Thoughts on Journalism from Journalists

With changing times and changing patterns of 'content consumption,' journalism itself has undergone major changes and journalists have had to adapt to the new ways of doing things

I have no formal education in journalism, haven’t studied journalism in a college and do not have a degree or a diploma in journalism. And yet, I’ve worked as a journalist for close to three decades and have been fortunate enough to have written for leading newspapers, magazines and websites across the country. I started in the mid-1990s, when there was only print and television. Over the years, with the rise of the Internet, I saw the Web become the dominant medium, what with thousands of websites, blogs, YouTube channels, along with social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram vying for people’s attention and diminishing the power that print and TV once had.

Target Design: In Conversation with Hans-Georg Kasten

Hans-Georg Kasten was one of the three men at Target Design who were responsible for designing the 1980s Suzuki Katana. He is now the Managing Director of Target Design 

Launched in 1981, the Suzuki Katana 1100 had relatively conventional mechanicals – the engine, chassis and suspension were pretty standard for its time – but the styling was radical, and made the motorcycling world sit up and take note. The bike was Japanese, of course, but was designed in Germany by Target Design. There was a three-man team that worked on the Katana’s design: Jan Fellstrom, Hans-Georg Kasten and Hans Muth. Back in 2012, I had an opportunity to do a brief interview with Hans-Georg Kasten, who is now Managing Director of Target Design. Here are some excerpts from that conversation.

Book Review: Crypto Crimes - Inside India’s Best-Kept Secret

Everyone wants to get rich quick and some believe crypto is one way to get there

Cryptocurrency. Bitcoin. Digital assets. While the vast majority of people in India (and probably elsewhere in the world) have heard of these terms, most have very little or no understanding of what these really are, what they mean and what drives their value. And yet, many still believe that dabbling in these might somehow open the gateways to earning massive sums of money. This is, perhaps, what is truly amazing about cryptocurrencies – how little people understand these and how, despite having no idea of their underlying value (or the complete lack of it, depending on who you ask) they’re still prepared to invest in these anyway. Greed? Speculation? Yes, but given their meteoric rise in prices over the last 15 years, crypto can be an irresistible lure for some. Back in 2010, some guy named Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 Bitcoin for two Papa John’s pizzas. At that time, one Bitcoin was equal to around two or three US dollars. Today, one Bitcoin is valued at US$64,470. Can’t blame Hanyecz though; given its lack of any real, measurable value, who could have predicted Bitcoin’s crazy price trajectory?

Western Media Narratives on India: In Conversation with Umesh Upadhyay

Published earlier this year, Western Media Narratives on India: From Gandhi to Modi explores how cultural imperialism influences the Third-World nations. ‘Media in the hands of the former colonizers that wish to maintain their sway has become a tool to dictate people’s thoughts. Focussed on India, this narrative spans from the nation’s independence in 1947 to the present day, scrutinizing the relentless targeting of Indian leadership by the dominant Western English media. With time, these attacks have intensified, particularly on a resurgent India,’ says the publisher’s note.

Past Perfect: Honda CB1100RS

1980s-styling, modern-day brakes, tyres and suspension. The Honda CB1100RS, which is now sadly out of production, is my dream bike. How times change!

‘We look before and after, and pine for what is not,’ said English poet Percy Shelley, two-hundred years ago. The English poet was definitely no biker-boy, but what he said does apply to motorcycles as well. Well, at least for some of us. Let me explain. When I was young, I lusted after the latest, fastest, most powerful sportsbikes and superbikes – Suzuki GSX-Rs, Yamaha FZRs, Honda CBRs and Kawasaki ZXR Ninjas. Exotic Ducatis and Bimotas. And BMWs, which were always a bit weird. These were machines I only saw in the pages of second-hand foreign magazines like Cycle World and Bike, copies of which I was sometimes able to get in bookshops in Hazratganj, in Lucknow. At that time, I used to have a Yamaha RX100, which had an 11bhp, two-stroke engine that loved to rev its heart out. Eleven horsepower isn’t really much, but the magic was in the way in which the Yamaha engine delivered that power – instant acceleration and long wheelies in 1^st gear. I can’t begin to tell you how much I loved that Yamaha.

