He walked into the newsroom and threw himself into the nearest chair
He walked into the newsroom and threw himself into the nearest chair. He casually loosened the collar of his starched white kurta, slipped off his white leather chappals and leaned back, ready to talk. The last few years as 'advisor' to a police officer-turned-politician have led him to speak about everybody, including the 'party high command', in a patronizing tone. He offered opinions with an emphatic snap of the finger, even when the questions were not directed at him, and he chuckled over his own jokes. Were we expected to applaud his exploits or save our polite smiles for his boss' tales of bravado?
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Not just writing: A major joy of working in a newsroom is the opportunity to meet eccentric peopleu00a0 file pic |
This particular manager-fixer-publicist's spectacular performance may have been a bit extreme but he did leave me in no doubt about why many of us choose journalism as a profession.
One of the principal joys of working in a newsroom is the opportunity to meet oddballs, eccentrics and people who have achieved great things or not-so-great things. Sometimes, the details of a person's life may not add up to 'important', but they add up to 'fascinating'.
Take Ms Culture-Vulture's case, for instance.
We smelt her before we saw her. Clouds of Chanel No. 5 wafted through the swinging door as noses twitched and heads turned. Such fragrance in a room that normally smelt of stale coffee, sweat and cigarette smoke wasn't about to go unnoticed. Waving her perfumed handkerchief in the air and jangling dozens of bangles on her wrists, she stormed in throwing a disdainful look at the overflowing file cabinets, the dusty newspaper racks and the stubble-sporting hacks.
For the next two hours, she ranted about a 'dimwit critic' who had given her book a scathing review. And when she realised she was on thin ice, like a true diva she whipped around and stepped on the poor news editor's toes on her way out!
Then, there was the feisty eunuch who controlled a 'hamam' (literally, a bathhouse but in reality, a euphemism for brothel), whose clients are mostly truck drivers. Remarkably unselfconscious in her pink lipstick and tight choli, she noisily slurped her coffee and spoke of her new mission - as volunteer at an AIDS-awareness NGO.u00a0
She candidly revealed that her clients offered to pay more for unprotected sex, but the extra money, in her opinion, was not worth the risk. She reserved her disdain for those who lead lives of denial, tryst in the shadows of the night, and take HIV home with them to their unsuspecting wives.
Without doubt, our job gives us the opportunity to meet intelligent, well-motivated people talking about important things but, if a secret must be told, it's the oddballs who make this line of work an addiction.
