Jeevan without Religion
The lesson is set in a school room where two parents and their kid meet the Principal for school admission. The Principal fills in the forms,
Principal: “What is your name?”
“Jeevan”
Principal: “Nice…father’s name?”
“Anwar Rasheed”
Principal: Mother’s name?”
“Lakshmi Devi”The Principal looks at the parents
Principal: “What should I fill in for the kid’s religion?”
Parents : “Keep it blank…or else add No Religion”Principal: “Caste”
Parents : “not needed”The Principal leans back on his chair and asks solemnly
Principal: “What if he wants a religion when he grows up?”
Parents : “If he wants a religion when he grows up, he can choose the one he likes then”End of Lesson
- Excerpt from class 7 Social Studies textbook from a school in Kerala.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Courtesy tvmtalkies.. and my wandering mind :P
My first assignment for the Writers Bureau is on its way to Manchester
And this is what I wrote
Will my saying I love to write suffice? That is the precisely the reason why I took up writing as a career. But in a more elaborate way, I want to write because it gives me a chance to experiment with words. It gives me opportunities to look at a single situation and think of it from several perspectives and express them differently.
The vividness of words, the colourful vocabulary and the pictures I can conjure up through my writing inspire me to write more.
I began with writing a blog. Four years back when I began writing it, it was because I wanted to utilise my creativity somewhere and I could think of nowhere else but on paper. It let me be imaginative. It let me be creative. It was to me what a canvas is to a painter. I could splash words on it whichever way I pleased. And every time a new piece came into being which was different that the one before. The newness is one thing about writing which has always made me come back to it. The fact that there is always something to write, something to describe is what keeps me going.
Through this course I aim to be flawless at writing. I take my career as a writer quite seriously and I want to have a full overview of each genre of writing, explore each at my own pace and then decide which suits my abilities the most. I am sure this course is designed to help me achieve these goals.
My immediate goal is to be a travel writer. Owing to my sheer fascination for travelling, food, meeting new people backed by a strong purpose to write I wish to be a travel writer. As for my long-term ambitions, I want to run my own business where writing is central to business. It can be anything; a content management firm, a copywriting firm or an institute that trains writers.
Saturday, February 06, 2010
A weekend treat
Modern Bathroom Designs from Rexa, Futuristic Pod House Concept, The 2010 Living Room Collection From Huelsta, Cold War Era Aircraft Converted into Luxury Hotel, Baby Room Decor Ideas from Paidi, Recycled Home Decor, Stainless Steel Kitchen Designs, A Chic House In London and White House Interiors.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
A Thank You note
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Being independent... part 5
Being Independent... Part 4
Next day the black lady called up fuming. She was receiving calls from people who wanted their parcels picked up from their doorsteps for just a pound! She fought with A. A was furious.
A - You handle this female whichever way you want.
The lady called up again. I spoke to her, apologized. She asked for a waiver of 100 pounds on the next ad. I consulted A. She walked straight to P's cabin. I could see my hopes sinking down. She came out of the cabin and asked me to go inside.
P - We kept you here thinking you could bring us business. And you are getting A into trouble.
Me - I have invested most of my time procuring payments from her clients. You can check with Akash bhai, I have got more then 3000 pounds back in about three weeks.
P - You were not hired for this. You had to bring business. You have not done your job. I am sorry, we can't keep you. You may leave. You'll be paid 100 pounds as promised.
I was angry, my mouth had gone dry and I dint give a damn.
Me - You promised a hundred and fifty.
P - Whatever it is. Akash will give you the check. You can take your stuff and go now. Thank you.
Me - Thank you.
I bid goodbye to everyone. Left the place. I cried again. I felt helpless. Sitting on a bench, outside Stratford station, in the rush hour, I called dad.
