Sabbatical Yay!

It’s a very slow day in office. Voting is going on in Mumbai and the whole world is closed, except the newspaper offices. People are also enjoying this brief break from rusty Mumbai life. As per the initial reports, the turnout is only about 10% in polling booths. Why trouble yourself standing in the crowd in this heat when you can sleep the whole day!

But …

Why should a business paper be open when the stock market, banks or any other financial institutions are closed is beyond me.

Anyway, the boss is pretty calm today. He is a great journalist. He was trying his level best of rubbing his enthusiasm to me but with all my non-activities I have hopefully conveyed the message to him that I am not interested in being a great journalist as him. After several brave attempts including some bursts of inspiring lectures, he has realized his futility and is pretty chilled out with me now. These days he asks me about the weather instead of developments in my beat.

I have successfully conveyed to him that this is job for me and I have passion for it, but not ‘burning’ passion as he wants to see.

Let’s see how long this calm continues. I better do the most of it. I better write a blog post before the bossy wakes up from his slumber, he afterall, sometimes forgets my message to him.

All the star reporters are playing cricket outside. Earlier they used to make my life miserable calling me again and again to join them. But I have demonstrated to them my love for my chair and preference for arm-chair journalism and arm-chair cricket, i.e. watching India Premier League sitting on my chair instead of gathering like bees around the TV-hive. They now know that nothing except cigarettes attract me. But these people don’t smoke. So it takes some effort between us to communicate with each other. Most of the time they do the effort.

Of late, I am thinking of taking a break. Journalists, who in their entire career has achieved nothing, call it “sabbatical.” I know at least five six great useless creatures who have taken a sabbatical after five-six years of doing nothing. My boss, on the other hand, is the most diligent workaholic I have ever seen. I have never seen him talking about taking sabbaticals. At the most, seven or fifteen days leave to recharge, but that’s not sabbatical.

I doubt if he is forced to take sabbatical for a month, he will start a hunger strike at the gate of this office.

But I want a ‘sabbatical.’ I fit the bill perfectly. In my five years of journalistic career, I have done nothing, achieved nothing and I hope to remain the same in my next thirty years.

I fancy myself with that old bloke from the vernacular media who comes to the press conference every time to have free food. The guy is a fragile frame of his former self. As fragile as my news stories.

His body just needs a good shake-up to breath its last. Going by the bulging bags under his fish-like eyes, bent spine, withered skin, I am sure this guy is the happy playground of all kinds of diseases, diabetes to start with.

Yet, this septuagenarian savors a kilo of the sweetest sweets, finishes almost one whole cooked sheep, and eats rice equivalent to a produce of about a square-hector field. If the press conference has drinks too, most of the time people carry him office after the conference. During the conference, he snores. Yet, he comes back for the next conference perfectly fit.

He is my inspiration. I know if he can survive in this profession, I will also. For that I don’t need to be as active as my boss.

My colleagues have realized I am like that ancient stone. You cannot move me. If you really want to disturb my peace, you start worshiping me. They come back to me for some inspiration and pastime when they think they have done enough for the day and are dead tired. With my inspiring talks of non-activity, I give them the much sought after peace of mind.

They don’t disturb me anymore.

I am a perfect guy to flaunt a ‘gone-for-a sabbatical’ tag. But I have to wait for sometime before that. Meanwhile I can go for a fifteen-day vacation and go unnoticed. Far from the madding crowd, if I may be allowed to say it poetically.

I am making some effort in searching for the ideal place. During weekends I am going to far off places to check if my mobile picks up signals. The place where my mobile won’t pick up signal should be the perfect place. It should be “not reachable” whenever contacted. People should not get me when they want. But I should be able to get them whenever I want. The place should be cheap and should have an abundance of chicken and mutton serving restaurants. Booze should be duty-free and the only channel to come there should be Doordarshan. Internet should be unheard of and cable television a dream-come true. Yet, there should be electricity. I should be able to sleep properly with the fan on and mosquito repellants diligently doing their duties.

