Glasses of Campri and Malibu. Bowls of fish soup followed by Amazonian fish fry. Dishes of Oriental boneless chicken. Sauce and ghee cooked fish, and fish in white sauce with prawns….
Well, well, that’s not the Menu of an Amazonian restaurant, but the list of items which we had the luck to eat over and over and over again in our three memorable days in Manaus, the capital city of Amazonas, and located at the heart of Amazonian region. And, kudos to the Karu Grill Restaurant of the Hotel Tropical Manaus, these items became examples of some unforgettable cuisine for us.
But, that’s not all. We did not go to Manaus just to eat exotic food. That was the bonus.
The real gain was the most enchanting trip of my life: a three hours (extended to five) upstream and three hours downstream journey through the heart of the 3940 miles long Amazon river with hardly the banks on either side being visible when you are in the centre of the river.
Well, no adventure, except going to Mt Everest or to the South Pole, can equal this one on the Amazon. Amazing Amazon mesmerized all of us on board.
The journey started at sharp 6 am on a bright sunny June morning and went on till 11 noon which should have been finished a couple of hours before that. We were shooting on the way and one of the two steamers we were traveling in developed a technical snag for which we waited at the centre of the river and to our glee, indeed.
If you can still see the vague line of huge trees in the forests on your right, the left bank is totally merged with the horizon and it is only the clear slow-paced mass of water on all sides that winks at you.
We went a few hundred metres into the forest, shot a few families therein for the purpose we were there, and visited a makeshift wooden products-and-art gallery made by the folks out there. It was so fascinating to note that even in such interiors far away from the mainstream society and media and culture, simple jungle-folks had their aesthetics right.
Standing amid millions of huge trees and next to a few bamboo and wood houses, our local Brazilian friend recounted the legend of Anaconda, a fictitious serpent character built around myths surrounding the Amazon river and the forest.
On return there was another round of fish, chicken, soup and Malibu waiting for us at the beautiful palace hotel by the beach. In our true Rajasthani style, this was Brazilian royal family’s abode turned into a luxury hotel of today with just two floors and a huge land around resplendent with flowers and greenery, and all leading to the august Amazon flowing by.
As we took the flight back to India via Sao Paolo and London, we met two interesting Brazilian gentlemen.
One is an agricultural scientist, an expert of bio-diesel and a strong votary of the merits of monacinto crops, who gave us an overview of Brazil’s strength of agriculture and water resources. Brazil has the single largest water reservoir of inland water in the world, and Brazil has an agricultural strength equaled by only two other nations, plus the bio-diesel experiment has taken deep-roots in the Brazilian life.
The second gentleman is a professor of History in a university in Brasilia who hates the American way of looking at things and says how different he found Mexico to be from what the American media, literature and images taught him all his life till we had gone to Mexico. This gentleman explained how a large part of Brazilian intelligentsia hates the ‘Yankees’ for their use of the Latin American land and people for ‘trade, sex, beer and natural resources’ exploiting the ‘American’ tag of the Latinos. The ‘Big American Dream’ has been hard-sold by them to the Latinos to make the best business of any and everything.
How I wish the star-struck Indians dreaming of the raining dollars in the God’s own country in the US of A could hear this erudite gentleman who leads the academia in social sciences of a Brazilian University!!
June 18, 2006
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Letter from Fortuleza
Today was the Brazil versus Croatia match. A lot of expectations, hopes and excitement in the air all over Brazil today. There is a virtual riot of the yellow and green T-shirts all around. These are the colours of the national flag and the jersey of the national team of Brazil, and the colours which virtually symbolize the Brazilian national spirit. Even the young ladies in the Fortuleza beach are having sea-bath and tanning their skin with yellow and green bikinis.
We saw the match with another 500 young cheering Brazilians in Crocobeach, a beachside restaurant which has a great view of crocodiles coming out of a large lake close by and having ‘sun-bath’!
You have to just see the spirit to believe it. Cans of beer and fruit juice, fried and baked snacks, fish and chicken delicacies, peanuts and cashew-nuts: all flowed like water and sank like sand in these voraciously eating youth in just no time and all eyes glued to the large screens hungry for a goal.
When Brazil gave the first goal you have to see the rejoicing. Strangers hugged and kissed strangers, friends went into a fit of frenzy. And, me and my camera-man had our dose of innocent fun too!! Brazil played badly but won the game 1-0 and the nation had a huge collective relief.
Then, we had a visit the next day to the interiors of the province where we were given a warm welcome by a large group of rural Brazilians, as we were led by the WHO Goodwill Ambassador, Yohei Sasakawa, the Chairman of the Japan-based The Nippon Foundation.
The revelry and spirit of the common man in the villages are also something to admire and get infected with. The common folks, in common dresses had uncommon smiles on their faces and had a hug for every one. They danced, sang, and we shot them to our hearts content.
They forgot the fact the 10% of Brazilians control 90% of the wealth and production means of the nation. They forgot that their average monthly family income was just 400 Brazilian Rheas (1 Rheas equals Rs.22), while the Sonata car we booked for a day is costing us 350 Rheas!
I later heard that commercial sex work is quite common as many village girls go to the nearby beach-towns and earn 100-200 Rheas a night to supplement family income. It also seems that the culture of the nation is somewhat liberal. ‘Have it, so flaunt it’ seems to be the adage.