Book Review: India’s Most Legendary Restaurants

Across the length and breadth of the country, India has one of the richest, most diverse food cultures anywhere in the world. For committed gastronomes, some of the most authentic, soul-satisfying food experiences can often be found in people’s homes. But these aren’t always accessible and certainly not to everyone. And that’s where restaurants come in – almost every city in India has a selection of eateries that have made a name for themselves over the years, specialising in the local cuisine, with the flavours amped up and taken to whole new level, achieved via a mix of carefully selected ingredients and cooking techniques developed over many years, sometimes many decades. And the best part is, you’re just as likely to find such legendary eateries inside a five-star hotel as on a nondescript streetside corner.

Why We Die: Book Review

Death is the final frontier, the inevitable end. We know that and yet most of us find it difficult to deal with thoughts of dying and of death. With major advances in medical science over the last 100 years or so, doctors and scientists have been able to increase human lifespans, but in the end, we have to accept that human bodies simply aren’t built to last forever. Ultimately, death still wins. Always. For those who might be inclined to ask why, Nobel Prize winner, molecular biologist Venki Ramakrishnan’s recently published book, Why We Die: The New Science of Ageing and the Quest for Immortality has some answers.

‘We are living through a revolution in biology. Giant strides are being made in understanding why we age—and why some species live longer than others. Could we eventually cheat disease and death and live for a very long time, possibly many times our current lifespan? Venki Ramakrishnan, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and former president of the Royal Society, takes us on a riveting journey to the frontiers of biology, asking whether we must be mortal,’ says the publisher’s note. ‘Covering recent breakthroughs in scientific research, he examines the cutting edge of efforts to extend lifespan by altering our physiology. But might death serve a necessary biological purpose? What are the social and ethical costs of attempting to live forever? Why We Die is a narrative of uncommon insight and beauty from one of our leading public intellectuals,’ it adds.

Book Review: The Pursuit of Reputation

Let’s start with an honest admission. While I’ve worked as a journalist for most of the last 25-30 years, I have also worked in Public Relations and Corporate Communications for a few years. With a German car manufacturer, in Formula 1, with India’s only F1 and MotoGP circuit, and with a leading agency that’s headquartered in Bombay. So, I can claim to have seen both sides of the coin as a journalist and as a PR professional. And yet – and this is the surprising part – even after having spending a few years working in PR, I don’t think I’ve ever been able to fully understand what PR is all about. 

At one time, in the distant past, PR used to be mostly about sending out press releases and then following up with newspapers and magazines for media coverage. Now, what with the rise of bloggers, vloggers, social media influencers, YouTube, smartphones, apps and a thousand other digital doodads, I’m told PR is much more complex – a ‘strategic’ function that’s at least as important as marketing. These days, we have highly-paid specialists who ‘craft’ ‘PR strategy’ for companies and going by the terms they use – content marketing, earned media, owned media, paid media, positioning strategy, messaging strategy, share of voice, advertising equivalence value and many more – the PR pros are giving MBA types a run for their money when it comes to using buzzwords.

Book Review: Fluke – Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters

In his book, Fluke, author Brian Klaas presents some powerful ideas that might make you reconsider the way you approach life and its many complexities

Think about this for a second. There are currently more than a billion websites in the world, about 200 million of which are active. Two hundred million active websites. And here you are, on The Lucknow Wallah, reading about Fluke. In the larger scheme of things, how random is that? What might have been the probability of you ever visiting this website and spending 2-3 minutes of your life reading this particular article? Infinitesimal, perhaps. And yet, here we are. Pure chance? Think about the biggest movie stars, the richest businessmen, and the most successful people in the world, regardless of what their profession might be. How did they get there? Are they necessarily the smartest, brightest, most talented, most knowledgeable, most hardworking people in the world? Sure, they probably do have one or more of those qualities, but there may well be many others with at least as many – and perhaps more – of the qualities that are required in order to succeed, and yet they don’t achieve the same levels of fame, success, money etc. Ever wondered why that might be?

Class Act: Driving the Mercedes-Benz S-Class

The Mercedes-Benz S-Class remains the best luxury car money can buy

 Back in 2021, I had an opportunity to drive the then-new, seventh-generation Mercedes-Benz S-Class and write about it for Man’s World magazine. Here are some excerpts from the article I wrote.

