Barkha Dutt

This post is a dedication to "Barkha Dutt" or more precisely to the digust she generates from her TV reporting.I can't exactly put a finger on why I tend to shift channels, the moment she appears - but, perhaps the reasons could be - 1. her tone - its always shades higher than what the situation warrants 2. The volume - again refer (1) 3.Her abrasive questioning - it makes me cringe.

During the Coverage of Mumbai Terror she seemed to have completely lost it. Not only she, but her competition to - the likes of Rajdeep & Arnab. I will reserve my angst against them for a seperate post. But, then again she was leagues ahead of them.

So, This post is a "Barkha Special".

While tweeting during the period from Nov 26th to Nov 29th - tweeple( twitter lingo for people on twitter) where subjected to a continuous , live stream of info from the said personas - that was part news - part speculation. Needless to say, some of the Tweeple had had enough, & unable to stand the torture they came out with some stinging tweets about these leading anchors. 

That was the background.

Here is a collection of "Barkha tweets".Some of these are absolute treats (ranked):

suhas08: #mumbai barkha dutt is showing off curtains with the ferocity of a saleswoman.
Friday, November 28, 2008 11:08:33 PM - 1

shekys: Attacks over. Relief. I request the NSG to gun down Barkha Dutt and Arnab Goswami.-2

spicesoup: #mumbailets subject the captured terrorist to 3rd degree torture = a chat with barkha dutt n rajdeep sardesai !!! -3

hemanshukumar: @prempanicker Agreed totally on Barkha and Rajdeep. Shrill shallow morons. #mumbai 4

gvaswani: NDTV should be sanitized of Barkha Dutt 5

hemanshukumar:@sachinkalbag how do shrieky airheads like barkha and rajdeep remain our "top anchor"s ?! 1:50 PM yesterday from web in reply to sachinkalbag 6

naveenks: @puneet #mumbai barkha dutt has always been a drama queen. she always want her interviewees to cry on tv ...lookin 4 that lump in throat.lol 7

jupiterorbit: @leafwarbler haven't turned on the TV all day. Barkha Dutt really put me off. I hope it's all over.... the siege and Dutt! ;-) 8

GDS1: Finally went out today. The sun was shining, the operations in Bombay are over. Barkha Dutt continues to scream down into our living rooms. 9

naveenks: @mksi420 #mumbai y r u spoiling barkha dutt's chances for next round of tv awards now that competition has shot up....
mksi420 - 10

codelust: For the love of god, please take Barkha and Arnab off screen. - 11

If there are some that I missed - please do forward them.
Click here for all Barkha Tweets

Here other blog posts from angst ridden citizens (credits to:http://nharipra.wordpress.com/)

http://ckunte.com/archives/shoddy-journalism

http://ankitvsharma.blogspot.com/2008/11/barkha-dutt.html

http://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2008/11/india_backlash_over_media_coverage_after.php

Its over

Finally it seems over. 3 terrorists killed at the Taj. There might be one or two more biding the time to go with a biG Bang. 

Still, I feel grateful and said a silent prayer of Thanks. 

It seems all so simple. If you have ammunition you can do anything. The other things just fall in place. here the ammo is of two types - the ammo that was used to kill people and the other ammo is in the minds of the terrorists - drilled into their minds to go for such anti social objectives.

Well, one thing it does look like its no more just terror this was plain war.Kill Kill Kill. No hostages. No, hiding bombs and escaping. This was a team that came to wage war. And first round is theirs.

We were unprepared - this scale of attacks has never happened in any other city in India. The battle fields have just shifted.

Mumbai

A particularly damp and dull day in Bangalore - weatherwise. The effects of Nisha have amplified the winter.Even with a sweater on I can feel a cold coming on.

Everywhere one turns to one gets to read about Mumbai.It just keeps pouring in.How much longer will it go. The sequence of events have laid a siege on our senses. I cant seem to focus on the work without having to chk out on twitter about any new developments.It is close to 2 days now since the events started. This is very much like a war. The only difference being that this time it is right in our backyards.

We are in the midst of a movie going in slow motion. Its as if ever since this thing unfolded - I can recollect in crystal clarity what all the things I have done over the past 48 hours. Every moment has been captured. There are some moments in our life which get embedded in our collective consciousness and stay with us even after 20-30 years.The death of Indira Gandhi, Anti Sikh riots of '84, the WTC bombing & now perhaps the Taj Shootout. 

