proud being in TV9

Being a fresher ..... and as a part of Upcoming news channel is like Dream come tru of any NEW COMER and that too in the profession like Media......and on top of that working with Mr Chandra mohan sir (CM sir....as we calllll him..............CM OF OUR OFFICE..[:p] ) knowledge and talent in a single person.......nd OUR sir ........... nothin more can ask for ....(isnt it guys....)

Our office was under construction wen i had joined and CM sir himself had been our tour guide for Under construction office .....

Changes infront of our own eyes can make a great impact ..... and the growth of self and our company simultaneously is a great thing ....
thnx a lot mam and sir to give such a great Oppurtunity .........will give best to make TV9 proud

thnx a lot take care

Riots and Jhankar Beats

When I had started this blog, it was meant to be an insiders view of a media house...with everybody contributing, especially the editor...But since our launch is getting nearer and we are all panicking neither Ganesh nor me have found the time to pen down so many important events that have happened in the last couple of weeks.

However, since today is kinda a landmark day ....hence can't ignore it ...but like a true Mumbaikar (ahem ...can visualize the Thackerays getting permanent frown lines) I chose to club other issues with it and finish off the backlog!

Well these days is kinda hectic... with the impending launch of the channel, most of my waking hours are at the office, I just go home to crash and shower. I've had my moments of self doubt and the feeling of failure has become a permanent fixture in my mind... I don't seem to motivate my team enough to make them work to the best of their ability and achieve their deliverables.

And with so much stress going on... Raj Thackeray has gone and gotten arrested... His MNS had beaten up non-maharastrains who were applying for railway jobs and since this vigilante behaviour has been going on for some time, the authorities decided to show their power and arrested Raj, thus enabling him to become a bigger hero in the eyes of the public. But amchi Mumbai has a strange way of showing support ...here people start rioting, burning taxis and autos with the rapid action force out with their lathis.

Hapless office-goers think ten times before venturing out...the client presentation is important so is their own safety... what if the rioters chose them to express their anger...do they also display their smattering of Marathi to safeguard themselves or do they beg and plead to get some semblance of sympathy.

That’s an individual choice and I wish all of them good luck to endure one more day like this... as for me, when I left my house I was lucky to find a taxi and auto. However, the auto wallah insisted on playing "Aisi Dewangi, Dekhi Nahin Kabhi, Maine-Tumne" with jhankar beats... I couldn't help laughing at God's sense of humour...the lyrics were appropriate to the situation and the jhankar beats (tudum-tudum....dhinchak...dhinchak...tudum dhish) adding the right tone.

Here's to another day in Mumbai and cudgels to the guy who invented Jhankar Beats!