Flooring the throttle in the new S-Class and chucking it around a series of fast corners in quick succession should probably just feel wrong on so many levels. The S-Class, a stately luxury sedan that’s more than 17 feet long, an opulent car that weighs more than 2,100 kilos, definitely isn’t boy-racer material. It is, instead, the preferred mode of transport for those who’ve achieved XXL-sized dollops of fame, success and wealth. Top business executives, industrialists, heads of state, and film stars with 10-figure annual incomes love the S-Class. And the preferred status isn’t anything new for this ultra-luxe Mercedes-Benz, which has been on top of things for the last 50 years.

Down Memory Lane: Jawa 350 vs Yamaha RD350

The Jawa 350 and the Rajdoot Yamaha RD350 were sold in India in the 1980s
Note: These pics are for representational purposes only - the two bikes you see here are not the actual machines that I wrote. Using these pics only because I don't have pics of the actual bikes that I rode

For as long as I can remember, my life has pretty much revolved around motorcycles. Through school and college, instead of paying attention to my studies and trying to make something of my life, all I ever did was ride motorcycles, read about motorcycles, and watch 500cc motorcycle GP racing on TV. Years later, when it was time to go out and get a job, I’m thankful I was able to get one where part of my work entailed riding motorcycles and writing about them.

In 2005-2006, when I was in Pune, working with BIKE India magazine as executive editor, I wanted to do a story on the Jawa 350 and the Yamaha RD350, two bikes that came to India in the 1980s, did not do very well and were ultimately axed from their respective manufacturers’ line-ups. Though the bikes did not do well then, there are revered among enthusiasts now and the RD350, especially, is practically worshipped by fans of two-stroke engines.

In Conversation with Bishwanath Ghosh

Bishwanath’s books provide unique and very interesting snapshots of life in Calcutta, Madras, Banaras and across other, smaller, towns in India. He is one of my favourite authors and I've read all his books over the last few years

Based in Calcutta, Bishwanath Ghosh is an Associate Editor with The Hindu. He’s been a journalist for three decades and has earlier worked with The Times of India and with New Sunday Express. In addition to his work with newspapers, he is a bestselling author and his books – Aimless in Banaras, Gazing at Neighbours, Longing Belonging, Tamarind City and Chai, Chai – have garnered all-around acclaim and have earned huge praise from readers everywhere. Personally, I’m a huge fan of his books, all of which I’ve read and enjoyed over the last few years. Some time ago, I managed to get in touch with Bishwanath and asked him he would be willing to answer a few questions that I had for him. He agreed, which was very kind of him. So, here are some excerpts from that conversation, where Bishwanath talks about his work, what inspires him to write and what is it about being a successful author that makes him happiest.

Fast Past: Riding the Enfield Fury 175

Back in the early-1990s, when I was in college, in Lucknow, I had a Yamaha RX100 as my daily runabout and I absolutely loved that bike. Small, light and revvy, my RX was always raring to go. On the street, it would make mincemeat of Yezdi 250s, Kawasaki-Bajaj KBs and assorted TVS-Suzukis. The RX would explode off the line, wheelie endlessly and scrape its footpegs in fast corners even as its skinny tyres scrabbled for grip. Only the mighty Yamaha RD350, which was thrice as powerful as the RX, could bring the latter to its knees. But there was actually one more bike at that time, which wasn’t very popular and which was in production only for a very short time, which could occasionally keep up with the RX100. And that bike was the Enfield Fury 175, which was essentially just a rebadged Zundapp KS175 of East German origin.

Book Review: Forgotten Foods

Edited by Tarana Husain Khan, Claire Chambers and Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, Forgotten Foods: Memories and Recipes from Muslim South Asia is a delectable anthology of essays where the authors write about food – the food they remember enjoying as children, the food of their community, the food that reminds them of home. And, yes, it’s important to document these stories because the food that’s written about here is very much part of the authors’ unique, individual identities, inseparable from the memories of who they are, the places they’ve been.