Dad - Nidha, bitia.. this is the advertising world. Aisa hota hai. You cannot afford mistakes in such a competitive place. You were unlucky to be under that female. And you did make a few mistakes. You are still very naive for being here. But its alright. Cheer up. Take this as a lesson and move forward. Try finding another job soon. And remember this is not the end of the world. We are always there for you. I spoke to ma after that. She cried. I managed to calm her down.
I went home, told S everything. He cheered me up and we went on our usual long walks after dinner. I was jobless now. I stayed home for the next few days. Only during these time I realised I was living with a bunch of males. Some really ridiculous, brainless gits. There was one who fought with me every morning for going to the loo. There was one that hated to see me make my chai every morning. There was another who smelled so horrible, even the pigs would faint and the rest were non-existent. Poor S texted me during his work hours and called me a few times in his break times. He started coming early because he knew I would get bored.
I spent my days working on my assignments. In the day time when all the boys went to work I sat downstairs in the TV room. On one such day, my landlord came home. He told me he'd got someone to repair the phone wires. The other guy stayed outside the house while we both chatted.
L - You dont work?
Me - Not right now. I am busy working on some assignments.
L - Dont you get bored being alone here.
Me - Not really. There is so much to do.
L - Vaise you must be having a boyfriend. You're so beautiful.
Me - Ugh uh.. He he..
I had no idea how it happened, but in a flip second he came really close to me and ran his fingers through my cheek. My reflexes were slow. Still I somehow managed to push him back. I shouted at him and asked him to leave. He laughed it off and said 'Why you getting so angry. I'm leaving.' I was trembling with rage. I felt stupid, miserable, horrible and lost. I decided there and then that I'd leave. I couldn't stay there any longer.
I moved into a new place with friends I knew from Ahmedabad. R, A and P. They were my age, all working. They went to work in the day time while I stayed back home, studied, completed my assignments and surfed the internet. In the evenings I spent time with them watching movies or simply chit chatting. I was enjoying myself there. I felt much better than I had in the last few months.
But my stay here was fated not to last long. The owner of the house wanted me out of the house for reasons I couldn't comprehend. He tried playing dirty politics with me and once again I couldn't tolerate shit. I confronted him and he denied everything he had said. It was me against the rest staying in that house. It was horrible. I locked myself inside the little room until I found myself another house. The house owner had given me 15 days notice to move out. I shifted within a week.
August 2008 - Sep 2008
The new place belonged to a patel family. A young girl, his husband who was a decade older to her and a foot shorter than her and their 14 month old kid. On the first morning, I was annoyed to see the female come inside my room and watch tv at 8 in the morning!! I wanted to tell her to go away but going by my previous days events, I wanted to take it slow. As time passed I noticed that this lady made nothing but dal dhokli, alu ki sabzi, khichdi and theplas. I helped her knead the dough even when I was not supposed to do it. She did not let me wash my clothes whenever I would wish. She would say the electricity bill soars if the machine is used too often. There were days when she dint make food. I would sleep hungry or just have biscuits and water.
This is where I got myself a job in Macdonalds. It had mostly Bangladeshis, Pakistanis and Indians. Macdonalds was a great learning place. I worked for more than ten hours everyday. The pay was good and the money came in every fortnight. The people here had become friends. I remember one guy especially, Junaid. A very hard working, sincere looking boy. We spent alot of time on the till and were together during the closing hours. We talked about our lives back in our countries. It was great hanging out with him. The people in our shifts had even started doubting whether something was going on between us. I couldn't care less. I needed good company and he was a great one.
Because I spent more time at work and less time at home, I did not have to put up with my landlord. But she was a smart woman. She saw I worked long hours. And long hours meant more money. So one fine day when I came home she said she'd raise my rent.
Me - And why is that?
L - Because the electricity bill has doubled and we cant afford it.
Me - Then dont watch so much tv.
L - He he very funny. But if you are staying here you are paying me ten pounds more every week.
Me - And what for? For a bed and internet connection huh? More than half of my room is covered with your junk. When we finalised the deal, I was supposed to be living in the big room which now you have shifted in. You promised me food which you dont cook so many times and even if you do it is nothing different than khichdi. I do not pay you money for a bed, internet connection and khichdi.