World Tourism Day

On the eve of World Tourism Day, MTDC took a bunch of journalists to Sindhudurg district to see the beauty of the place. The incentive was a alleged press conference with the revenue minister Mr. Narayan Rane.
Being from the programming side of the channel and waiting to shoot a travel show with the minimum amount of expenditure, I jumped on to the bandwagon with as much gusto as the journalists, armed with 5 bags of equipment (camera, lights, et al) and 2 more bags with personal effects.
The rest of the team gave me suspicious looks, they were armed only with a pen and a note book (the weapon of a true journalist) and an occasional camera or so... I ignored the looks and the language (predominantly Marathi...I only knew a smattering of it) and started briefing my cameraperson on the kind of visuals and treatment that we would need to do.
Seeing our enthusiasm, the others also decided to shoot a small feature or documentary to impress their top brass... more often than not, I found the other camera persons shooting from the same angle as we were.
Unfortunately, the organizers hadn’t counted on trigger happy camera crew like us and most of the 2 day trip was spent on the bus travelling from one place to the other with 5 min stops to see the beauty of the district.
Our first stop was on a roadside restaurant for dinner, where I took out my Handycam to shoot the group in an effort to break the ice and overcome the language barrier, but I wasn’t quite successful.
Early Friday morning found us at a MTDC resort called Madhuvan where we stopped to freshen up and continue our journey towards Vijaydurg. The resort was one dilapidated one where the towels had two big holes as its USP!
Vijaydurg was a fort where few local politicians had gotten together to light the Maashal which was to be carried by a group of runners for the Meet on World Tourism day at Sawantwadi. The fort was surrounded by the Arabian Sea and as part of the run up to the event; there were folk dancers in green skirts (all men!!) and dhol beaters (trance at its best!) and school kids in Shivaji costumes. Unfortunately we could only stay there for few minutes as we had to rush to the next location - Kunkeswar Temple; But not before some 'Ghawne & alu sabzi with Thalipeeth" as breakfast. So what if breakfast was at 1230 hrs in the afternoon, it gave us the energy to play Antakshari in the bus.
We reached Kunkeswar all charged up and shot as much as we could in those 5 min that were allocated to us as we had to rush to the next location Tarkali Beach... I did get the feeling that we were playing the "Amazing Race - Sindhudurg" although there was no prize money at the end of this marathon!
We hit Tarkali Beach around 1700 hrs and headed straight for a sumptuous lunch of "Surmai fry, Bangda curry, rice and Sol Kadi" and post lunch we did manage to shoot some more footage.
Then we were on the road again ... on our way to Amboli resort... we reached the MTDC guest house (thankfully no more towels with holes, although there was no hot water in the shower....actually the shower didn’t work...we had bathe the old fashioned way of bucket and mug) around 2130 hrs. After freshening up, we headed straight to the dining room...there was a lavish spread of chicken tikkas, fried prawns, chicken biryani, chicken curry, rice, chappatis, salad, mango srikhand, etc albeit all cold...since we were running four hours late on schedule.
After dinner, everyone went for a walk, but Sunil (my cameraperson) and me got into battle mode and made plans to get up early to shoot... we reasoned that since the rest of the group would sleep till late, we will get some advantage over them as well as get the morning light.
Saturday Morning at 0600 hrs, we were ready with our camera and tripod in place and shot whatever we could manage till the others got up and joined us.... it was at that point that I just realized what the word “Competitiveness” means... none of the other journalists had a brief from their seniors on making a feature, they were supposed to cover the press conference only, but when they saw us shooting a feature, they wanted to do the same and earn brownie points!
Then we were on the road again to Sawantwadi for the press conference stopping for 5 min en-route to shoot some waterfalls.
Sawantwadi was a small bustling town all ready to welcome the high profile Revenue Minister ... the seminar went as planned (although I struggled to understand the language...I also dozed off in-between) and as soon as Mr. Narayan Rane left the podium all journalists breezed off after him to “Shilpagram” – the art & craft village where the minister answered questions to the eager journalists and where all of us feasted on a lavish spread of Malvani cuisine. There were crabs, different varieties of fishes, prawns, modaks, rice, ghawne, solkadi, etc.
As the day drew to an end, I realized that I had not got enough footage to make a travel show, I pulled all the strings that I could (the producer in me rose to the occasion) and I managed to convince a municipal officer to arrange for our stay and facilitate our shoot. From here onwards the shoot went on smoothly since we were not dependent on a third party.
We left early on Sunday morning to Sindhudurg fort ... to reach the fort we had to take a boat ride and once inside the fort, we lost ourselves in the serene surroundings and beautiful ruins.
After pack up we returned back to Sawantwadi to catch a bus back to Mumbai ...since I was dead tired from the shoot, I slept like a log in the bus till we reached Mumbai... however, that was not the end of the day for me... I got a call from the office for yet another shoot... this time it was to capture the fastest singer in India (or should I say the world?) Shankar “breathless” Mahadevan for the recording of our channel ID...but that as they say is another story...err another blog post ;)

Painting the office RED!!

No no, I haven't become footloose and fancy free ... no time to pursue such activities, this is a literal translation. I am going to paint the office red.
Yesterday while doing my usual hello's to everybody, I bumped into the architect (our office is still being constructed) and since I've always been fascinated with colours and painting (I once painted a friends wall with rollers... it was too much fun and I wanted to recreate it again), I asked Rajesh (the architect) to allow me to paint one of the walls... he was not convinced. I cajoled him saying that he will not have to pay daily workers wages to me... that I will do it for free... still I was not successful... not because Rajesh didn’t want me to paint any wall... but there are no walls in our office!
Yes, it is hard to believe... but there are no walls in our office (walls as in concrete wall... there are a lot of glass walls and wooden walls which cannot be painted).
However, being ever resourceful (jugadu) Indians, Chandramohan (big boss) came up with the idea that we can paint one column and one beam on the mezzanine floor which can be used as a graphitti wall by all the employees... so I am gonna paint the office RED... yaaaaa!
BTW, everybody is invited ;)

There take that

You wanna play tough??

Are Mithais Involved