But then there is a tremendous zest for life, innocence among the children and the teenagers, and a class among the youth. I will never forget that smiling lady in a lovely pink and off white evening gown who could hardly speak English but communicated a lot with her little words, small pieces of information, caring observations and glowing smiles.
Beyond the urban and rural glaring schism which saddened me a lot, the other thing that ruined my time in Furtoleza was the abysmal situation in the airport and the TAM flights schedules rescheduled three times before I had to fly through Terasina and Brasilia to Manaus while we had a direct flight.
What I understood in the process is that since the nation has just 22 crores of people, and rich are very less though they are stinking rich, the flights in Brazil are very few and far in between, highly expensive and with services on the poorer side. There is indeed a large market for low-cost no-frills airlines with reasonable services.
Deccan Air, Spicejet, GoAir, Paramount Air…….. are you all hearing??
June 16, 2006
We saw the match with another 500 young cheering Brazilians in Crocobeach, a beachside restaurant which has a great view of crocodiles coming out of a large lake close by and having ‘sun-bath’!
You have to just see the spirit to believe it. Cans of beer and fruit juice, fried and baked snacks, fish and chicken delicacies, peanuts and cashew-nuts: all flowed like water and sank like sand in these voraciously eating youth in just no time and all eyes glued to the large screens hungry for a goal.
When Brazil gave the first goal you have to see the rejoicing. Strangers hugged and kissed strangers, friends went into a fit of frenzy. And, me and my camera-man had our dose of innocent fun too!! Brazil played badly but won the game 1-0 and the nation had a huge collective relief.
Then, we had a visit the next day to the interiors of the province where we were given a warm welcome by a large group of rural Brazilians, as we were led by the WHO Goodwill Ambassador, Yohei Sasakawa, the Chairman of the Japan-based The Nippon Foundation.
The revelry and spirit of the common man in the villages are also something to admire and get infected with. The common folks, in common dresses had uncommon smiles on their faces and had a hug for every one. They danced, sang, and we shot them to our hearts content.
They forgot the fact the 10% of Brazilians control 90% of the wealth and production means of the nation. They forgot that their average monthly family income was just 400 Brazilian Rheas (1 Rheas equals Rs.22), while the Sonata car we booked for a day is costing us 350 Rheas!
I later heard that commercial sex work is quite common as many village girls go to the nearby beach-towns and earn 100-200 Rheas a night to supplement family income. It also seems that the culture of the nation is somewhat liberal. ‘Have it, so flaunt it’ seems to be the adage.
But then there is a tremendous zest for life, innocence among the children and the teenagers, and a class among the youth. I will never forget that smiling lady in a lovely pink and off white evening gown who could hardly speak English but communicated a lot with her little words, small pieces of information, caring observations and glowing smiles.
Beyond the urban and rural glaring schism which saddened me a lot, the other thing that ruined my time in Furtoleza was the abysmal situation in the airport and the TAM flights schedules rescheduled three times before I had to fly through Terasina and Brasilia to Manaus while we had a direct flight.
What I understood in the process is that since the nation has just 22 crores of people, and rich are very less though they are stinking rich, the flights in Brazil are very few and far in between, highly expensive and with services on the poorer side. There is indeed a large market for low-cost no-frills airlines with reasonable services.
Deccan Air, Spicejet, GoAir, Paramount Air…….. are you all hearing??
June 16, 2006
Letter from Brasilia
As the plane rapidly starts flying down and you get ready to disembark, you see a small part of the city with high-rise state-of-the-art buildings and modern monuments, and surrounding it a vast area of single storey tiles-roofed buildings all around.
You alight from Varig Airlines, Brazil’s national airlines of 79 years, at Brasilia, the current new created and extremely planned capital city, shifting the previous headquarters from the extreme southern city of Rio to keep the northern poorer part of Brazil happier.
As you drive past huge buildings and on wide, clean, spotless tarred roads of a ‘developing nation’ in its capital city, you all of a sudden realize that the city is created on Western and more particularly American model on one hand, and on the other, it is a city of some individuals here and there, but no ‘people’ as such to call it their own.
And, as you meet the Secretaries of Ministries, a few ministers, and visit the Senate and meet its Vice President too, the realization further dawns that Brasilia is a town-planner’s marvel, architect’s wonder with several thousands of powerful individuals, without any mass of people who can call it their own city with a distinct culture.
The aloofness, the pompousness, the ‘systematic approach’, the structured life and living ARE its culture today.
Ironically, the single illustrious architect and town-planner of Brazil who had built this city and its landmark buildings, Mr Oscar Niami, is a left-wing professional and had wanted to create a people-centric transparent city with large spaces, lots of greenery, usually glass-walls of buildings (including the huge Presidential office), avoiding any loss of constructed space in frills, etc.
On the positive side, the capital city and its ministerial buildings are extremely well-planned, as if a master-scheme of the town-planner has just literally risen above the ground straight from the drawing board.
The green and grey ministerial buildings look exactly the same, and unless you look at the metallic names of the ministries on their front walls, you will not be able to distinguish one from the other.
Then the most significant thing to see is the spotless cleanliness in each department of the government, the Senate and the Parliament, the paperless-ness of the offices, the evident e-governance practices, the lack of stringency in security and the aura of confidence and friendliness all around. And, all this when contrasted to our ministerial environs in our Delhi offices, the stark difference is all the more evident.
Move around seven to eight kilometers beyond the city centre, you come to a sea of poorer colonies of single storey buildings, and another twenty kilometers later, the entire area around is vacant land, water, some jungles, et al.
Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, the first of the BRICKS countries with a strong infrastructure and a promise of being Latin American economic giant, was created in a large vacant land out of nowhere, in the heart of the country, with a debt so huge (do not know the exact figure: different estimates are there) that till today the nation and the common man are smarting under a debt-trap.
A modern Tughlaqi creation? A master-plan of American business lobby to sell a dream and all steel and cement of the dream to the largest nation in South America and keep it permanently indebted to itself?
June 15, 2006
You alight from Varig Airlines, Brazil’s national airlines of 79 years, at Brasilia, the current new created and extremely planned capital city, shifting the previous headquarters from the extreme southern city of Rio to keep the northern poorer part of Brazil happier.
As you drive past huge buildings and on wide, clean, spotless tarred roads of a ‘developing nation’ in its capital city, you all of a sudden realize that the city is created on Western and more particularly American model on one hand, and on the other, it is a city of some individuals here and there, but no ‘people’ as such to call it their own.
And, as you meet the Secretaries of Ministries, a few ministers, and visit the Senate and meet its Vice President too, the realization further dawns that Brasilia is a town-planner’s marvel, architect’s wonder with several thousands of powerful individuals, without any mass of people who can call it their own city with a distinct culture.
The aloofness, the pompousness, the ‘systematic approach’, the structured life and living ARE its culture today.
Ironically, the single illustrious architect and town-planner of Brazil who had built this city and its landmark buildings, Mr Oscar Niami, is a left-wing professional and had wanted to create a people-centric transparent city with large spaces, lots of greenery, usually glass-walls of buildings (including the huge Presidential office), avoiding any loss of constructed space in frills, etc.
On the positive side, the capital city and its ministerial buildings are extremely well-planned, as if a master-scheme of the town-planner has just literally risen above the ground straight from the drawing board.
The green and grey ministerial buildings look exactly the same, and unless you look at the metallic names of the ministries on their front walls, you will not be able to distinguish one from the other.
Then the most significant thing to see is the spotless cleanliness in each department of the government, the Senate and the Parliament, the paperless-ness of the offices, the evident e-governance practices, the lack of stringency in security and the aura of confidence and friendliness all around. And, all this when contrasted to our ministerial environs in our Delhi offices, the stark difference is all the more evident.
Move around seven to eight kilometers beyond the city centre, you come to a sea of poorer colonies of single storey buildings, and another twenty kilometers later, the entire area around is vacant land, water, some jungles, et al.
Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, the first of the BRICKS countries with a strong infrastructure and a promise of being Latin American economic giant, was created in a large vacant land out of nowhere, in the heart of the country, with a debt so huge (do not know the exact figure: different estimates are there) that till today the nation and the common man are smarting under a debt-trap.
A modern Tughlaqi creation? A master-plan of American business lobby to sell a dream and all steel and cement of the dream to the largest nation in South America and keep it permanently indebted to itself?
June 15, 2006
Letter from Rio
The biggest landmark of Rio de Janeiro is the huge hillock like statue of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, atop Mata Atlantica, overlooking the entire Rio, with his hands spread into the air, in a gesture to embrace the mankind with his kindest love. And, the road that takes you to him, called Green Line, a steep electrical train railroute, going up for four kilometres amid natural vegetation and overlooking the city from within the trees at times. On the top, it is the greatest sight you may expect to see from such a height. And, with the falling sun, a roseatte sky, Jesus becomes all the more divine and the mankind below all the more distant. The city is like a great master-plan of a town-planner expressed through a live model. And, the day changes from bright daylight to the falling rays of dusk, and so does the look of the city. After seeing hundreds and thousands of men and women, all fair, yellow, tanned, and dark, with clothes next to nothing, and with an abundance of smiles, hugs, beer and kisses, it was a relief in a sense to go to meet Jesus up there. Rio is fun, just fun, a paradise for the tourists, a haven of drugs and drug-lords running a parallel administration in selected areas, a pilgrimage too, and Copacabana and Ipanema beaches providing the perfect holiday for the single ready to mingle, for the couple ready to double, and for the family wanting to pay homilies to one another.
I have come to know first time that across the Copacabana beach and even Ipanama beach, there are some 10-12 points, one point being of say 200-300 metres stretch. One point is for the gays only, one point for the lesbians, one for the intellectuals (artists, writers, media honchos, academics, etc), one for gender activists, one for the plain and simple company-seeking singlers, one for the couples, and what not.
This is the latest caste-system I am enlightened with after the infamous caste-based quota system and the battle against it in the only nation of the world where a section of the citizens feel proud and privileged to be called ´backward´ and take more pride in remaining so.
The economics of World Cup was evident when I had gone to buy a phone card. The usual 100 US dollar phone card was available with 20% extra time given with the request that I pray for Brazil´s repeated championship this time too, and if my prayers are answered favourably by the Almighty, I will get another 100 USD card FREE!! I just could not say to that pretty 20-something Brazilian lady with green and blue attire (in that whatever little she was wearing) that I shall NOT be in Brazil till the end of the games and would not be there to claim the additional 100 dollar benefit!