L - The go find someother place!
Me - Yeah, why dont you find me one. Do whatever, I am not emptying this place.
I stormed out of the kitchen and banged my door shut. A few minutes later I went inside the kitchen to put my clothes to wash. After I had left I heard some clicks inside the kitchen again. I knew it was her. I went to check again. Yeah.. the bitch had thrown my clothes out and had put hers in. I was about to throw hers out and put my in when she barged in.
L - Don't you dare..
I threw her stuff out on the floor and looked at her sarcastically.
Me - I just did.
She called her husband for help. The loser did not have the required balls. He had expressions of someone who was stuck with the dame and had no option out. I pitied him but still continued screaming at his wife. By this time I was sitting at the fridge door, opening it to get some food. I was shouting back at her, opening the door and putting my hand inside the fridge to get my yoghurt out. I had been groping for it but because my hand dint land on it I turned a little to locate it.
In that split second something else happened which was more shocking than the ex-ex-landlord episode. The bitch slapped me. Her big stubby fingers hit hard on my right cheek and right side of the neck. Her nails gnaw under my lip, on my cheek and even a bit on the neck. I was bleeding. I was shocked but in my senses. I got up and hit her back. She was a hefty female. We were pawing at each other. Her husband came in then and pulled us apart. I ran to my room and called my dad up and on his suggestion, I called my aunt. Aunt was on her way to pick me up. I emptied the cupboards, packed my laptop, my vessels and my laundry clothes and put all of it my suitcase.
Meanwhile I waited, I called up the cops. I told them what happened. They said they would be there but it would take time. Aunt arrived and we left. The husband helped us get the luggage down. He apologized for his wife's behavior. I was too angry to forgive anyone then.
My life had come a full circle. I came back to where I had first left.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Being Independent... Part 3
The next day I reached office at ten minutes to 9. P started the day with an orientation session. He took me around and introduced me to members of his staff. A small team of middle-aged to considerably old uncles and aunties formed his core team. There were 3 reporters, 2 graphic designers, 4 advertising executives, all of whom had been there for more than two years. The oldest ones were there for as long as 19 years! They had been with P since the inception of AV. The woman under who I was going to train was A, the youngest of all and P’s favourite employee.
When I came face to face with her I was a little shocked. Had I met her anywhere else, I wouldn’t have bothered looking at her. She was such an ordinary looking female with nothing particular that could interest anyone. She said hello to me and my head suffered from internal conflicts. How could this dame be P’s favourite employee? Some old romance.. I thought. But seriously, I got an improper vibe from her. I would have been happier had I worked with the south Indian chap who was smarter and pleasant to speak with. This woman.. boy.. I knew I was gonna have some major issues with her.. I just knew it!
P left me with her and she explained to me what was I supposed to do. I was basically going to call people for payment. In my hand was a list of more than 100 companies/shops/stores who had advertised with us but had not not paid up for a number of reasons.
S was right about A. He had warned me about her. She trapped people, made them sign on for full page/half page ads for 3/6/12 months, got first half of the payment. And when the clients did not get the required response, they stopped paying, she dint bother and the rest of the payment never came in. Like this, she had a long list of dissatisfied clientèle. She brought in the highest revenue for P every month, but only on papers. Thousands of pounds were still stuck but just because she had a clout, she was a sweet talker and had a brilliant network, P was only too eager not to let her go.
Anyway, as soon as I received the list, I knew S was right again. This woman was in deep shit but had somehow managed to keep her head from sinking inside it!
A – You will call them up and see to it that they send the payment across.
Me – Alright.
A – You will pick up calls for me. If I am not around dont ever pass the phone to anybody else. This is our clients understand. I will give a few subscriptions to you and a few smaller ads which you can show to P as your leads at the ends of three weeks.