Today the markets reopened and there doesnt seem to be any drop in the prices infact they seem to have risen.

November 27th

Another day that will get etched in the history for all the wrong reasons.

Triumph of Terrorism.

In the past 10-15 years this must be the nth time when security has been breached in such large scale. This is almost a war situation. Bombing was different atleast the whole thing got over and people were left clearing the debris.

This here is something else this is unfolding like a motion picture with its share of thrill, voyeurism and tragedy.

Bob Dylan might have asked - How many more intelligence failures of such magnitude ? before we develop a security infrastructure capable of preventing repeats.

Mumbai will be back on track - the people who lost their dear ones will be left picking up the threads - that got - cut off - midstream.

There is so much at stake that it wont be long before we resume Business as usual.
Atleast 20 of these terrorists would have been involved to execute such an operations.One can only guess at the extent of planning that would have gone into it.Even if these who carried the guns were the foot soldiers - they would have been trained over a period of time.Where? How many more are waiting in the ranks to go for the next attack.

Are these guys so smart that every 1-2 years they are able to come up with a new plan and execute it and then walk away without leaving whiff. Or is it just that each time its a new outfit, a new leader a new gang. One needs to consider this as a wake up call. The audacity is amazing.

Movies

Watching movies over the weekend.Totally unplanned but ended up watching 3 movies.
First off on saturday afternoon wife just zoomed in on guru being shown on zee ithink.
Well ended up watching almost the entire movie as usual because the lights went out at 6:00 and still an hours movie was left. Have watched Guru before but yet to see it completely.Abhishek and Aishwarya lit up the screens.Its on an old movie so I dont want to spend my time reviewing it but suffice to say that the film reflected great chemistry between the pair.

Next up was Koi Mil gaya - seeing it for the first time. Some great performance from Hrithik. The movie went right upto 11:00pm and was good.I need a less cliched adjective for describing "good" things.

Last up was "In pursuit of Happiness" a Will Smith real life version of - Chris Gardner - an Educated Black Man who ended up becoming a Millionaire after going through soe really tough times personally and professionally.Absolutely fantastic.I cried a lot during this one.I generally do but this one was just too good.Plan to read the book if there is one.
Googled and found that there is indeed an autobiography which was on the New York Best Sellers List for 20 weeks. Click here for details

Abusive CEO

Received a call today from a candidate who desperately wanted to leave his job because his CEO was abusive. This gent had the habbit of throwing things at his staff.Whatever came into his hands got converted into missiles.

The candidate who has over 15 years experience in reputed firms mentioned his inability to face the CEO as he was just plain scared. Some of the junior staff has already left the company refusing to face this abuse.

Was just wondering is there any means by which this CEO can be controlled. Can he be sent to jail for such behavior. Is there any legal provision to handle such bosses.
Not many employees would be willing to come forward to register a complaint. It will backfire on their career.

I am not the right person to offer advice on this.Right now my job is to help him move into a different firm.while googling the topic came across this interesting article on tackling abusive bosses.A good read.

More on Cold Calling

(pic taken from pcworld)

I have kept a schedule for myself to do 5 cold calls every day.so between 11:00 AM and 12:00 I spend in cold calling clients in the engineering sector and making a pitch.

Its kind of challenging to call up and hear the phrase that we aren't recruiting and then continue on to the next call. Very early days yet. Hope to continue this for the next month.

Some of my clients actually cant believe when I tell them that some of my other clients are recruiting. There is a definite slowdown but more than the slowdown the market perceptions have taken a big beating.

Cute Kitten

Advertsing

Came across this self explanatory graph

Blogging poor

Read an interesting article from Copy blogger about the Blogging poor.
Blogging helps one to release ones creative juices which otherwise donot find a platform in the respective jobs. But, blogging as a source of income is not allways the case. There are bloggers out there making money. And there are a lot more who aren't.

Writing and writing quality stuff appealing to the audience - enough to hold their attention over other competing and compelling stuff - requires a knack.which some have in abundance , some are able to develop it and some just dont get it.

I might fall somewhere in between the last to categories. Even though my intention is to Blog everyday - I just am not able to write anything on certain days. It doesnt come naturally to me. Once I get in the mode I like to go on for half an hour or so. But, to get into that mode takes time.Call it the writers block or call it whatever.

