Yes, the World.

an afternoon with shyam benegal

“tell him I hated Bose, but loved Making of the Mahatma”
“tell him I’m looking for a good role in the movies”
“he might just offer you a film”

Sorry people. I did not tell Shyam benegal any of the stuff you asked me to.
Actually for the most part I kept my mouth shut and my ears open.

He spoke about many things, from the distasteful reality shows on TV today to the reason why ‘ramdev ka sajjanpur’ became ‘welcome to sajjanpur’.

I’ll begin with the latter.

In his own words, people want ‘evening entertainment’ and to them Shyam benegal can probably only provide ‘evening’s gyaan’

To escape the tag of being ’serious’ and heavy, the marketing team at UTV decided to alter the title to the more frivolous and easy going ‘welcome to sajjanpur’.

For those who know Prof Mathew from MICA, would understand when I say that great minds think alike. The disappointment at the new generation’s lack of ‘world view’ is both depressing and very obvious in the sentiments Mr Benegal expressed.

He is so right when he says we have become information gatherers for reasons known best only to us. That we cannot ever be wise with our concept of education which does not push us to read more and understand more perspectives.

I’m not sure if I found the meeting with Shyam Benegal inspiring or depressing, knowing what my life and career is and how it’s heading in a direction as a meaningless as reality tv.
Maybe if my state of mind was more positive I’d be inspired. But right now I can’t be anything but thoroughly depressed.

why it sucks to work in a basement

To put my misery in perspective for everyone, let me inform you that I work in Mumbai. A city which is about to face a nasty monsoon (they’re expecting 102% rainfall this year, whatever that means).

Last year was my first monsoon in Mumbai. Sitting at my desk in the basement I was quite paranoid about the rains since I’d heard plenty about Mumbai’s penchant for drowning.

On a rainy day during my first month in Mumbai, my colleagues from another unit from my basement started to pack up and leave at 3pm. Looking out I panicked as I saw the raindrops trickling down the little ventilator window.

Grabbing my umbrella and bag I decided that I would leave for home at that very moment (even at the risk of getting fired for taking an unauthorized ‘half-day’).

In my head, I was already revising my argument for leaving early.
I wasn’t going to let myself drown to death because of my job!! Enough is enough.

Okay, so basically it turned out the rest of them were leaving for a team party, and there was no threat of drowning to ‘death’ as I had imagined.

Yes, I returned to my desk and worked till 8.