Impact and Hatari

Another lazy post.
First there's some gyan from the fourth anniversary special issue of Impact, published today.


And then, there is this baby elephant rescue that someone I don't even know sent to me on youtube. I bet you will rewind and play it over several times, each time wanting to reach your own hands into the water to help the mother and aunt elephants fish the little one out of the watering hole.

Blogging about blogging

This is a lazy post. Am simply reproducing some stuff from the latest issue of Campaign India in which Suman Srivastava and I have given gyan on blogging. Read and digest. And comment if you dare.....

Living water

Last week I went to Cannes, for the first time ever in my overlong career, which would come as a surprise to many. It was most impressive, the event of events. Sponsor money drooling out of every pore in every orange carpet and tourquoise wall. Creativity shouting out from rooftops, pavements and beachfronts. Chic presenters. Happy recipients. Tired judges. Eager networkers.

I moved on to Lourdes within two days of experiencing Cannes, to fulfil an old vow. It's a picturesque village at the foothills of the snow peaked Pyrenees, where a young girl called Bernadette encountered the mother of Christ in a series of 15 apparitions between February and July, 150 years ago. In one of those apparitions, Our Lady asked her to drink from the dirt and grass on the ground beneath her feet, which she did, and a spring magically appeared from which millions of pilgrims now drink and bathe in and carry bottles of water back home with them (as I did), known as it is for its miraculous healing properties.

This is a picture of the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes taken at the entrance to the Sanctuaries of St Bernadette - as you can tell I had good sunny weather!


And this is a picture of the Grotto. Surprisingly, the statue of Our Lady is small and made in the exact size and place where she appeared, dressed in white and blue with roses on her feet, unlike the oversized statues in all the usual grottos we see.


I did take a dip in one of the baths, after a four hour wait, in which all the decades of all the mysteries of the Rosary were recited in five different languages, by the end of which I didn't really want to hear another Ave Maria.

Truth be told, I would go back to the 12 th century shrine of St Francis of Assisi in Italy, the patron saint of animals, again and again and again. Lourdes, where a candle costs 2 euros and a mass costs 18 euros, has become a place for the tourists and the rich pilgrims. Perhaps I should sponsor some needy person to go there, because I'm not sure I myself would go there again.

This one's for M and P....

Last Friday, I had lunch with two adorable little people I met through this blog. Untainted by the passage of time, they are about to embark on a journey of love and discovery to the land where Sita met Ravana, and was subsequently rescued by the monkey God.

This one is for them - as a reminder that magic often happens when the classes meet the masses. U2's version of Hallelujah is like fine red wine to the grapes of Leonard Cohen's lyrics, but it took a middle-of-the-road midling-talented dreadlocked Jason Castro to deliver a bit of its rich bouquet to the 32 million people who watched the finals of American Idol last week.

Dear M and P, may the Lord of Song be by your side always.....

Tree gazing in China

Everyone warned me about China - 'they eat anything that moves', 'they won't understand a word you say and vice versa', 'they don't care about human or animal rights', 'they are big cheats, check everything you buy, and bargain down by 10 times the quote'.

All of it was true and all of it was false. I loved China, Chinese people, Chinese food, and most of all, Chinese flora. From the breathtaking beautiful peach blossoms and magnolia to the four hundred year old cypress and pine trees in the Forbidden City, my lasting unforgettable impression of China won't be that of the glass and concrete jungles in Shanghai or of the expanse of Beijing, but rather of these images below:


Two ancient cypress trees entwined into one - celebrating the union of everlasting love.

A sheep dog herding his family in a pine forest within the suburbs of Beijing....a strange mixture of rural living in urban confines.


Patchi line up against a backdrop of forests grown by man around the artificial Kuoming lake built three hundred years ago in the Q'ing dynasty's Summer Palace.

Magnolia (?) in our apartment building foyer.


Pine and peach in the Forbidden City, where someone told us there were "no trees".


Ancient leafless trees in the rock garden in the Forbidden City.


At last......a bird's nest, yes they do live here, they haven't all been culled off.


And the most beautiful one among them all ....a cypress in the gardens around the excavated Ming tombs. A place to leave one's soul behind.

Someday soon, San Francisco.........my patron saint must surely be waiting there for me.

Things that make this dolphin smile.....

This true story I read in today's Mumbai Mirror......renews my faith and implicit belief in the generosity of nature.

Wellington: A dolphin swam up to two distressed whales that appeared headed for death in a beach stranding in New Zealand and guided them to safety, witnesses said on Wednesday.

The actions of the bottlenose dolphin — named Moko by residents who said it spends much of its time swimming playfully with humans at the beach — amazed would-be rescuers and an expert who said they were evidence of the species’ friendly nature.

