Just Books and Cricket

I enjoy reading interviews and interviews of writers have been a long-time favorite. The book I am reading currently is a compilation of interviews of 30 ‘famous’ writers interviewed by Sunil Shetty. Sunil hosts an interview show on NDTV and these are a collection of interviews he has done since the inception of the show in 2005. In his foreword, he writes in what circumstances the idea of the show had come about.


The program is aired on NDTV Profit, a sub-section of NDTV which features stock market and business news. As the stock market closes on Fridays for the weekend, a substantive show had to be conceived to fill the vacuum. In a meeting, many ideas were tossed around and the one most frowned up was interview of writers.

Sunil recalls the idea was tossed up by Pronoy Roy’s wife, who is an inveterate reader, and the reason why people were skeptical about it was that writers, being recluses, don’t make great TV personalities. They are generally reluctant to talk about their work. Although some writers refused to be interviewed on TV, majority obliged and ‘Just Books’ became a success.

The book presents a short profile of writes followed their interviews. The interviews are not free flowing but in question and answer format. Some interviews are compilation of two, three interactions with the writers held at different locations and sometimes by different people.

The reason why I like writers’ interviews is that they open a window to the world of books, the books that had an impact on them, the writers they read etc. Another reason is their personalities and distinct style of putting things. Salman Rshdie is flamboyant; William Dalrymple garrulous; Amitava Ghosh matter of fact; Khushwant Singh simple and unpretentious.

Many times these interviews have led me to books and writers that I wouldn’t otherwise know.



                                                World Cup Finale

On Wednesday, for the first time in my last seven years of stay away from home, I regretted not having a TV, thanks to the India Pakistan World Cup semi final at Mohali. I watched the match at office. It was like a virtual day-off for people at work. They remained glued to the TV screens, sometimes moving away to attend to their professional duties only to rush back before TV again. They cheered every wicket taken, run saved or scored by India. Sometimes I also found myself erupting in excitement. I felt sports can make one so sadistic, taking pleasure at some else’s defeat. But tomorrow I am going to do that again, when India will look to repeat 1983 and Srilanka, 1996.

How Newspapers are Just Like You and I

I don't know how many of you still read newspapers, not the online version but the broad sheet. But I’m still a newspaper fan. The relationship started when I was probably in sixth or seventh standard in school – and it continues to this day.

Staying in three states of India (or two states and a union territory, Delhi), I have been exposed to various English dailies at various times. I read the Statesman and the Telegraph in Calcutta; the Hindustan Times and the Times of India in Delhi; again the Times of India, the Deccan Herald, the Hindu and occasionally The Indian Express in Bangalore.


What I have always found interesting is that no two newspapers are same in character and personality. In fact, they are as different as two people and as human as they are. Their personality traits are based on use of language, style of reporting and their chief editors’ personalities.


The Statesman, whose market is mainly limited to Calcutta, for example, is like a retired man from an old-world British firm for whom an inaccurate English pronunciation is the most inexcusable form of sacrilege. Another Calcutta paper, the Telegraph, on the other hand, is like an above-40-youthful uncle who has a regard for the status quo but is also reluctant to be out of step with changing times.


Calcutta market is now flooded with other newspapers, but around 20 or so years back there weren’t more than two to three major English dailies. The Statesman had a prominent presence until Ananda Bazar, a leading Bengali daily, launched its English avatar, The the Telegraph, in the early 90s, and it became an instant hit with the young, with whom Statesman hadn’t cut the ice.


The post-90s’ ‘liberalized Calcutta newspaper market’ introduced me to the Hindustan Times, and the paper instantly scored my loyalty. It had fewer pages than the Telegraph, so you could run through it sooner. Its language was friendlier (or according to Statesman types, pedestrian) than theTelegraph and the other dailies. And it had Vir Sanghvi’s (its chief editor) Counterpoint (which ran into controversy few months back). Vir also started a food column in Brunch, an HT lifestyle Sunday magazine - Rude Food - during the time and it became an instant hit; he still writes the column.


Hindustan Times, for me, was just like Vir: easy going, unpretentious and friendly. The paper also introduced me to the columns of Khushwant Singh, whose works (short stories and essays) I later read extensively.


I continued reading the Hindustan Times when I moved to Delhi for work but also took up the Times of India. However, after coming to Bangalore, I broke up with the HT as it isn’t available here, but stuck to the TOI, which is among the leading English dailies in Bangalore.


The TOI was among the first newspapers to introduce the concept of ‘news you can use’. It dedicates a shelf of pages everyday to classified advertisements and carries news items that keep its readers informed about things that directly affect their lives, like board exam results, call center numbers for government services etc.


It runs innovative public-interest initiatives and when required, it vehemently criticizes the powers that be. In short, the TOI is everything that a corporate boss wants a worker to be: efficient, innovative, interactive and utilitarian. Additionally, it’s also chaotic and raucous. Or vibrant, depending on how you want to put it.


The Hindu, whose market is mostly in south India, is the opposite. It’s staid, sober, deep and analytical. And some would also say, humourless. It’s not speculative and colourful like TOI; it’s restraint, scholarly, idealistic and also Leftist. It’s a mirror image of its editor in chief, N Ram. In his autobiography, Nehru had written about the Hindu’s sobriety and its propensity to stay away controversies. Like the Hindustan Times inroduced me to Khushwant Singh, in the Hindu I read Shashi Tharoor for the first time.

 The Deccan Herald is somewhere between the TOI and the Hindu. It mixes serious reporting with a pinch of frivolity (you will get street side food and Bollywood gossip) and presents the right balance. It also gives generous doses of literature through book reviews and pieces on literary trends and interviews. It wants to keep everyone happy.

Reading newspapers is no different from knowing people. If I had been writing about friends and colleagues, it wouldn’t be very different from this.