Finally it is here. After almost every sector has witnessed a boom, it is finally boom time for the print media as well. With Mumbai at the receiving end of three brand new newspapers and a general upbteat mood in the industry, it’s raining jobs for media professionals.
The joke doing rounds in media circles is that newspaper offices may soon put up a sign on their doors ? ?Trespassers will be recruited’.
Taking advice from peers to "capitalise on the boom before it goes bust," I decided to test the surging waters. Word soon spread out that here is someone who is willing. Soon, I had several suiters that ranged from placement consultants to senior journalists asking me to apply.
The CV was updated and I was out in the market in right earnest. The first call was from one of the recently-launched channels. Ajay, a friend working for the channel, had put in a good word for me and here was the venerable boss himself, asking me if I was interested.
Passing through Mumbai en route Chennai, I call up my friend to say that I would be in town for a few hours and maybe we should catch up over a couple of beers. "Come down to my office straight from the airport," he said.
I paid little heed, thinking that it would be a better idea to check into the company guest house and let Ajay get over with his day’s work. An hour later, Ajay was on the line angrily demanding where I was. "It takes 30 minutes from the airport, where the hell are you," he asked.
"Hang on boss, I am first going to my guest house to drop my bags and then I will come down," I asserted in self-defence.
"What a moron you are. The boss is waiting for you here. Come fast."
"Boss? who?," I begin to ask, but the phone had already been disconnected. I was both surprised and concerned. Although I had personally not fixed any appointments with anyone, save the one for dinner and beer with the friend, and here was the boss himself, waiting for me.
The course altered, and 15 minutes later I was in the plush reception of Ajay’s office.
"He has just gone in. He has a bulletin," he said, pointing to a studio with glass walls where the big man was giving his audience a lowdown on the day’s developments.
"You are the most stupid jackass I have seen in my life. People die for an appointment with him and you keep him waiting." Ajay was genuinely upset.
"Now you wait here till 11 (PM) when he gets free. I told him that you are coming and he has agreed to meet you."
Embarrassed, I asked if I could go and wash up.
An hour later, I was face to face with the big man. He spent ten minutes with me and instructed his staff to record a P2C with me. Eyes bleary, I somehow went through the ordeal, facing the harsh glare and pungent smells of the studio for the first time in my life.
Two days later, as I landed back in Ahmedabad and switch on my mobile, I got a missed calls report. One of the numbers was from Mumbai. Brimming with hope, I called back.
No, it was not the television channel, but the office of one of the new newspapers in Mumbai.
I racked my memory to remember the name of the guy whom I had mailed my CV. Almost at the point of asking "who is your bureau chief", I remembered the name and was connected to him.
"Can you come down to Mumbai tomorrow? We will pay for your air travel," he said.
Elated at the second "offer" in three days, I booked a ticket at the airport itself and headed home.
The next morning, I was back in Mumbai. I was received by the bureau chief and ushered into a room full of a dozen journalists, many of whom I personally knew.
Sheepish grins were exchanged and all of us looked at each other with "Oh, so even you are here" kind of glance.
Coffee was served at regular intervals and a sumptuous lunch was provided. But all of us stayed put in the room. Whispers went around that we were being "observed".
"What rubbish. We are not school kids or freshers," I protested.
Towards the evening, when at least half of the crowd in the room was beginning to get worried about missing their flight back home, the bureau chief ambled in and started escorting candidates to the high-profile CEO of the paper.
The big boss spendt some four minutes and twenty-three seconds with me and the bureau chief, who was waiting outside with the next candidate, asked me to collect my air fare from the cashier. "We will get back to you once we decide," was the response to my curious expression.
It turned out that the same had been the case with all the candidates in the room. Fine, the CEO was terribly busy, but the bureau chief should have spent more time with each candidate and sent in his recommendations to the boss. Everyone was at a loss to understand what happened.
Interestingly, I found two of the candidates on the return flight home. If all that they wanted was to spend two or three minutes with us, why bother and call us to Mumbai?
A week later, I was transiting through Delhi on way to my hometown, Lucknow. Several appointments had been fixed and I planned to stay on for three days to wrap up all the meetings. Every half hour there was a phone call and I dreaded to even think what my roaming antics would do to my telephone bill the next month.
The funniest twist to the story comes when a PR dolt called up to ask if I would be interested in joining a leading television channel.