The two pygmy sperm whales, a mother and her calf, were found stranded on Mahia Beach, northeast Wellington, on Monday morning, said Conservation Department worker Malcolm Smith. Rescuers worked for more than one hour to get the whales back into the water, only to see them strand themselves four times on a sandbar slightly out to sea. It looked likely the whales would have to be euthanised to prevent them suffering a prolonged death, Smith said.

Then along came Moko, who approached the whales and led them 200 meters along the beach and through a channel out to the open sea.

“Moko just came flying through the water and pushed in between us and the whales,” Juanita Symes, another rescuer, told The Associated Press. “She got them to head toward the hill, where the channel is. It was an amazing experience. The best day of my life.”

Friends and family

I spent an interesting weekend at home in Torda, warding off langur subadults who made free with the trees and leaves in my balcony. I tried unsuccessfully to get some pictures of them but the dogs and cats kept hounding them from branch to branch so it became quite impossible to get them still even for ten seconds. I have therefore made good with some of these.

This is PD, blind as a bat after maggots ate away his eyes more than once. He now gets around with the help of his nose and young Beauty, his personal guide dog.


Shadow was with us for four months with a large gaping maggot wound on his head. After full healing we sent him home to Moira, a week later he was back. We sent him home again, he left his owners and found his way back one more time. Last week, once again for the third time. Persistent chap. Here he is lurking away from my camera in my backyard, and later giving Stick a lecture in geography.





Kim was left with us by his owners at the ripe old age of twelve. Two years on, here is sunning himself at the top of the hill on a chilly Friday morning.



Boo has a sad story behind him. After treating him for repeated skin infection, his owners abandoned him at Betim after he was discharged. For three days he wandered around hungry and chased by the street dogs, till a lady spotted him and called us. We took him back, and have refused to let his owner have him again. Five months later he is fully cured and being adopted soon.



And finally this is Rita, daschund cocker spaniel cross who was brought in for sterilisation and discovered to have jaundice. She is less than a year old, fully recovered, had all her shots and is up for adoption. A real real darling, very tiny and playful. If any of you are interested please call us at +91 832 2416180, and speak to Dr Dinella (in the picture) or Dr Deby.

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday. We had piping hot pancakes for breakfast yesterday, as is traditionally done on the feast of the Mardi Gras. For years as a child, Ash Wednesday meant queuing up to be anointed with ash on the forehead by a priest who recited, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return". Then begun the 40 days of Lent, fast, abstinence and reflection.

I have long since stopped going to church on Ash Wednesday for the ritual annointment. On a working week day with all the travel I do, it just stopped working out. However, for the past decade, I have tried to use the season of Lent to reflect, repent, and hopefully recover from past wrongdoings.

One is supposed to abstain from the pleasures of the flesh - eating meat, drinking alcohol, etc - during these forty days. Since I don't do either anyway, my symbolic sacrifice is to give up on anything I really love and enjoy doing, whatever that might be that year. This year the sacrifice is going to be particularly hard on me....but what the hell, it could never ever match up to a crucifixion, so why not?

Let me leave you with this poem called Ash Wednesday, written by T S Eliot in 1927, the year my father was born. It's a long read, but if you have 5 minutes to spare, try it out. The words are haunting, some of them will stay with you forever.

Right and wrong

Last week we innocently released the 2008 Lintas Media Guide, in a pretty little pen drive in a pretty little case - all red and gold and christmasy.


While many media featured its contents simply and rather boringly, DNA took the opinions of several of our competitors and did this proactive story below, besides the usual report.



We responded with this in today's DNA.


I understand from a reliable resource that Vikram wants to do a rejoinder. I am not sure why. But it will be a good one to read. Bottom line, TAM now captures only part of all that is spent in relation to tv, and it's high time we looked for ways to measure the rest of the spend too. Ah, maybe I should start sharpening my pencils.....

Busy Bee

This is the 2008 me.

Cute
Fat
Loads of attitude
Busy busy

(Multiple choice answers allowed here, but only one answer is the right one, the rest are false.)

I didn't get to write that last post, and after Ravi Kiran's stunningly written wake-up call, I don't even want to. A delayed Mumbai bound flight gave us five hours together in Delhi last week - with much much catching up. One more unusual gift to add to my 2007 list.

Back to my hive now.

Last but one

As I try to write up my annual year ender column for indiantelevision.com, I am a bit stumped. What was so special about this year that Sonali Krishnan and her tribe have not already done to death? New channels, new stations, new magazines, new movies...the same old blah blah.

