Aamchidilli
आमची दिल्ली
Delhi's first WhatsApp magazine
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Book Review
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Ascendance
By
Sadhna Shanker
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Add years to your life, order custom made babies to the 'creation centre', haven't replaced ageing parts of your body? Do that...
That's the world centuries years from hence. Earth has become inhabitable and humans have migrated to a distant planet
And yes, there's something more..men and women have separated for good...building an impregnable fence between them the new planet...
Sadhana Shanker in her sci-fi takes the reader on a journey in future.
To know more one has to read 'Ascendance'. Shanker has already written four books, this one is her first science fiction.
Can men-women confrontation lead to total disconnect, separation?
On gender, Canadian psychologist Steven Pinker says after the seventies, impetus has been feminism, the political, social, academic and literary movement that has steadily been creating space and dignity for women. A section of the feminists-labeled 'gender feminists'- have, however, gone hammer and tongs against the evolutionary concept of different hard-wiring for males and females. They insist that environment alone has created man and woman orientations for the unbridled exploitation of women by men. They demand fifty-fifty distribution of jobs and to hell with mismatches...
'Ascendance' provokes the reader to ponder on the possibilities that distant future holds.
It takes time for a reader to famiarise with names of people...then one can't expect people's names to remain the same even in the next decade.
Wanting to transport her readers into the distant future, Shanker ensures that the journey in time is not smooth. Once you connect with the people and the plot, the book, however, becomes thoroughly interesting.
(A PhD in Economics, Sadhna Shanker IRS, is a civil servant, a TV anchor and host . She is married to Dr. Dnyaneshwar Mulay, IFS, a well-known author himself. Published by Rupa Publications, pages 317. Rs.395.)

My physiotherapist’s News Therapy

As he strapped and fastened the belt, the
physiotherapist told me that he had found a new therapy and now was at peace
with himself and the world.

I have stopped reading newspapers and I don’t watch
the television, he looked at me for my reaction to his new therapy. Newspapers I
do read but not as the first thing in the morning but before I sleep and am
drowsy, I skip the first page without fail jump to the inside pages, he
elaborated, happy that I was not wearing a look of ridiculing his new found key
to happiness.

My introduction to him as a journalist had earned
me free introduction to a new therapy if one wants to be at peace with oneself
and the world.

Frankly, I could not agree more.

On vacation for a week I forgot that my day
begins with reading newspapers. There was no television. I don’t watch the TV much
anyway. The deafening clamour that the so called ‘discussions’ on news channels
are, even the journalist in me tries to look for news and fails to find one. There
are vertical, horizontal scrolls in multiple lines giving something they call
the news. This is in addition to what the news reader says. One is terribly at
loss.

If the all-powerful government can cut off social
media with regular intervals in the Kashmir valley, it can as well try to ban
publication on line and off line of newspapers, order television channels to go
off air for at least two days in a week. Am sure peace will return at least for
four days in the week.

I can then tell my physio friend that I have
improved upon his new discovery.

(Story) Teller Maid

Chanu updates Sushama on the twists and turns that her life takes, when she is doing her work meticulously of doing the dishes and wiping the floor. In her story one gets updates- real life- on small issues like women's empowerment, beti bachao, banks, mosquitos, money lenders, domestic violence etc. etc.
She was happy this morning. Her husband was kind, did not beat her last night although came back home with his usual quota of desi tharra. How hard do you work, he told Chanu and made her drink some milk. He had also earned Rs.400/- from the e-rickshaw he has purchased using the savings of Chanu and did the inaugural run. He has taken money from a money lender as banks were not helpful. The interest is high- 10 per cent. She is willing to toil even harder to make the family happy-sending her daughter Chandni and son to school.
Chanu also purchased new pair of chappals- with a high heel- replacing her flip-flops.
That was the story today. The scene will change tomorrow.

Don't colour your news reports!

Journalism schools- mass communication in today’s parlance- add ‘c’ in addition to 5 Ws and 1H that form the building blocks of a news story while teaching ‘news reporting and writing’. There is need to add ‘colour’ to the news story after getting the basics i.e. who, what, where, when, why and how.

One of the crisis that today’s mass media faces is because of this ‘c’. Excess use of ‘colour’- bordering on blatant lies- that is making the ‘news’ today mostly murky and toxic, like the highly polluted air of Delhi.

One of the often asked quizzes used to be what is in black and white but is always re(a)d. News always used to be a simple black and white matter, like the good old b and w photographs still in our albums. No manipulation, no plying around with the emotions of the readers. Simple, plain projection of facts in a readable format, hence called a news ‘story’.

Sensational journalism is not recent invention but its dose never was toxic and pervasive.

The term ‘yellow’ journalism originated in the US. The term was coined in the mid-1890s to characterize the sensational journalism that used some yellow ink in the circulation war between Joseph Pulitzer's (the Pulitzer prize is named after him) New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal.

There is no yellow ink in the print media today but lots of sensationalism. Colours have their own role to play in mass media. ‘Blue’ would denote porn. Everybody knows pink papers.

Life is full of colours. One only has to be careful using colours that are harmful and blinding.

Jockeying around…

Not long time ago we knew a jockey was a person who rides a horse in horse races which were meant for the rich and enjoyed gambling.  The dictionary meaning is that he is a boy or a man who rides in a horse race, a horse dealer, one who takes undue advantage in a business. As a verb it means to jostle by riding against, to manoeuvre, to trick by maneuvering.

Now jockeys have entered your life in a big way and no, we are not talking about the undergarments brand only.  Tune in to any FM radio station and the one who engages in endless chatter and in between plays some songs is called a Radio Jockeys or RJ. A radio jockey is a person who whose job is to introduce different sections of a programme or play recorded popular music on radio. With multiple radio channels competing to grab your ears today’s RJ also jostles, as the dictionary meaning says, against other RJs. There is maneuvering and the art involves tricking the listener into staying put on the same radio station.

Then you have the Disk Jockeys. Come any public function involving celebration  of birth days or wedding or engagement. A good DJ is the one who makes the people- young and old, bold and bald, fat or thin- to hit the dance floor and shake a leg. These guys stand behind the mysterious looking instruments with multiple buttons and the DJ is quick to shift from one song to another in quick succession to keep the rhythm or the party and keep people on the dance floor.

If the RJs and the DJs are the jockeys who are known for their profession, there are jockeys in your everyday life who play the role of Radio or Disk jockeys. They chatter endlessly giving others little time to talk. They manoeuvre, trick and are generally harmless but for their ability to keep people engaged and stay tuned to their ‘radio stations’.  In today’s fast moving world, the number of jockeys in your life will only increase. Take for instance the mushrooming WhatsApp groups who are controlled by WJs- we can call them WhaatsApp Jockeys.