‘While heritage foods still abound in the streets and kitchens of South Asia, it may just be a matter of time before many of these historic dishes and culinary traditions, especially of Muslim provenance, pass into oblivion. In Forgotten Foods, historians, literary scholars, plant scientists, heritage practitioners, writers and chefs come together to document precious stories and memories, histories and recipes in a valiant endeavour to stem this lamentable tide,’ says the publisher’s note. ‘The culinary diversity showcased in the book not only comes as a delightful surprise, it also proves just how profoundly Muslim kitchens have reshaped alimentary practices, enriching South Asian food and making it what it is today,’ it adds.

Book Review: Indian Christmas

Edited by Madhulika Liddle and Jerry Pinto, Indian Christmas is an anthology of essays, poems and hymns that showcase the variety of ways in which Christmas is celebrated across India. The book comprises an eclectic collection of stories; there are essays on Christmas celebrations in Calcutta, a Christmas wedding in Kottayam, memories of celebrating Christmas in Goa, an East India-style Christmas in Bombay, memories of Christmas celebrations in the villages and hill stations of India, Punjabi-style Christmas carols, cakes and other Christmas goodies, and what have you. In his introduction to the book, Jerry Pinto recounts his memories of seeing his first ever ‘live’ Santa Claus – at the Akbarally’s department store in Bombay – and that while there was, of course, no snow in Bombay, the family had to make do with listening to Jim Reeves singing White Christmas (as, apparently, was the norm in most Goan Roman Catholic homes back in the 1970s/80s) and there were Christmas cakes with rum-soaked raisins in them, and Marzipan with peeled almonds, vindaloo and sorpotel and roast pork.

Book Review: Rental Person Who Does Nothing - A Memoir

Would you do nothing and expect to be paid for it?

Human society places a premium upon accomplishment. So much of our identity is tied to our work, what we do to earn a living. ‘Work hard, be committed, do as much as you can, climb the corporate ladder, get to the top,’ we’re frequently told. And if we can’t do all of that? Well, then at least still do something! But what if one chooses to do nothing? Nothing at all. A healthy, able-bodied person, who can get work if they wanted to, but consciously decides to not do anything at all. Do such people exist? And if they do, can they actually expect to be paid just for being? Meet Tokyo-based Shoji Morimoto, a Japanese man who is in his late-30s and chooses to do… well, nothing. Rental Person Who Does Nothing is his story, a memoir of sorts. But, of course, since Morimoto doesn’t actually do anything, he hasn’t written the book himself. Instead, he got a writer to ask him a whole bunch of questions about his life, and simply responded to those questions, and the book is based on that. It is a collection of Morimoto’s reminisces of a series of encounters as a rental person, presented as a kaleidoscope of humanity, and his thoughts on love, life, friendship and the complexity of human relationships.

Suzuki Hayabusa: Death Metal

Back in 2016, the editors of Motoring World magazine arranged for me to keep a Suzuki Hayabusa for 2-3 days and ride it to my heart's content. The experience was quite unforgettable

It was early-2016 and I had just moved from Pune to Greater Noida. I had been working with MV Agusta in Pune, a very short stint that barely lasted three months. I had moved to Greater Noida in search of work, hadn’t found anything and was bored out of my mind. One day, I was talking to Kartik, at Motoring World magazine, and asked if he could arrange for me to ride or drive a really fast machine, since it had been quite a while since I’d had a go on anything with a few hundred horsepower. Kartik asked me if I’d be interested in doing a story on the Suzuki Hayabusa and, of course, I jumped at the opportunity. Here are some excerpts from the piece I wrote for the magazine:  

With a top speed of about 300kph, the Suzuki Hayabusa can keep up with just about anything on two wheels. At least in a straight line. And that’s nothing short of amazing, because the Hayabusa, which was launched back in 1999, is now all of seventeen years old. To give you some perspective on how old that really is, 1999 was when the Euro was first introduced, Keanu Reeves starred in the first Matrix movie, the Khmer Rouge was officially disbanded in Cambodia, movie DVDs were still a novelty and listening to music meant buying a CD rather than downloading an MP3. Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp hadn’t been invented yet, and people used to have actual face-to-face conversations rather than only chatting on WhatsApp, can you believe that?

Book Review: Office Secrets

A great little book that's packed with useful real-world advice

 

 

I remember the first day I walked into an office, at my first job, almost 30 years ago. Fresh out of college and clueless about the ways of the world. Completely naïve, with no idea of the kinds of people I’d meet at work and the challenges that getting along with them would entail. I knew nothing of office politics. And was entirely unprepared to even understand – let alone deal with – the machinations of aggressively ambitious colleagues, some of whom would have gleefully executed their co-workers and climbed over their dead bodies to get ahead in life.