Merchandise is a big business with a hyped up event, and is proven no better by the sheer speed at which the Brazilian football uniform is being sold: green and yellow T-shirts. Yours sincerely included!Great time in Rio. See you soon, Brasilia, Furteleza, Manaus, Sao Paolo..... Work starts now, after my cameraman reaches in an hour, yesterday was just fun. Love to you all. June 14, 2006
I have come to know first time that across the Copacabana beach and even Ipanama beach, there are some 10-12 points, one point being of say 200-300 metres stretch. One point is for the gays only, one point for the lesbians, one for the intellectuals (artists, writers, media honchos, academics, etc), one for gender activists, one for the plain and simple company-seeking singlers, one for the couples, and what not.
This is the latest caste-system I am enlightened with after the infamous caste-based quota system and the battle against it in the only nation of the world where a section of the citizens feel proud and privileged to be called ´backward´ and take more pride in remaining so.
The economics of World Cup was evident when I had gone to buy a phone card. The usual 100 US dollar phone card was available with 20% extra time given with the request that I pray for Brazil´s repeated championship this time too, and if my prayers are answered favourably by the Almighty, I will get another 100 USD card FREE!! I just could not say to that pretty 20-something Brazilian lady with green and blue attire (in that whatever little she was wearing) that I shall NOT be in Brazil till the end of the games and would not be there to claim the additional 100 dollar benefit!
Merchandise is a big business with a hyped up event, and is proven no better by the sheer speed at which the Brazilian football uniform is being sold: green and yellow T-shirts. Yours sincerely included!Great time in Rio. See you soon, Brasilia, Furteleza, Manaus, Sao Paolo..... Work starts now, after my cameraman reaches in an hour, yesterday was just fun. Love to you all. June 14, 2006
Brazil: An Ongoing Dream
Brazil, an intense dream, a vivid ray
Of love and hope settles on the earth.
As in your beautiful sky, smiling and serene
The image of the Southern Cross shines.
A giant by nature, you are beautiful,
And your future will match this grandeur.
Strong, an intrepid colossus.
(Free translation from the Brazilian national anthem).
Brazil is the world’s fifth-largest country in terms of both size and population, with a size larger than continental USA and India, and a population of 22 crores. It has the biggest economy in Latin America, and the night largest in the world, putting it ahead of Russia, and with Italy. It is the world’s number one producer of sugar, oranges and coffee, and it is one of the top ten makers of automobiles and airplanes.
Brazil boasts of at least 25 million people of Italian heritage, 12 million of German descent, and more than 14 million of Lebanese origins. Brazil has more people of African origin than any country besides Nigeria! There are more ethnic Japanese in Sao Paulo than in any other city outside Japan. And, the whole nation speaks an indigenous version of Portuguese.
Brazil is the number one beef exporter of the world, and the planet’s most populous Roman Catholic country…….
And all of this abundance sits on a gorgeous and varied landscape of white beaches, emerald forests, and fertile plains. Brazil possesses a quarter of world’s arable land. The country is practically self-sufficient in oil and has yielded large quantities of gold.
However, disturbed politics and society and irresponsible economics of many a ruler of Brazil over the last 150 years show what Stefan Zweig rightly said, “Brazil is the land of the future, and it always will be.”
June 14, 2006
Of love and hope settles on the earth.
As in your beautiful sky, smiling and serene
The image of the Southern Cross shines.
A giant by nature, you are beautiful,
And your future will match this grandeur.
Strong, an intrepid colossus.
(Free translation from the Brazilian national anthem).
Brazil is the world’s fifth-largest country in terms of both size and population, with a size larger than continental USA and India, and a population of 22 crores. It has the biggest economy in Latin America, and the night largest in the world, putting it ahead of Russia, and with Italy. It is the world’s number one producer of sugar, oranges and coffee, and it is one of the top ten makers of automobiles and airplanes.
Brazil boasts of at least 25 million people of Italian heritage, 12 million of German descent, and more than 14 million of Lebanese origins. Brazil has more people of African origin than any country besides Nigeria! There are more ethnic Japanese in Sao Paulo than in any other city outside Japan. And, the whole nation speaks an indigenous version of Portuguese.
Brazil is the number one beef exporter of the world, and the planet’s most populous Roman Catholic country…….
And all of this abundance sits on a gorgeous and varied landscape of white beaches, emerald forests, and fertile plains. Brazil possesses a quarter of world’s arable land. The country is practically self-sufficient in oil and has yielded large quantities of gold.
However, disturbed politics and society and irresponsible economics of many a ruler of Brazil over the last 150 years show what Stefan Zweig rightly said, “Brazil is the land of the future, and it always will be.”
June 14, 2006
The Mystery Woman in Rio
Last night, while returning from a robust dinner, pure Brazilian type in a traditional restaurant, with chairs and sofas hanging in the air above our heads, and with wine, chevas regal, and local drink caipirinha, I had a great experience walking close to the beach. A young lady, should be in late 20s, approached for the obvious purpose. I said I am from India and I am not interested in paid sex with a stranger. Thankfully, she could speak in English a bit (people speak Portuguese here and a few Spanish). Hearing about India, she said that she was fascinated by the stories and images of Himalayas and the Ganges in her childhood and asked me to talk to her about them. I said that she would lose her working time of the evening. She said she does not mind, as she has been having good business these days due to tourist influx, and more importantly, she has not met with an Indian ever earlier.We sat on a piece of a stump of a tree close to the beach and we chatted for almost 90 minutes, on Himalayas, Ganges, Indian ethnic dresses and jewelry, music and history, changing face of India, corruption and communalism, and on Brazil in the last 150 years after the colonial Portuguese left, on drugs and drug-lords of Rio and their control over the flesh-trade, the football frenzy, and all that.Good chat.Felt a trifle sad while leaving her. She gave a soft hug and thanked me profusely as she said that she had spoken to a stranger purely like a friend, which she had hardly done earlier.She did not come close to the hotel lest I might be misunderstood by the hotel staff. Not that they care too much. But I was touched by her concern.