Nowadays I have restarted the cold calling process to offset some of the effects of the slowdown. That is another process which I cringe from. Sometimes I cold call and ramble ( sputter through) just so that the guy at the other end doesn't interrupt and say that he is not interested. In cold calling I have found that the females are more likely to say a no than a guy. I guess they have perfected they art of rebutting advances. Not that my cold calls have anything to do with the said topic.

Back to Blogging - So there we are for today.

cant argue with this one

Passionately cliched

So what is this passion all about?

I some time wonder if this passion thingy is not being over bandied to totally loose its meaning after sometime.

Every jobsite worth its mandate advices the greenhorns to take up a job they are passionate about.

Questions are thrown to celebrities about their driving passions.CEO's talk about being absolutely passionate about their work,their companies ....

If you don't have passion you are not likely to achieve success in life - some say.

People are passionate about their roles , their jobs , their callings and what not.

Are we over doing things a bit here. What does passion mean? The dictionary.com gives the meaning as - any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling as love or hate.

Come to think about it - does a day today job require such a compelling or powerful emotion? Okay you enjoy your job , you like the steps involved the processes , your colleagues , maybe even your boss , you might feel fulfilled as you do your work but being passionate about your job - is'nt it a kind of overkill.

Or perhaps its a case of word usage having moved beyond its original meanings.

Here are Rod Stewarts views on Passion:

Mixed Positive

Good start to the week. Busy day.Candidates to be lined up for various positions, interviews happening and new positions coming in. What more could one want.

Came across this article about Indian Economy which played its part in lifting the spirits a bit more.

More Cuts

A friend of mine in HR recently moved into a new firm in a till recently booming industry. Now he has the unenviable task of cutting down 20 people. That is his first job target.Which,If he doesn't achieve - he might find his own job on the line.

To go ahead with it(his target) he is bringing out old accounting records to mark instances of Bills fudging. Regrettable. What was the accounting department doing when the Bills got fudged initially.These instances would add some more negative fuel to the doomsday talk.

These are all avoidable instances.Have the profits seen such a sudden drop that the salaries of 20 people would make a difference to the bottomline.Arguments can go back and forth on this.

You might have a different take on this but it is a fad now. Slowly the board room discussions will hover around haw many you cut.The guy who can show more numbers would have achieved a higher ego massage.

Obama Acceptance speech Transcript

Full Transcript at http://tinyurl.com/6bbrg7


Audio : http://twurl.nl/nybmnu

Obama is the President

Obama is the President and for no particular reason I am extremely Happy.
Cheers !! to this Occassion.

Here is a lovely Obama campaign ad forwarded by one of my twittering friends.

Classic television ads are few and far between. And only occasionally do they blend into the politic dialect

this was a classy take



__________________
Here is the original.
__________________

Panchayat

The committee fellas at my flat seem to me to be like a Bunch of old hats at the Village Panchayat. Cant seem to mind there own business or they dont seem to have an own business to mind.

Whatever - if i go on ranting about these things then I would be one amongst them.
Time I moved on.

Change is in the Air. I can feel it.

The Bamboo Tree

Some Background:

I live in the ground floor of an Apartment complex.I own a small plot of land which came along-with the flat.Its all off 300 sqft land on which I have let grow some trees.Silver Oaks and Bamboo to be precise.

These trees have taken 4 years growing and after some efforts have reached a height of around 20 ft.

Now some of my friends in the apartment don't seem to like these and have asked me to cut them, saying , I am not within my rights growing trees in my garden.Others suggest pruning the Trees after a certain height.Other reasons for cutting being that Bamboo aggravates the Asthma of My first floor friend's daughter. Hence - cut them.
So, various other arguments are being thrown around while I stick to my Guns.

I love trees and it pains when I see trees being cut all over the place out here in Bangalore. No one seems to understand that thanks to the trees there is so much more fresh air & For a change you can actually hear birds chirping.

But, since my home maker seems to be facing the brunt of it - the peace at home is getting affected.

Any suggestions?

Indian Railways

Managed a Berth after all. The Tatkal system works. As mentioned in the last post I was handed a Tatkal Waiting List number of 56. And was really unsure how this was going to move. At around 12:00 noon my waiting number had moved to 25.Made me quite glum anticipating the ride in the General compartment.

Just when I was rethinking the pros of the trip - I found I had managed a berth on the train all lawfully. Really Happy.

Going to my S1 compartment - I crossed the General Compartment - and what a crowd - some very decent looking chaps stood glumly-perhaps devising a way to squeeze in - & I just voiced a silent prayer of thanks.