People are what they are and the world works in ways that we might not always understand. That’s just how it is. The corporate world can be as merciless and unforgiving as the Amazonian rainforest and only the fittest – those who are best able to adapt and improvise – stand a chance of survival. In the corporate jungle, you either learn to be a wolf and lead the pack or prepare to be slaughtered if you’re a lamb.

Oral History Masterpieces by Craig Taylor: Londoners, New Yorkers

Londoners and New Yorkers, by Craig Taylor, are an absolute must-read for anyone interested in the two cities, and the lives of the people who live there

I’ve been to London once – spent a few days in the city in 2010, and found it quite fascinating. And while I’ve never been able to visit New York, it’s one place where I hope to go someday. I believe London and New York must be two of the greatest cities in the world, cities that hundreds of thousands of people aspire to visit, see and experience. Some want to live and work there, some love those cities and, I’m sure, many might also dislike these cities. But in any case, London and New York aren’t cities that you can easily ignore. And if you can’t actually go there, I suppose reading about these cities might be the next best thing.

Book Review: Indian Advertising - Laughter and Tears

A great read for those interested in the world of advertising and its evolution in India

The art – and science – of advertising is quite fascinating. On average, mainstream filmmakers have anywhere between 90-150 minutes to tell their story. Book authors get 300 pages and 100,000 words. Working as a team, advertising copywriters and visualisers often get a single image and a sentence or two to tell an entire story, convey a (hopefully powerful) message, create an impact and convince people to spend money to buy a product or a service. If it’s a radio or a TV ad, every second of running time costs money. With print or Web, space comes at a cost. And hence advertisers have to learn to make do with less and ensure that their ad copy and visuals create maximum impact in the least possible amount of space and time. When done well, it’s art and science rolled into one wondrous package.

Audi S5: Firecracker

The Audi S5, one of the most memorable cars I've ever driven

Having worked as an automotive journalist for around two decades, I’ve lost count of the number of cars I’ve had the opportunity to drive over the last 20-25 years. But of those, a few cars stand head and shoulders above the rest. Those few cars were truly spectacular, truly memorable. With most cars that I drove / reviewed as a journalist, it was business as usual. You get in, do your driving, testing etc., the car goes back to its manufacturer, you write your story and move on. But with some rare, few cars that were truly memorable, things were different. When I got out of such cars, the only emotion was, ‘Oh my god!! I wish I could somehow afford to buy this thing!’ Deep in my heart, I knew that would probably never happen and I’d never get to drive that particular car again, but that hasn’t stopped me from continuing to dream about it. One such car was the Audi S5, which I drove in 2021 for a review that I did for Man’s World magazine. This is the article I wrote:

A nuclear reactor is, for most people, a bit intimidating. Inscrutable for the most part, with its inner workings not understood by the vast majority, a nuclear reactor houses controlled nuclear fission – a process that unleashes vast amounts of energy via the splitting of atoms. Controlled and harnessed in an orderly fashion, nuclear energy can power entire cities. Nuclear propulsion has also been used to power submarines for many decades and scientists propose that interplanetary spacecraft might, someday, use nuclear power. In the late-1950s, some car manufacturers were also dreaming up nuclear-powered concept cars; witness the rather outlandish Ford Nucleon, the Studebaker Packard Astral and the Simca Fulgur, all of which were supposed to eschew the poor old internal combustion engine in favour of putting a miniaturised nuclear reactor under the hood.

Book Review: Digesting India

I dislike the word ‘foodie,’ a vastly overused term that sounds affected and silly. But I do love good food. Often, while having breakfast, I ask the wife what we’re having for lunch, at lunch I ask about dinner and at dinner I ask about the following day’s breakfast. It’s exasperating for her and, indeed, what she says is true: all I ever do is think about food, which includes ingesting new and interesting forms of sustenance, watching restaurant reviews on YouTube and, yes, reading books that are about food. And one of those books is Zac O’Yeah’s Digesting India, which I first spotted on the Speaking Tiger (the company that has published this book) website, and subsequently got a copy to read.