Anger and agression, we are asked to look at it as a virtue, as the way to move on. I am fed ip of hearing the ``we want to give something to the uth, something they will like.'' from the mouths of these non-young editors--or maybe they think they are still teenagers among the others, all in touch with what the youth wants. It was ironic that our 50 plus editor tells us all 20 some that we need to be more young and ` hip'.

Thats what that generation is stuck with. The idea that youngsters want easily digestible, light on the head, suger coated pop stuff, or some such. I mean look at the news channels today, you put on one and u are glued, withouta a thought, caught into the blurry of some kindda propaganda....a kind of hypnotic draw that soaps have. Crime tops the chart. It's all about the packaging in the news industry, the content has become secondary and mainstream is after all mainstream...how does it concern a very large poplatio grappling with a whole different set of issues that are left with the NGOs to tackle. They don't concern the mainstream.

News only reflects the face of Urban India..vidarbha has to have a spate of suicides, North East brutal Human rights violations and Nandigram violence for them to find any news space.

Coming back to the point, the world on the whole is becoming a market where you target selectively and for now its the IT, youth, crime ruling the roost.

For the like of us who enter media with some lofty ideas of change or som larger than life thing, are left to realign priorities with the corporate plan to survive the mainstream struggle...or worse write about fashion, food, and like our editor puts it ``pretty young things' on page...therein he says, lies the truth.

A truth created, floated, promoted and assimilated day in and day out in the tabloid and crazy media culture.

boomranged!

well i wish for everyone, that before making the `wrong' decision their assumptions boomrang and come right back with a whole new understanding. To elaborate, when one is stuck in a situation and is very sure that the next best thing will make it all ok..its better to sleep on it...coz something impulsive could be disasterous. Sleep on it then in hindsight seems like a life saviour. SO i decide today as a matter of policy that that'll be step 1 of the process called decision making will be just that.

Lilette Dubey's `Kanyadaan' just reflected our servility to being politically correct and cultured, that we don't express the unreasonable in us, that which detracts from the perception we have of ourselves. And get threatened by what challenges that morality or the way of life we know.
Especially for a country like ours, thats so diverse and segregated still, one understands why marrying into different communities can be such a cause for concern.
Its the basic fear of living. On another plane, a fear of making unconventional choices, a fear of confronting the contrary, fear of gettingto know the Frankenstien within, to give it the air to breathe.
Thats one way of `survival' we choose. That is also why as kids we din't care a damn if running into that wall would break a nose, it was important to run like mad, scream like crazy, smile like a moron, coz mad,crazy and moron hadn't entered our vocabularies. The way back then, seems to me, is the only way forward.

Loneliness is two parts truth and one part mulling over that truth. Thats what everyone, at some age, after endless red eyed nights, are bound to arrive at. So here there was this guy, who sounded pretty pleased with his life at a BPO joint--and almost made it sound like something out of Pleasure Island, and something so out of reach of the other India.
What got me thinking, however, was his statement on why casual sex and promiscuity are almost a need in the industry. Or wait was it trigered by that emotional infidelity discussion on TV. Whatever it was...he tells me that small town India, that finds itself in the metro culture, has absolutely no solace to seek but in a relationship. So even if its infidelity, its a need ``without which you'll go mad.''
Makes sense..there's a huge potential for instant gratifation there, but some serious comfort. Maybe not. If at all, it will be a worthier cousin of grass at max. Theres no answers there.
Coz if i have it figured right, human beings define themselves with this loneliness. They are afraid of it but can't imagine an end to it. Coz the solution in most cases is heavily reliant on another agent, a person or a thing. If it can hug back, then all-the-more better, if it sedates the senses...will do.
So as we grow up, we consciously keep seeking love as a cure for loneliness. That just makes it worse and increases the possibility of deluding oneself that infatuation is love. And from then on, the word takes over, with all its interpretations. Thats another step into the loneliness well.
Well heres a half baked analysis to something thats not worth a thought.

the shadow lines of tolerance is whats keeping it all together
there's no right to release
only a blueprint of a retreat within my head