I left her on the other side of the road, my silent, unknown Brazilian friend, whose name and address I did not take, neither did she ask mine.There was an interaction between two nations of two different cultures without the individuals being present therein.I don´t know what you will call this.But it is ALL TRUE.With love from Rio.
June 12, 2006
I left her on the other side of the road, my silent, unknown Brazilian friend, whose name and address I did not take, neither did she ask mine.There was an interaction between two nations of two different cultures without the individuals being present therein.I don´t know what you will call this.But it is ALL TRUE.With love from Rio.
June 12, 2006
The gigantic woman in Brasilia
There is this famous opera singer and actress, Elke Maravillah of Brazil. A six feet two inches tall lady, with pure white hair (not that old though), and with a loud Usha Uthup type voice.
She is a great supporter of people discriminated against due to diseases, like leprosy, HIV positive, Downs Syndrome, etc.
I was walking towards the Brazilian Health Minister to take his interview for our film, when someone tells this woman standing nearby that I am from India, and this huge lady comes straight, hugs and gives two loud and strong kisses on my cheeks. I am just flabbergasted, embarrassed and in a catch 22 situation: to laugh or not to laugh, that’s the question. I gave a sheepish smile.
She says that her sixth husband is an Indian. I did not ask whether he is still around as her husband. She also informs that her second husband, an Argentinian, criticized her for going to leprosy colonies and hugging people and kissing them. And, after the fourth time he bitterly criticized her, she threw him out of her life and home, and used the security guards to do the needful!! What a woman!!
She says she had come to India once and loved the bhelpuris and Tazmahal and walking down the streets in CP in Delhi with people amazed at her.
And, now she wants to come again after meeting me! God bless my poor soul!!
Dipankar, my cameraman colleague, said that after we finished taking her byte on the camera, she just walked to him, gave a huge (and tight?) hug and showered five kisses, demanding that he does the same back to her! Dipankar says (ask him if he is telling the truth) that he just created the five loud sounds with his lips brushing against her cheeks lightly with the fear that whether he is lip-stuck by the huge amount of make-up she was wearing.
Later, at the dinner, when she joined us again, and I was forced by my hosts to sit next to her as a funny punishment for coming to the dinner late by ten minutes. She talked about her parentage: father Brazilian, mother Mongoloid, one grand-father Russian and one grand-mother from Azerbaizan!!
She then talks at length, over fine Chilean wine, about the diversities of Latin culture and theatre, the themes of her plays and dance-dramas, and about love and passion in work and life to flow from the heart and not the head!!
I reveal by the time the dinner has ended that this woman has a great zest for life, is a highly cultured person, is extremely popular among Brazilians (ask the waiters in the hotel where we were having the dinner), and has great love for the people who are disadvantaged in life!
She is running 61 years of age now.
BrasiliaJune 13, 2006
She is a great supporter of people discriminated against due to diseases, like leprosy, HIV positive, Downs Syndrome, etc.
I was walking towards the Brazilian Health Minister to take his interview for our film, when someone tells this woman standing nearby that I am from India, and this huge lady comes straight, hugs and gives two loud and strong kisses on my cheeks. I am just flabbergasted, embarrassed and in a catch 22 situation: to laugh or not to laugh, that’s the question. I gave a sheepish smile.
She says that her sixth husband is an Indian. I did not ask whether he is still around as her husband. She also informs that her second husband, an Argentinian, criticized her for going to leprosy colonies and hugging people and kissing them. And, after the fourth time he bitterly criticized her, she threw him out of her life and home, and used the security guards to do the needful!! What a woman!!
She says she had come to India once and loved the bhelpuris and Tazmahal and walking down the streets in CP in Delhi with people amazed at her.
And, now she wants to come again after meeting me! God bless my poor soul!!
Dipankar, my cameraman colleague, said that after we finished taking her byte on the camera, she just walked to him, gave a huge (and tight?) hug and showered five kisses, demanding that he does the same back to her! Dipankar says (ask him if he is telling the truth) that he just created the five loud sounds with his lips brushing against her cheeks lightly with the fear that whether he is lip-stuck by the huge amount of make-up she was wearing.
Later, at the dinner, when she joined us again, and I was forced by my hosts to sit next to her as a funny punishment for coming to the dinner late by ten minutes. She talked about her parentage: father Brazilian, mother Mongoloid, one grand-father Russian and one grand-mother from Azerbaizan!!
She then talks at length, over fine Chilean wine, about the diversities of Latin culture and theatre, the themes of her plays and dance-dramas, and about love and passion in work and life to flow from the heart and not the head!!
I reveal by the time the dinner has ended that this woman has a great zest for life, is a highly cultured person, is extremely popular among Brazilians (ask the waiters in the hotel where we were having the dinner), and has great love for the people who are disadvantaged in life!
She is running 61 years of age now.
BrasiliaJune 13, 2006
Hongkong Workshop: Final Report: Signs of the Times to Come:
4th and 5th Days:
The fourth day was dedicated to publishing our stories on the web and some basic design rules. Several superbly designed websites were shown and basic issues explained.