Oh yes, newspapers should not come there. If you have noticed, the world plunged into sadness after newspapers were invented. Before newspapers, literatures were like Ramayana, Mahabharata, Iliad, Odyssey -- all those great books of superhuman activities. People instantly realized they are not able to match the heroes there and so they didn’t dare to be active, instead sitting calm and composed under the great banyan tree and believing whatever the interpreter told them.
Post newspapers, literatures are like “Hard Times” “Ulysses”, “Outsider”, “Sons and Lovers” and the mother of them all – “War and Peace”. Basically all those troubled-conscience pieces that was possible by writers who read newspapers and started thinking parallel. Not only reading man, the writers were journalists too. All those sad lots …

I also read newspapers. I read them everyday to find out what people in my beat has written and to crystal-gaze as how my day in the office will start.

On my way to the office, being one smelly sardine in the great moving can of sardines, I device clever answers to save my arse from the inevitable question of my boss, “why have you missed this?” My day start with that and ends with, “What? No story for tomorrow too??? I really don’t know how you …”

I hate newspapers. Newspapers should be a strict no-no at the place of my mini-sabbatical.

Oh yes, the most important of all. It should be a paid leave.

There is no incentive in going to a place just for doing nothing when I am getting paid doing the same thing in office everyday.

Laughable stuff

Sorry for not writing here for so long. Sorry for my last post that hurt you. That was intentional. I wanted to pick up a quarrel with somebody, I was fighting with myself, a weight that I wanted to throw at somebody and relax. Sadly nobody gulped the bait.

I am sorry for myself.

Journalism is taking away too much of my time. It discomforts me a great deal when I think about it. But the joy of this profession is that there is no accumulation of profit. You get your due then and there. If you are in a newspaper, you get your reward the next morning.

The fun ends there though.

Next day is a new day, a new challenge, a new tension about what you will write now? Today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s wastepaper for the readers. For reporters, today’s newspaper is the filthiest of waste paper. When you were writing the article, you were busy, bosses were happy. Now you are done. Now you are story-less, worse than being penny-less in the world.

But still, you somehow pull yourself to dig a new hole to taste water. Over a period of time, it can become addictive, I guess. Of course, over a period of time, you get to know for sure if you fit the bill or not. Either you get excited or the profession will throw you out. You cannot sustain in journalism if you don’t have passion for it. No fooling business here.

Babes and blokes with those shiny eyes dreaming of becoming pseudo-famous, a word or two for caution – this profession is not glamorous.

Anyway, instead of trying to become the role model in journalism, I better cough it clean. I have conceded defeat. I am a failure in my pursuit.

When we were kids, my father’s favourite word of advice was “dream for the stars, and you shall reach the moon.” How true he was. I always dreamt of becoming a writer. Always. Ever since I was a child, I had this fascination for writers. When I was in college and university I used to roam around College Street, the Mecca of Calcutta’s book loving crowd, just in case I catch a glimpse of a writer! I frequented coffee house, secretly planning to catch hold of a writer and be his apprentice. That never happened. Nobody thought me fit for an apprenticeship. Nevertheless, I made some good friends in some “let us pool and publish” magazines and managed to print some of my juvenile short stories. I started behaving as a writer, as in, intentionally forgetting things and pretending to hear people calling me after a time lag of five seconds.

But then, it tired me, the acting part. I realised I have a long way to go.

I didn’t want to become a journalist. It happened. How it happened is an interesting story for which the aforementioned magazines play a role, but that I reserve to tell you some other day. Nevertheless, I became a journalist. I dreamt for the star, I reached the moon. My father’s wisdom came handy.

Now I cover treasury, the most uninspiring thing for you. And banks, including the central bank of the country, bit interesting, if you chose to take interest in financial systems. But then, my journalism starts and ends there.

People ask me about stock tips. Since I am a ‘financial journalist’. I am supposed to know everything about the market and my recommendations should make the person rich in just a fortnight. When I try to reason that my ‘expertise’ lies in bonds where the minimum lot of trading is Rs50 million, people refuse to believe that I don’t know anything about equity. I am a journalist, I am supposed to know everything under the sun.

