Doodling my heart out about all things 'creative' ...
Friday, November 28, 2008
they are in my fucking bathroom ...
the media's the terrorist outfit that needs to be shot in that part of the anatomy where it hurts the most. "we are reporting from extremely difficult conditions", is what a glamly dressed reporter on a premier news channel had to say, on why the camera couldn't pan on a fresh wave of gun shots coming from the taj. what a load of heartless jerks. even ekta kapoor seems the more 'santised' version of these news thirsty leeches. all my 3 middle fingers (yup THREE) to barkha dutt and her entire band of ghastly men. all the news channels are playing the taj-horror like some 3 day cricket match. what the fuck. i'm tired of having to believe that barkha dutt is the reason all of us are still alive and kicking. i mean the woman makes it seem like she is the wonder woman whose being at the scene of mayhem has benefited mankind enormously. she cannot complete a sentence without making a mention of how she is covering this news segment against all 'fucking' life threatening odds. there are people still held hostage by god knows what kind of satanic brutes, and all that she has to overtly harp on in that nauseating i'm-putting-my-life-on-the-line-by-giving-you-lesser-mortals-this-news-feed smug tone, is the fact that SHE is covering it. fuck her and the news channel that has to send her for all the 'important and ghastly' terrorist attack/war/natural calamity coverages. fuck the media. fuck burkha dutt. i only hope, that the journalist who's holed up in the taj and whose last msg was a chilling, " they are in my bathroom", is ALIVE. it doesn't matter who's fucking interviewed and who's heroic 'taj' stories are replayed and celebrated. it doesn't matter how many politicians from the opposition will make mister prime minister seem like a man who's lost his genitals, and start baying for his and his party's blood. it doesn't matter which terrorist outfit has gone over to satan's side citing the name of 'god', and has unleashed this horror on all of us. all that matters is that the 'bathroom' journalist and many others who are still holed up in that taj are rescued and handed over with beating hearts to their families. because at the end of the day, all that matters is 'life' and the basic right of a man to live. all else be damned.
my girl keeps pulling my leg with this one line that's never failed to put a smile on my face, the line being, "hon, your money is my money and my money IS my money!". she of course only says that to make me grin goofily whenever i'm my broody self. people keep asking me about how easy or difficult it is to be in a relationship. and i tell every single one of them the same thing, every single time, that US ('us' being my girl and me!) works because 'us' wants us to work. true we fight like all other couples do. true we don't mince words and true we definitely don't yell euphemistically at each other when we are crossing swords over a certain issue. but, at the end of the day, if either one of us doesn't tuck the other in, then it does feel kinda 'empty and hollow'(the thumb rule being, i stay awake till hon feels sleepy, read kafka even if my eyes are screaming bloody hell and wanna shut close, msg sweet nothings every now and then, and finally send a lovey-dovey-awwwwwww-thoooooooo-cute-msg tucking her in when she says, "hon i'm thleeeeepy"!). but honestly speaking, nothing's gonna work if in some cranny of your sub-conscious, there is even a hint of a doubt about 'wanting' to make the relationship work. you tide over the bad times because you know your heart inwardly glows everytime your loved one fondly ruffles your hair or nuzzles up against your shoulder in a movie hall. a relationship, much like one's career, is what you make of it. you have to work at it every waking moment (sometimes even during the sleeping moments, like mine!) of your life. the emotional horoscopes and the oh-we-both-think-alike factors are a distant second to the keep the cogs of a relationship well oiled. i'm no tom hanks and my girl's no meg ryan (my girl's a stunner, meg ryan doesn't even match up to her. as for me , i'm the bumbling-goofy-skater-boi that tom hanks can never be!). but we do wish wistfully that we still wrote to each other and made the Indian postal dept flex their rear muscles at least a lil, as we started off as pen pals.(although i do irk her every now and then by telling quite unabashedly that i fell for her only after i saw her! sigh! once a man, always a pig!). still, at the end of the day, a relationship is what you think it is. that to me defines the success or failure of a relationship. no other love gauge can even come close to telling what works and what doesn't in a relationship. at the end of the day, like the saying i have tweaked to pander my shallow self goes, ' everything's fair in love and love alone, even if you are waging a war (against your hormones!) for it' (now see, that's where the 'war' in the adage had to used. funny nobody ever thought of it before!). never mind!