Some basic fundas: avoid over design. Respective negative space, what we call as white space in India. Balance is important, and not symmetry. Typeface families should be two ideally, and maximum three. Know your audience and their possible design preferences. Pick colours for a reason. If something does not have to be there, just take it out. Interactivity through design is about fun and function and not technology. View your design as a whole, and not in piece-meal. Design for functionality, and with the context of the issue or theme being represented. Basic web navigation principle of telling where you are and telling where you can go, was explained as well.
Several usable portals discussed for design, audio use, uploads, etc, were www.delicious.com, audacity.sourceforge.net, soundcloud.com, xtimeline.com, vimeo.com, addictomatic.com, trapped.com, worldpressphoto.org, Patagonia.com, adobe.com/designcenter/video-workshop, soundslides.com, guardian.co.uk/data-store, etc.
The basic web video shoot rules were re-debated.
Always wear headphones. Have tight, medium, wide, extra close and extra wide shots of all aspects of the subject on record. Ten seconds of shot sizes must. No pan, zoom in and out as functions in shoot, since they get pixilated when transferred to the web, often. 80% B-roll (cutaways, stocks, etc), 20% A-roll (direct interviews) and some ideally C-roll (interview given in action, interview and demonstration simultaneously). Almost all shots on tripod, shooting details as well, and shooting consciously several transition shots, proposed opening and closing shots with options, and be completely quiet during shoots (as much possible).Good and bad rushes examples given in large numbers to illustrate the points made.
After the audio and video stories were made, and they were processed using flash, they were uploaded on the web as well.
The concluding day focused on the fundamental aspects of the changing scenario in the field of global journalism and a concrete project ahead was discussed.
Communication revolution being a reality in the context of multi-media and web era today, differing skills for writing and editing across media platforms are becoming the key aspects in journalism skills today. Story-telling techniques hence are changing today, and a new set of video and audio ethics of fairness and balance in stories are becoming pertinent more than ever before.
Curiosity has always been the hallmark of good journalism, and along with that passion and compassion, apart from fairness and balance, and a clear understanding of the thin line between journalism and advocacy are becoming critical even in this age. And web-based or multimedia journalism cannot afford to be lazy journalism done in hurry, as is often believed. The inexpensive way to publish worldwide through web has to be made best use of.
Hence, teachers have to reasonably know the strengths and weaknesses of the various available media or channels to understand quality work and the needs of the story, apart from a strong grounding of legal (culture/society specific) and ethical issues (not moralist ethics). The discussion harped on not to teach ethics on the usual reactive basis (as with morals, and what not to do), but on a proactive basis (as to what to do), ethics for good quality, correct, fair and balanced journalism in pre, post and during production phases of multi-media stories. Also, global perspectives are important for web-based journalism today. Audio and video content gathering, editing and story-telling techniques will be critical for all journalists in the future media-neutral convergent journalism: this was the essence and unanimity in the discussions of the last day.
Also, photo-journalism and photo-editing skills and ability to produce audio-driven photo-galleries and stories shall be important as well. Multi-media design, online interactive info-graphics skills, social networking expertise to tap the power of this sphere, and understanding usability trends of the web, were also detailed.
Audio, video, picture and text elements in multi-media journalism shall complement each other and not just repeat the same information or emotions, thus enhancing the value and not replicating it. Make the learner and the audience of tomorrow visualize the audio or the print story, and customize the information by making it dynamic and on-demand, and not static as today.
Hence, the workshop concluded in this part of the discussion that the New Age Journalism teaching cannot have a rigid stratified medium-specific curricula. Journalism hence has to move from the current paradigm of tool-based (medium and unitary skill focused tools) teaching and learning TO practice based teaching and learning. Even the use of online, offline, 2D and 3D Flash interactive info-graphics will make information dynamic and on-demand rather than being static.
In this scenario, preparing a text-book for multimedia journalism becomes a daunting task. The more viable idea is to create an online educational scenario as is a multi-media teaching tool, and regular updating an online text-book collectively created dynamically by a given team which is available to all, is a viable option for the future.
A critical point noted was that software should be taught only in the context of being better story-tellers and researchers. www.lynda.com was suggested for self-learning of software.
The workshop strongly recommended that we involve students in real world projects, and cut down heavily in classroom hypothetical exercises beyond the initial stage. Teaching of journalism of tomorrow should incorporate international perspectives and experiences, focus on telling stories by the subjects rather than by the scribes, and maintain very high expectations from the learners and instill real life professional standards. It was noted that the multimedia story-telling can integrate an element of social change by giving the subject a larger voice to tell their own story. And, on the other hand, an element of gaming can bring in some entertainment as well. www.rcrusoe.org was shown to illustrate this point.
How such real life projects of multi-media journalism can integrate all forms of channels of communication into one single whole on the web was illustrate very ably through the stories in www.southofhere.org and www.westgrove2008.com.
Possible training stages in multi-media story-telling were outlined, evaluation points or parameters discussed and noted for media educators and discussions done on the same.
The concluding session talked about the need and contours of a new paradigm of journalistic ethics in details in a polemical style. This session also discussed a new set of projects to be taken on multi-media platform. One such project focusing on the issue of WATER was detailed which has been largely completed. A water journalism website www.1h2o.org and water project details on www.onewater.org were detailed.