Maybe I should write about all the unusual gifts I received instead. Like the imagine pad Bamboo (pen tablet) from NDTV Imagine "capture an idea before it runs away". The wooden toys fridge magnets from Dilli Haat. The DVD of "an inconvenient truth" sent to me twelve months before it became a fad, and four months before it won an Oscar. The bucket of colostrum enriched puppy formula from Australia. The 3D holographic sculpture of the Laughing Buddha sent by Peter whose grin welcomes me home every Mumbai evening. The in-room golf set from Sony. Mary's blue fleece and Marie's brown cape to warm me up in a cold Chicago. A three bedroom apartment in a plush Khar lane. Two three-wheeler animal ambulances. A graphic designer's first attempt with oils on canvas featuring three gauti pups lounging inside a splash of deep ocean blue. The magical heat sensitive colour changing coffee mug from Bindaas. Our first pineapple.

This is not my last post this year. I still have to write that year ender, and publish that here before it goes up on their site. Meanwhile, let me leave you with this ad for HP, featuring my most favorite TV star, without his face - but with a sqeaky screechy world's most recognisable voice like that, who needs a face?

Views from windows

December 5th, Chicago. There were snow showers all night long. In the morning, I woke up to this sight - my first encounter with fresh snow on the streets, made even more beautiful by a cheerful smiling sun and glistening pine trees.



December 15th, Dandeli. A river flowed right in front of our tents, set in a jungle lodge in the teak and bamboo forests of South West India. I woke up to a darkish twilight, the clear waters barely visible through the overhanging branches.



Black and white views that spoke volumes and still do. I have learnt much in 2007. Thank you, nature.

Lost!

My template, and all my XML files. While our systems department attempts to recover the lot, I've used a temporary template, only because I was eager to post this incredibly sweet video I just received, and wouldn't be able to do that for the next four days - yes travelling again.

This describes the reunion between a lady and a lion she rescued and nursed back to health. She placed him in a zoo and when she visited him, he gave her what is known as the 'hug of the millennium'. Watch it to know what a real real hug is :-)

Old Turkey Buzzard

Eyes of all kinds fascinate me. I tend to judge a person by his/her eyes and I connect with animals most through their eyes. Birds' eyes specially are riveting, disproportionately large and heavy lidded when blinking. The opening shots in Mackenna's Gold featuring Old Turkey Buzzard's eyes, do you remember them? If not, here is a reminder.



I was a very little girl when my brother took me to see the movie and for weeks after that we sang about gold and gold, men will do anything for gold. As I grew older, the bird itself and what he stood for became more understandable. He inspired the opening frames of our first GSPCA film, posted here. Today, I am humming these lines and find the truth in them uncanny.

Old Buzzard knows that he can wait
For every mother's son has got a date
A date with fate, with fate.......

Note in my diary - 2008, got to visit the Grand Canyon.

Thanksgiving

Today, Americans all over the world celebrate their National Thanksgiving Day. Here is the text of their President's sealed proclamation for the day :

Thanksgiving Day, 2007
A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

Americans are a grateful people, ever mindful of the many ways we have been blessed. On Thanksgiving Day, we lift our hearts in gratitude for the freedoms we enjoy, the people we love, and the gifts of our prosperous land.

Our country was founded by men and women who realized their dependence on God and were humbled by His providence and grace. The early explorers and settlers who arrived in this land gave thanks for God's protection and for the extraordinary natural abundance they found. Since the first National Day of Thanksgiving was proclaimed by President George Washington, Americans have come together to offer thanks for our many blessings. We recall the great privilege it is to live in a land where freedom is the right of every person and where all can pursue their dreams. We express our deep appreciation for the sacrifices of the honorable men and women in uniform who defend liberty. As they work to advance the cause of freedom, our Nation keeps these brave individuals and their families in our thoughts, and we pray for their safe return.

While Thanksgiving is a time to gather in a spirit of gratitude with family, friends, and neighbors, it is also an opportunity to serve others and to share our blessings with those in need. By answering the universal call to love a neighbor as we want to be loved ourselves, we make our Nation a more hopeful and caring place.

This Thanksgiving, may we reflect upon the past year with gratefulness and look toward the future with hope. Let us give thanks for all we have been given and ask God to continue to bless our families and our Nation.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 22, 2007, as a National Day of Thanksgiving. I encourage all Americans to gather together in their homes and places of worship with family, friends, and loved ones to reinforce the ties that bind us and give thanks for the freedoms and many blessings we enjoy.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-second.

GEORGE W. BUSH

The proclamation thanks God for freedoms, friends and prosperity. If India had a thanksgiving day, what would we be thankful for? Poverty, corruption, inequality? Don't mock me for thinking this.

Because as I look back on my own life, I find more often than not that I am grateful for adversity rather than fortune. Fortune comes and goes, and brings indulgence and corruption in its wake. Adversity however teaches one to be strong, composed and resourceful, and helps one discover true friends. One always comes out better after adversity. Not so after fortune.

America should learn to be thankful for the lessons learnt from 9/11 and Katrina, just as much as it rejoices in its prosperity - otherwise, at a totally other yet fully related level, its dollar will continue to depreciate...

