Shaastra, my phone and randomness beyond

I didn’t quite expect myself to blog regularly…॥but I guess it went a lil too far…blame my blog which chooses to eat up words and place the second word in the place of the first and vice versa। So I get back to the dear old Ms Word, which is perhaps the only program (despite my repeated experiments with loadsa others) I use regularly and have been able to get slightly close to mastering. Its been a tiresome while and I keep wondering what exactly made it so, was it the work or was it just how I wanted to do it.
Shaastra 2007, which I thought would be a drab piece of student fest prolonging my work effort considering IIT is miles away from where I live and coz I probably wouldn’t quite figure a thing that would happen around. On the flipside, it was an amazing experience, the amount I actually saw and the times I had through it. And being not so modest I admit I did not feel lost. I felt this satisfaction of having something ‘real’ to write about for a change, which was to a large extent erased by the sheer lack of enthusiasm my paper, showed especially coz I was bursting with it. The worst being, my story getting scrapped at the cost of some celeb birthday tit- bits.
Not to mention how frustrated it made me I was given a brilliant idea of featuring it in the education supplement as a ‘trend story’! Just when I was likely to scream about it I was loaded with some celeb stories in connection with Diwali which apparently deserved priority over the rest. Ya I agree papers can be drab.
So while I ‘work’ at them life churns out more. One night while I was out for a nice dinner, my phone switched itself off for the lack of sufficient charge. I ignore do my thing; get back home enjoying the silence of my phone not ringing (which somehow annoyingly happens once every hour). How was I to predict the rest of my night (and day) would go in me dying to listen to it ring. It refused to switch on despite having been on charge for long. After tampering with it for about 4 hours I discovered some strange tactics to switch it on exactly for a minute (after which it resumed to its dead sate). So, ya after making a million dumb engineers go over it again and again, waiting like one would outside a friggin ICU, I get the answer. My contacts are lost, the whole 500 of them, 3 years of work, and 4 years of life with a phone!!! Giving up on everything I took things to myself and finally recovered every single one of them. What if it took 5 whole hours and a 100 times ( literally) of switching on and off my phone I have them all scribbled in a notepad which I now have to carry wherever I go and pull out at the very mention of having to call anyone. To my relief, I have been lent a ‘spare’ phone by a benevolent flatmate. The story ends with my phone being declared dead! So, if any of you reading this happen to call me and don’t hear the friendly hello on the other side, you’ll know why.
I don’t believe I’ve actually spent as much time as many words over blogging about my phone. Perhaps I am just bored, or its perhaps me getting used to writing about things that aren’t in the faintest ways meaningful. So folks don’t forget Diwali is round the corner as unfortunately no one lets me forget and the papers are gonna keep rubbing it in :)

Here I go!!

So...here I go...this post is titled so because of the sheer finality of the task of me starting a blog.
After days and months of having been told to do so, I decided its time I began. And the vigour I now begin with nothing will stop me from doing this, even the shit loads of work that remains piled and demands completion.
Not that I believe anyone would bother to drop by my blog for a glance, but for those some who incidently, accidently strayed by here is something about me.
I am a student though nothing can actually make you look at me and say so, I neither study nor will I be spotted loitering around college. Come to think of it, I barely ever get there.
The other big thing that I do, amongst many smaller ones is write for a paper and no amount of odds in life can keep me away from doing my work for it.
I like my work, the entire process of working for a story, meeting people and having myself heard. Isn't that what we all look for at the end of the day?

Coming back to the day, a simple paradox makes me get back to this blog after having abandoned it for quite a few hours post the beginning. On one side, I am thrilled about having a huge story published, tedious hours of work, all the running around, and bugging all those people involved beyond forgivness has finally paid off. A half page sweep, with my name in 'big bold red( literally) letters' and I am satisfied. I look at it and feel this sense of pride that I rarely get after the editors have laid their hands on my 'piece'.

With hope of some response, if not towards me towards the person who the story revolved around I get back to the day's work hunting, begging for quotes। While most people welcome me with open doors and awestruck looks (thanks to the big 
brand name)
 there are  who fail to understand the sheer impact of written words.
An incident that happened just about a few hours ago both discouraged and strengthened my already strong resolve to get people to realise the 
worth of the 'print media'.
Here's what happened, I sat like I usually do with my flatmates munching on dinner( if whatever I was eating can pass off as that or even close to it), brooding over how I was short of quotes for yet another story, threatning I'd use them as my guniea pigs if I 
didn't find anyone who gave into my pleadings. Just then one of them uttered, what difference does it make, just take a picture off the net and make up a quote, how is it gonna affect anyone, no one would ever know. Looking back m surprised at my own reactions, but I was aghast, immovable, wordless for a moment untill I finally retorted with a how can I do that its gonna go into paper. To which she said, how would someone know, I can even come up with false names to help you. My reactions of how I never resorted to any such stuff and how journalism and ethics were more than just inseparable was taken with a hearty laugh and a blow to the sternness with which I held my gaze and opinion.
I walked out, with part dejection and part work beckoning me to my comp, and being honest an online friend who I had been ignoring for a while now hoping he feels my comp was abandoned.
This did not end with the mere trifling conversation. My thoughts had the better of me as I sat working. How and where people and their thoughts are headed? and how news dosent seem to matter to a person in the process of it being created or rather collected.

Suddenly, I seemed to realise the importance of local news, something I always cribbed about having to read in a paper, especially in the first few pages। Its true people do not realise the worth or the credibility of news

or a reporter until it hits them in the face। It is indeed true, the harder the blow the more you turn to your paper and realise how it is not just 
an aid but a way of life. Ironically, it is the same people who get up and claim with examples right out of the book, of journalism losing credibility, of corruption embedding our very news making process. 'Making' thats what I call it, news aint quite the same until its collected, organized and 'made' palatable for the reader who is just about to consume it.
Having seen and heard the same from a million people around I enter an organization completely disillusioned and expecting every bit of wrong doing amongst people around. I hate to admit but it has made me half suspicious and I spend more time watching what people do while they work to catch a glimpse of the 'so-called' corruption in a media organization. frankly, I haven't incurred much. A 'little' would make me seem and feel too biased towards my industry of work. But really its not an easy job to work on something that might jus seem light to you when a million (literally in number) people might take what you write to be the final word and use it in conversations and examples for generations thereafter.

So, while my thoughts wander from this to loads of other things, and my eyes watch the clock strike 5......I end this post here....
Waiting for more to provoke me to continue blogging (I aint relying on people reading it)
I hit bed with fears of nightmares of yet another bright and sunny day (I hate them) and slight underlying hopes, that the clouds jus might be generous enough to show up early in the morning tomorrow.