The next such global project in which some 50 leading media schools world-over, SIMC included, will now participate shall focus on World Cities. This project will create a repository of stories that are told by people living in cities around the world (roughly 55% of world population are now in urban centers) and produced by story-tellers, nee multi-media futuristic journalists, in those cities who understand the context and content of these stories the best. And, for this, under-reported areas will be taken up. For the moment, migration, economic sustainability and gender equity areas have been taken up to focus in this World Cities project.
Stories will be portraits of individuals or families living in cities. The central feature of the multimedia story shall be around 7 minutes long video, may be complemented by a pictures slide-show with sound, and interactive info-graphics. Stories shall be principally told in the voice of the subjects of the stories, and always placed in the context of a transforming city. Stories must have high visual content, high quality interview with the subject integrated with high quality natural or ambience sound, with commentary minimal if used at all. Use of music can be limited to start and end, if at all. In general, music for manipulating audience emotions should be avoided.
Also, there will be high value in positive stories from cities that might be exemplary across borders, apart from stories that critique contemporary urban life.
Apart from their audiovisual timeline, story-tellers will need to submit a 200-word synopsis, a list of online and other resources that can help audiences explore the story and topic further, and a list of keywords that relate to the story. The stories can be in any language, but the story-teller will commit to captioning the story in English to help the sub-titling process. www.dotsub.com gives choice for sub-titling in any language.
These stories related to World Cities project shall be accessible through a website called www.citiesxborders.org.
In the Indian context, SIMC will be taking charge of stories from Mumbai and Pune, and stories suggested, keeping the three focus areas in mind, are related to Asia’s largest slum Dharavi, large number of migrant student population in Pune, water crisis in Mumbai, urban transport skewed against working women in Mumbai (on the lines of the film of Paromita Vohra which talks of Mumbai sanitation skewed against women), unsustainable exploitation of hill-tops in Pune, bar dancers of Mumbai, migrant jewelry workers of Mumbai, innovative solutions for bridging distances in Mumbai, et al.
We have also proposed a South Asia Multimedia Journalism Workshop, a pan-India Journalism Educators Conference, and SIMC Journalism Trainees’ Conference on Multi-media Journalism: all back to back in early 2010, with major preparations for the same, which shall now be considered and cleared by the Knight Frank Center for International Media, Miami, soon, with necessary suggestions.
“Determining what is news, whether to present it, and how to present it. What else is there to media ethics.” John Merrill in “Gone, Going, Coming: Ephemeral Media Ethics”.
The fourth day was dedicated to publishing our stories on the web and some basic design rules. Several superbly designed websites were shown and basic issues explained.
Some basic fundas: avoid over design. Respective negative space, what we call as white space in India. Balance is important, and not symmetry. Typeface families should be two ideally, and maximum three. Know your audience and their possible design preferences. Pick colours for a reason. If something does not have to be there, just take it out. Interactivity through design is about fun and function and not technology. View your design as a whole, and not in piece-meal. Design for functionality, and with the context of the issue or theme being represented. Basic web navigation principle of telling where you are and telling where you can go, was explained as well.
Several usable portals discussed for design, audio use, uploads, etc, were www.delicious.com, audacity.sourceforge.net, soundcloud.com, xtimeline.com, vimeo.com, addictomatic.com, trapped.com, worldpressphoto.org, Patagonia.com, adobe.com/designcenter/video-workshop, soundslides.com, guardian.co.uk/data-store, etc.
The basic web video shoot rules were re-debated.
Always wear headphones. Have tight, medium, wide, extra close and extra wide shots of all aspects of the subject on record. Ten seconds of shot sizes must. No pan, zoom in and out as functions in shoot, since they get pixilated when transferred to the web, often. 80% B-roll (cutaways, stocks, etc), 20% A-roll (direct interviews) and some ideally C-roll (interview given in action, interview and demonstration simultaneously). Almost all shots on tripod, shooting details as well, and shooting consciously several transition shots, proposed opening and closing shots with options, and be completely quiet during shoots (as much possible).Good and bad rushes examples given in large numbers to illustrate the points made.
After the audio and video stories were made, and they were processed using flash, they were uploaded on the web as well.
The concluding day focused on the fundamental aspects of the changing scenario in the field of global journalism and a concrete project ahead was discussed.
Communication revolution being a reality in the context of multi-media and web era today, differing skills for writing and editing across media platforms are becoming the key aspects in journalism skills today. Story-telling techniques hence are changing today, and a new set of video and audio ethics of fairness and balance in stories are becoming pertinent more than ever before.
Curiosity has always been the hallmark of good journalism, and along with that passion and compassion, apart from fairness and balance, and a clear understanding of the thin line between journalism and advocacy are becoming critical even in this age. And web-based or multimedia journalism cannot afford to be lazy journalism done in hurry, as is often believed. The inexpensive way to publish worldwide through web has to be made best use of.
Hence, teachers have to reasonably know the strengths and weaknesses of the various available media or channels to understand quality work and the needs of the story, apart from a strong grounding of legal (culture/society specific) and ethical issues (not moralist ethics). The discussion harped on not to teach ethics on the usual reactive basis (as with morals, and what not to do), but on a proactive basis (as to what to do), ethics for good quality, correct, fair and balanced journalism in pre, post and during production phases of multi-media stories. Also, global perspectives are important for web-based journalism today. Audio and video content gathering, editing and story-telling techniques will be critical for all journalists in the future media-neutral convergent journalism: this was the essence and unanimity in the discussions of the last day.
Also, photo-journalism and photo-editing skills and ability to produce audio-driven photo-galleries and stories shall be important as well. Multi-media design, online interactive info-graphics skills, social networking expertise to tap the power of this sphere, and understanding usability trends of the web, were also detailed.