"Always interested," I begin to tell him, but he had already disconnected with an "I’ll be back".
Holidays in Lucknow were spoilt as the phone kept ringing. After all, one of the most sought-after things about a holiday are afternoon siestas, and I was deprived of even that simple joy of life. I was shaken out of my reverie one afternoon with a Mumbai number flashing on my cell.
"I am Abhrajit and I head the Mumbai bureau of XYZ news agency. Would you be interested in joining us in Delhi?"
"Yeah, sure," I agreed, and what followed was a virtual interview on the phone that lasted nearly half an hour.
Three days later, I was back in Delhi and meet Abhrajit’s Delhi counterpart. My wait time was just five minutes and after half an hour, I was asked to take a test.
The next day, I got a call again and I reported at their office at 10AM. By 10:30, I was told that they would make an offer.
Still out to explore other leads, I headed for another television channel’s office, where I had a 12 noon appointment.
Reaching early, I was asked to sit for a test by the business bureau chief to validate my claims of having "basic knowledge and skills" of my mother tongue. Three hours later, the test had been completed and I was supposed to meet the Editor saab.
Obviously, the Editor saab was an inexorably busy man. I was not even allowed to take a lunch break, should the Editor saab suddenly summon me.
I survived the day on coffee and kept waiting with some friends employed with the channel. By evening, even they were busy and I spent time staring at a muted television screen running their news channel and reading whatever’s left of the day’s papers. I collected at least seven newspapers, but not one of them had all its pages intact.
At eight, I was told that the Editor saab had left for a meeting and would meet me once he was through. Meanwhile, I was supposed to record a P2C.
We stepped out on the terrace and in the backdrop of glittering Delhi lights and noisy generators, a P2C was recorded with me wrapping up a story on Gujarat floods that I never did.
Back to the painful wait. An hour later, when I felt I would collapse any second, I was allowed to clamber down to the canteen to rummage for whatever snacks and tea I could rummage through to satiate my hunger. It was long past dinner time and work here had reached a near frenzy.
I was supposed to return to my brother’s place in Cantt by 10PM and at 11, I was still waiting for the venerable Editor saab.
Finally, at 11:15, I was told that the great man had arrived and he would see me. After a lot of confusion about "invalid" entry passes, I was led by the business bureau chief to a cabin and asked to wait. The bureau chief entered the cabin and makes some obsequious sounds and gestures.
A minute later, I was pushed into the room even as the bureau chief bowed respectfully and beat an exit.
The bearded curmudgeon behind the desk sized me up from top to bottom as if I was an "offering" at the altar.
The body language of the bureau chief and one full day of my vacation wasted, I knew disaster was impending. Two agonising minutes passed as the pan-chewing Editor saab was lost in his own world.
The first question was on my views on disinvestment. I told him that as a reporter, it was not my business to air my views on a subject. "No, no, I want your personal views," he encouraged.
A frown clouded his sick face the moment I start defending the government’s plans to sell public sector companies. In my background check on the guy, my friends had forgotten to tell me that he was a staunch Leftist.
The matter was sealed then and there and the next 15 minutes were spent on a lecture on how and when the government had lost its social moorings.
With a patronising attitude, I was asked why banks were nationalised and why international oil companies were chased out of the country in the late sixties and early seventies.
My responses failed to impress the man and he bluntly turned around and told me: "You know nothing. Your cannot write in Hindi. You are useless. Why should I give you a job?"
Offended, I want to tell him that he should direct those questions to his colleague who asked me to come for the "interview". For the first time in my life, I was told that I am useless, presumably only because my views on disinvestment were diametrically opposite his.
I have been eagerly waiting for rare insights into the country’s economic history on the channel. I am yet to be enlightened.
Reaching Cantt well past midnight, I had to make several calls and make my brother travel five km to the first TCP (traffic check point) to escort me to his room. That he had to go for an endurance run at five in the morning makes me feel very guilty.
The next morning, I took a flight back to Ahmedabad and decide that I was withdrawing my candidature from the job market.
In the desultory days that followed on the heels of this happenning and hectic holiday, I got offers from at least three places. But I am already sick of the rigours of job hunting. I declined.
One fine day, I got a call from the same PR dolt. "Hey, if you are interested in Ahmedabad, they can make an offer in two days."
"I am not," I hissed under my breath, and disconnected before the call would change my life.
[The writer is a journalist based in Ahmedabad]