Meanwhile, 92% of American households will eat turkey tonight. If you want to know what happens to the birds that get the presidential pardon or are otherwise rescued and adopted, read this front page story in the New York Times today - "In some households, every day is turkey day"

Big Apple bytes

Backwards from Scotland, the setting was New York's classy Park Avenue, where all the buildings are dressed in brown, and the people are dressed in black. A few pretend trees line the street, and the lamp posts look better than they do. At one end is the Grand Central Station, a masterpiece of architecture, borrowed from several countries, as all things American are. People walk their dogs at all hours of the day, so yes all said and done, I think I still like New York.

A cosy terrace outside our meeting rooms offered a grand day and night view of the Empire State Building, and we had dinner with the Board of Directors of Interpublic at the Lincoln Center, following a special jazz recital by an impromptu ensemble that was both enthralling and educational. I had the good fortune to sit next to Michael Roth, Chairman and CEO of IPG, a warm genuine and humble person, who has taken great pains to turn around a once 'beleaguered' company (as he unabashedly puts it) and now he can look back with a sense of quiet achievement though of course the journey is only beginning, and he recognises that.

I especially felt glad to discover that social and civil work is so much a part of their lives. A newly inducted director has given up a senior marketing career to run schools for the underprivileged. And it was truly heartening to learn that one of the senior most directors, Reg Beck, kept asking to meet me! A former Chairman of Time Inc, he and his wife are active supporters of the Help in Suffering animal charity at Udaipur (run by the Brahms), and his wife Barbara sits on the Board of the Humane Society of the US.

Obviously I cannot divulge the proceedings of the actual meetings, but suffice it to say that there was plenty of food, and food for thought, and I have put on several pounds - some around the middle and some inside my brain.

Hope you spot my tiny smiling colourful persona in the picture above:-)

From the Dorothy in me

"Somewhere over the rainbow,
Way up high
There's a land that I heard of,
Once, in a lullaby.

Somewhere over the rainbow,
Skies are blue.
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true."



Last week, I learnt three things.

1. Nature gets more and more beautiful each day. The grasslands of the Serengiti, the woodlands of Corbett, the cashew and mango orchards of Torda, the eucalyptus covered Queensland bush, the pine walled Alps and the chinar lined foothills of the Himalayas, I had found them all breathtaking. Till I met the Birks of Aberfeldy, Loch Tay, Glen Lyon and Ben Lawers. In autumn. White, yellow, orange, russet, red, green, purple, brown. Nothing can be more beautiful than nature.

2. Preparation of any kind happens quite fast. Mixing, mashing, churning, just a couple of hours. Fermenting it however, now that takes a little longer. And then, distilling out the essence of whatever it is you want to say or do - that takes quite a few days. How strange that we tend to spend more time preparing and much less distilling, when we should be doing the opposite. And then finally of course, the maturing - slow and gentle, requiring just the right environment, and time, plenty of time. Sometimes even 30 years, standing still in one place, mellowing down to an ageless spirit.

3. History is always written in stone. Always.

I hope you like my little rainbow - he appeared outside the windows of our wooden log cabin in Aberfeldy last Wednesday, bringing with him dreams that I now must dare to make true.

The comma

A dear friend once described himself to me as a comma. The strategic pause before the next important phase in the lives of all his key relationships. The mark that makes sense out of disconnected phrases, that glues together connected thoughts, that allows for that most important of all needs - time to stop and ponder.

It's comma time for me, folks. Time to leave a phrase behind while I go in search of the next one. Time to answer some internal questions, erase some full stops and add a few exclamation marks to my already oh-so-interesting life. But not before taking full advantage of the comma.

I will be back here someday soon. Till then, may the good Lord bless you with love, joy, peace, security, and success. Boa Sorte.

'Beautiful Inside'

I came back to office on Friday after several stressful meetings (no guesses why!), to discover this crown on my chair with a bouquet of red carnations and white gladioli, a Rs 5000 voucher from some exotic Mumbai spa, and a letter from Femina telling me that I had been voted the most beautiful woman in my office.
Apparently I will feature in Femina along with four others from here (Deepam and Priya btw are genuinely pretty and petite unlike moi). I have often appeared in Femina over the years, as author, media planner, tennis player, animal person, whatever, never never as beautiful. So ofcourse I did a double take, but then the letter went on to talk about being beautiful inside and making other people happy and all that jazz and then I got the drift.

The folks in Parel voted for me for one reason and one reason alone - I call it the "Fear Factor"! They got too scared not to! But thanks anyway, guys and gals, I love you lots, but sorry, am not sharing the massage or the crown with any of you.

Rainbow, Red, Mirchi, Meow

My perspective on the radio measurement debate which has appeared in Campaign India dated October 12, out today. I am shocked by the number of printer's devils in a publication with international antecedents. Read it anyway, please.