Kabhi kabhi mere dil main khayal aata hai..

During my 3rd yr 2nd sem after my interaction with the executive editor of indian express, bishwanath ghosh, i felt journalism is cool. Moreover the books which i have read made a profound impact on me and made me realise that everyone is brought onto the world for a definite purpose. I felt the purpose for me being on the earth is to be a journalist. And i got my adrenaline punping and started reading the editorials of the newspaper. I read the homilies in national magazines. And suddenly i found intrigued in the machinations of politics. GDP was more interesting than the box office reports. Morbidity excited me.

Voila !! I thought of myself as a pulitzer winner who turns the world upside down with his lampoons. But the other day when i had lots of time(usually also i have) i introspected msyelf. And i mused to myself. If i wanna be a journalist whats my area of writing gonna be. I found some startling revelations.
They are as below :

Politics: I am no madhavan kutty to debate whether the advani yatras are good or not.I dont even remember the number of seats in rajya sabha and lok sabha. So politics is not my cup of tea.

Sports: Atmost i can write on cricket. Whenever a cricket match is going on there are already one billion reporters giving their 'vishesh tippanis'. I do like tennis but those terms seem arcane to me. Anwyays Reuters do a good job for national newspapers considering reporting of tennis matches. So sports will be outrightedly rejected.

Criminal cases: I know it dosnt need a soli sarabjee or ram jethmalani to be a criminal(no pun intended) journalist. But atleast one must need to know the lacunae occuring when a priyadarshini mattoo or a jessica lall is being denied justice. I dont even read john grisham. So minimum legal knowledge is lacking in me. So i would be doing a great disservice to my metier if i want to pursue criminal reporting.

Business: I dont know the difference between dow jones and NYSE. Leave aside nikkei also. I cant even tell the difference betweeN BSE and NSE. I dont know how the spikes are reached when a company enters into a merger or acquisition. My zero economic background renders me useless in this field.

Movie reviews: Since i watch movies a lot i can expect reviewing a movie. But unfortunately all the current movies being made are rip-offs from hollywood flicks. I have not watched much english movies in my life barring the james bond series and some other cult flicks. But sadly i missed many. So i cant even perform an analogy between the original and the rehashed flicks. So i better opt away from that.

Music reviews: Whenever a contestant in indian idol goes wayward-according to the judges- the judges main gripe is that "tum sur main nahi ho". Ergo i could never find the difference between the original and the one the contestant sings. I dont know whats octave, whats raag bhairavi, whats raag panchami, whats beethoven's seventh symphony and stuff. So musical reviews written by me would be read only by two persons. One is yours truly and other poor guy would be the editor !!

Book reviews: To do a book review one needs to read the book atleast three times without even leaving the caricature on the blurb. I can rarely read a book twice. Moreover i am no sunil sethi or mini kapoor to write a critique. It would atmost come out as a kitschy review with some references to the authors previous books and telling bout the characters in the current one. So i would better leave book reviews to the competent ones.

Technical writing: The sheer fact that i am chosing journalism over engineering, after four screwed up years, bears testimony to the fact that i have absolutely zilch knowledge in technical things.

Gosh !! What should i do now ?? Eureka !! Theres a refuge for me

Page 3 parties : I might not be a paras tomar but i can definitely be kandy(thank u archana puran singh). Just imagine the beau monde with all the P3P's under one roof. But damn !! After watching page 3 movie i loathe that job. So that makes me a virtually no job holder even after i complete my journalism course.

So the lesson to be learnt is that one needs to be stephenian(like swapna dasgupta or barkha dutt) or a doon school alumnus(like karan thapar or aroon poorie )to be a successful name in the field of print journalism. And i am building castles in the air that i will be at the same pedestal one day.