Worst, people ask me what is my assessment about the upcoming election. Who is most likely to form the government? What would be the equation like? When I explain that I am a business reporter, they come back to the stock tip. When I tell them, with all my feigned humbleness, that I cover bonds and I have a workable knowledge on bond market, people think I am trying to be modest, or I don’t trust them, or I am a true ‘professional’ – not to divulge secrets. The worst comes when some of them give me a scornful look. It translates into roughly something like this, “If you are a journalist, I must be King Arthur” and “what the fuck you are doing in journalism if you don’t know anything?”

I wither in front of those suspicious looks. I can’t help but to look for cover.

Nevertheless, in my personal space, I am happy with what journalism has so far offered me. People who matter in my field know my name. I get mails (fan-mails? Hate-mails too!) from the readers. My parents feel proud to see my name in printed words. I get to meet the celebrities and heavyweights you see on television and newspapers everyday.

And I get the chance to wonder at their ordinariness.

The ghost of a writer just left me a couple of months ago. Till then, I was torn between my career and my dream. It did no good. Neither I wrote substantial anything, nor I concentrated at my job in hand because I thought this is not my world. It’s almost like betraying the wife for the mistress.

But my neglected profession, as if just to lure me into her arms, is giving me rich rewards. That day I wrote a column. Actually not. I contributed in a daily column in the absence of our consulting editor. He didn’t write that day and instead told me to fill his space. That doesn’t make me a columnist. But yes, it IS writing a column for sure. An unthinkable honour for a junior reporter. You don’t write a column unless you are an expert in it. I am just learning about the bond market, yet, I wrote a column on it.

I was excited.

I called up my mother, “Maa, I am writing a column today.”
“What? You are not writing about banks anymore? Your bosses are angry with you,” she was tensed.

I had no choice but to tell my simple mother that things are fine here in office. But I didn’t try to explain her about the significance of a column.

I called my father, “Baba, I am writing a column.”
“Ok.”

I wanted a word of encouragement from someone. I wrote that old man in England a mail. As expected, there was nothing but encouragements. I knew this. He is predictable. He doesn’t believe in hurting people with his words. May be because he is a refined Englishman, may be because he is a genuine good man. May be because he thinks I am too sensitive and not capable of handling his criticism. But I knew his response, it didn’t encourage me at all. He is predictable in his mails to me.

I am staying alone these days. I missed my friend I wanted to call him and share this piece of news with him. I knew he would be happy, genuinely happy for me. I knew that. He always celebrated my happiness and shared my pain.

But he has hurt me somehow, I don’t know how. I didn’t call him. I won’t share my joys and sorrows with him anymore.

I called my former boss, who also happens to be my good friend, in the pretext of enquiring about a friend’s job application. I broke the news casually, he was excited. I felt happy. Really happy, but feigned to be “it’s normal. I am not a columnist really. It’s just stop gap.” But I was happy.

I wanted to call this guy who I consider my elder brother, who shielded me from all the workplace turbulences throughout my career with him. But he had left Mumbai two days back and I was not sure if I should disturb him with my ‘trivial’ news. Anyway, we are in the same organisation and he will see my name in the paper.

I called up this coolest guy in the world. A man I consider the kindest yet the most brutal in the world, the most moody and the most magnificent. I wanted to talk to him and after sometime I wanted to break the news. Because I believe in his emotions. If he congratulates me, I know it would be no formalities. But he has discarded me from his life I guess. He seemed not interested in talking to me. I knew he was brutal.

“Say something. Why are you answering in monosyllables,” I said. Thinking shall I break the news now? My personal feat?

“I have nothing to say actually,” was his cold answer. I bade him good bye.

True. I have nothing to say too.

Finally, I broke the news to my spiritual guru. We were having beer. He was elated. It was genuine. Suddenly the world seemed all draped in colour. Suddenly it seemed, I have achieved something big. The sparkle on his eyes told me I am happy seeing somebody happy for me.

Suddenly I wished my parents and sister and brother were here. That predictable old man was here. My friend and former flatmate was here with me. I wanted to have my former boss and the meanest and coolest guy at my room with me.

I wished they would demand a party. I wished I would be beaten up for refusing to give a party.

I swear I would have emptied my bank balance if they would have asked for a party.

Yet nobody asked for it.