Me – Ok.. thanks. That’s nice of you.
A – We are having a sales meet after lunch downstairs. You have to be there.
Me – Oh sure. I will be. Where exactly downstairs?
A – Just as you enter the office, you’ll see a set of stairs going down. Just climb down, that’s where we have our lunches. You know lunch is provided here don’t you?
Me – Umm.. no. I got mine today.
A – Dont get it from tomorrow. P’s wife cooks for everyone. But still.. come down and have your lunch with us.
Me – Sure, I’ll do that.
The lunch went alright. I did not eat much because I was thinking about my first sales meet. I don’t know why but I was nervous. I was not elated being part of AV. It was need that had led me to pursue this job. Until this time, I did not know what I loved doing the most, but I definitely knew advertising was not it.
At the sales meet P ran through the his revenue summary. A like always had generated the maximum. She seemed happy, the rest, maybe I imagined, dint care much. Everyone briefed P about their work. The meeting lasted for about half an hour. As we all began to disperse, P asked me to wait.
P – I want you to come up with a plan. A plan about how you can take AV forward. We are doing really well as a gujarati newspaper, but we need to come up with better English supplements. Your task would be to prepare a draft about the same.
Me – Sure, I shall do that.
P – I want you to do that by tomorrow.
Me – Sure. That will be done.
I had no idea what I was gonna come up with. I took away a few supplements for references. Spoke to S about it and somehow managed to come up with a list of ideas. P saw them, liked a few, frowned looking at some and discarded the few as he thought they were repetitive. I couldn’t say whether he was pleased or not. I was asked to leave the list with him. I did so and resumed work.
Cold calling is a waste of time. So is calling people on other people’s behalf for payment which they never bothered collecting because they were busy trapping other people who might/might not pay! But A dint come across as someone who really cared. She knew as long as the figures on paper kept rising, she was shining.
Her list was so long, I spent the rest of the week just calling people who asked me to call later in the evening or the day after or after two. Some even said they had made the payments. I noted every bit of it in a diary. I was more A’s secretary, coming every morning to the office, going through the list of people to call up, follow on, make another one for the next day and so forth and so on.
In between making calls, the only interesting thing I did was make advertisements. Yeah my first advert for this art/painting agency who wanted to sell their stuff online. I prepared a write-up for them, a nice little 100 words thingi which I even got appreciation for. It was published in the AV English edition and that was a moment of pride. Taking a detour here.. it was also my first time using an apple desktop.. I dint like it then though :P
Anyway, I was stupid! I had not gone there to write editorials nor was I there to make cold calls or follow on with A’s clients. MY FUCKIN’ JOB WAS TO HAVE MY OWN CLIENTELE, GET MY OWN LEADS AND GENERATE REVENUE..
Now this will sound like I’m blaming. Yes I am but my reasons are not unreasonable. I was new, I knew nothing about what was supposed to be done. I was training under her. She was supposed to tell me how to make new clients, get new leads, where to look, who to talk to, etc etc. She did none of that!!! Instead she had me wasting my time over her dead, gone, disappeared clients. I traveled two hours away from my normal office route to collect 70 pounds from some Indian mithai shop and when I returned P asked me – Did you get any subscriptions from there? I thought to myself – Was I supposed to? Haa well.. no appreciation..nevermind! I got on with more of the slack calling.
One day a black female called up A. She wanted to know if we would put her 'a kg for a pound 'worldwide freight ad in our gujarati newspaper. A gave me the paper she had written the matter on. I took it to the guy who translated it in gujarati. The black lady called up again to make changes in her adverts. This time she wanted us to say 'a pound per kg in Greenwich only. No pick ups from home.' The office was about to close, the paper had to be finalised. Everyone wanted to get his/her ad through. I pestered the graphic designer too much everyday because I ran to him every now and then for minor changes.
This time too, I was in line, hurrying to get the changes done. I got the first part of the ad right. I forgot to get the last line in and the ad went into print...