Come tomorrow, I'll be starting my writing career at this agency called 'Origami'. I know it's 'news' because when my last post had happened, Ogilvy had happened. But WPP (the global advertising conglomerate that runs O&M) is on a hiring freeze. So I was only their bench-strength, meaning, if and when the global hiring embargo will be lifted (thanks to the recession!), I'll be given a look-in. Till such time that Sir Martin Sorrell decides to say, "let's hire", I won't be on the Ogilvy rolls. So I politely told them that I'll spend some time writing in this other agency that had also made me an offer. So that's about Ogilvy.
About Origami: I'm really kicked about working at this place. This video on Origami that appeared on CNBC-TV18 a few months back should tell you people why I am really looking forward to tomorrow.
I know it's been a long time coming, has this post. But so many things have happened in my life since the last post, that everything still feels like a surreal dream to me. Self praises first! i got a Writing job at my Atlantis. Yes people, yours truly is now a 'copywriter' at O&M-Meridian (self applause!). I was thinking of changing the puggy network, owing to the really bad and irksome service that the stub-tailed cuteness has been dishing out of late! But since, Ogilvy makes the Vodafone ads, i have no option but to stick to Cheeka (the pug's name, in case you folks haven't been following my ha-ha blog of late!). 6 months is all i spent at 'Servicing' in an ad agency (meeting the client, looking dapper in freshly starched formals, writing the creative brief, doling out Marketing gyaan on whom to, why and how to communicate what we intend to communicate. Basically the 'blah' and 'faff' of Advertising!). Now i get to MAKE those ads. And better still, I'll be called as a 'creative' henceforth and not as a 'suit'! What beats 'em all however, is the fact that i don't have to wear any(thing!) formals to work, ever! Yeah folks, i can pirouette in my night boxers and a body hugging worn-out tee for all i care and nobody's gonna tick me off (subject to the condition i deliver award-winning copy and ideas from time to time! no way others will be tolerant enough to stand my hopelessly weird quirks as long as i deliver what i'm being paid for!). Anyways as things stand, it's going to be another week of, to use Advertising jargon, 'understanding the nitty gritties of the client - understanding the pulse of the consumer - getting the creative team to park their arse down in the briefing room - dole out out swill and lecture them on Philip Kotler and other 'strategic' thought starters for the ad - and all this whilst they happily smoke to glory and wonder where i get all this unused energy from to dish out all that drivel'!. But a week hence, I'll be 'writing' all those ads you watch on the telly. So yay-yay and a double-somersaulty-fist clenched-whoosh to that :)
The creative director who interviewed me summed it up the best after i had been confirmed as a junior writer. I was standing near the HR's cubicle,furnishing all the requisite documents and stuff. When in walked this guy right into me. His opening remark was, "Hey! Vinay right? Heard you joined new. My name's A. Where you from?". My dazed response was ( Dazed coz I was still pinching myself to believe i had made it into Ogilvy-Meridian!), " You know, this other agency, where i was working as a suit" ('suit' is lingo for 'servicing' or 'brand exec' in ad-land). He looks at me all astonished and wide eyed and he's like, "Servicing to Creative, aye? Why the transition?". When right at that moment, the Creative Director who had given me the thumbs up only a few minutes back, walked past us, and said, with that wry grin etched matter-of-fact on his face, "EVOLUTION my dear. That's called Evolution!).
P.S: Thanks a ton Ram for getting me this interview. You truly rock man!
Name: Mister Avant Garde Home: Bangalore, Karnataka, India About Me: Have just started making money... Done studying (gosh, and to believe, i started this sojourn when i was all of three)... That's a lot of time i have spent cooped up within a classroom... Shucks, no wonder my DNA reeks of chalk powder! See my complete profile
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