Singh was also awarded a lifer for the murder he committed, but is out on bail. Hence, Khan’s five-year sentence came as a something of a surprise when it was announced on April 10 last year.

Box #2:
Salman worth 100 crores in 2007
As in the case of the other Bollywood Bad Boy Sanjay Dutt, actor Salman Khan also has a lot of money, about Rs 100 crores, riding on his shoulders. Three important projects featuring Khan are under production – 'Saawariya', 'London Dreams' and 'God Tussi Great Ho' – all of which will release at the end of this year.

His recent releases, barring the Govinda starrer ‘Partner’, have not been hits. 'Baabul' (with Rani Mukherji), 'Salaam-e-Ishq' (a multi-starrer) and 'Marigold' (with Ali Larter and Khan’s first international project) were all big banner films that fared badly after a good initial opening.

Box #3:
The others got off
Interestingly, while Salman was given a one-year imprisonment term for shooting two black bucks on September 28, 1998, the others who accompanied him on the hunt were let off on grounds of insufficient evidence.

These included Khan’s co-stars on the then under-production 'Hum Saath Saath Hain', the Sooraj Barjatya multi-starrer that later tanked at the box office. Those on the hunt with Khan were Saif Ali Khan, Tabu, Neelam, Sonali Bendre and Satish Shah. Interestingly, actor Karisma Kapoor who was one of the lead actresses had reportedly declined going on the hunt since she was not on good terms with the other women.

Of these actors, Shah’s role was more prominent than the others, since he was actively involved in arranging for two jeeps and firearms for the shoot. Apart from the jeep carrying the actors, another jeep had been used to carry locals Kuldeep Singh, Mohd Hussain, Yashpal Singh, Mahendra Pal Singh, Dushyant Singh and M S Bhati. All of them were later acquitted for want of evidence.

GENERAL RATING:
From immediate boss: Good copy
From those who matter: Well done
From me: Can be better, but hee!