Audio, video, picture and text elements in multi-media journalism shall complement each other and not just repeat the same information or emotions, thus enhancing the value and not replicating it. Make the learner and the audience of tomorrow visualize the audio or the print story, and customize the information by making it dynamic and on-demand, and not static as today.
Hence, the workshop concluded in this part of the discussion that the New Age Journalism teaching cannot have a rigid stratified medium-specific curricula. Journalism hence has to move from the current paradigm of tool-based (medium and unitary skill focused tools) teaching and learning TO practice based teaching and learning. Even the use of online, offline, 2D and 3D Flash interactive info-graphics will make information dynamic and on-demand rather than being static.
In this scenario, preparing a text-book for multimedia journalism becomes a daunting task. The more viable idea is to create an online educational scenario as is a multi-media teaching tool, and regular updating an online text-book collectively created dynamically by a given team which is available to all, is a viable option for the future.
A critical point noted was that software should be taught only in the context of being better story-tellers and researchers. www.lynda.com was suggested for self-learning of software.
The workshop strongly recommended that we involve students in real world projects, and cut down heavily in classroom hypothetical exercises beyond the initial stage. Teaching of journalism of tomorrow should incorporate international perspectives and experiences, focus on telling stories by the subjects rather than by the scribes, and maintain very high expectations from the learners and instill real life professional standards. It was noted that the multimedia story-telling can integrate an element of social change by giving the subject a larger voice to tell their own story. And, on the other hand, an element of gaming can bring in some entertainment as well. www.rcrusoe.org was shown to illustrate this point.
How such real life projects of multi-media journalism can integrate all forms of channels of communication into one single whole on the web was illustrate very ably through the stories in www.southofhere.org and www.westgrove2008.com.
Possible training stages in multi-media story-telling were outlined, evaluation points or parameters discussed and noted for media educators and discussions done on the same.
The concluding session talked about the need and contours of a new paradigm of journalistic ethics in details in a polemical style. This session also discussed a new set of projects to be taken on multi-media platform. One such project focusing on the issue of WATER was detailed which has been largely completed. A water journalism website www.1h2o.org and water project details on www.onewater.org were detailed.
The next such global project in which some 50 leading media schools world-over, SIMC included, will now participate shall focus on World Cities. This project will create a repository of stories that are told by people living in cities around the world (roughly 55% of world population are now in urban centers) and produced by story-tellers, nee multi-media futuristic journalists, in those cities who understand the context and content of these stories the best. And, for this, under-reported areas will be taken up. For the moment, migration, economic sustainability and gender equity areas have been taken up to focus in this World Cities project.
Stories will be portraits of individuals or families living in cities. The central feature of the multimedia story shall be around 7 minutes long video, may be complemented by a pictures slide-show with sound, and interactive info-graphics. Stories shall be principally told in the voice of the subjects of the stories, and always placed in the context of a transforming city. Stories must have high visual content, high quality interview with the subject integrated with high quality natural or ambience sound, with commentary minimal if used at all. Use of music can be limited to start and end, if at all. In general, music for manipulating audience emotions should be avoided.
Also, there will be high value in positive stories from cities that might be exemplary across borders, apart from stories that critique contemporary urban life.
Apart from their audiovisual timeline, story-tellers will need to submit a 200-word synopsis, a list of online and other resources that can help audiences explore the story and topic further, and a list of keywords that relate to the story. The stories can be in any language, but the story-teller will commit to captioning the story in English to help the sub-titling process. www.dotsub.com gives choice for sub-titling in any language.
These stories related to World Cities project shall be accessible through a website called www.citiesxborders.org.
In the Indian context, SIMC will be taking charge of stories from Mumbai and Pune, and stories suggested, keeping the three focus areas in mind, are related to Asia’s largest slum Dharavi, large number of migrant student population in Pune, water crisis in Mumbai, urban transport skewed against working women in Mumbai (on the lines of the film of Paromita Vohra which talks of Mumbai sanitation skewed against women), unsustainable exploitation of hill-tops in Pune, bar dancers of Mumbai, migrant jewelry workers of Mumbai, innovative solutions for bridging distances in Mumbai, et al.
We have also proposed a South Asia Multimedia Journalism Workshop, a pan-India Journalism Educators Conference, and SIMC Journalism Trainees’ Conference on Multi-media Journalism: all back to back in early 2010, with major preparations for the same, which shall now be considered and cleared by the Knight Frank Center for International Media, Miami, soon, with necessary suggestions.
“Determining what is news, whether to present it, and how to present it. What else is there to media ethics.” John Merrill in “Gone, Going, Coming: Ephemeral Media Ethics”.
Day 3: Making your own Video Story; and Understanding the Digital Impact on News Media of Tomorrow
The first half obviously was spent on editing the story I had shot till late last night in the flower market of Hongkong, and I used FCP Version 8.0 for that, quite and advanced and user-friendly version I must say. I had to learn all functions and tools (at least those I needed that moment), get stuck up some twenty times, and finally complete the story, which later was adjudged as the joint best story by any participant along with another journalist-professor from Japan, Masato Kajimato.
The voiceover of my story:
Flower market of Hongkong. One of the most colourful street markets with around fifty large and small shops, in Mongkok, in Kowloon district, near Prince Edward Road Street, and just next to the Royal Plaza hotel. Huge bucketfuls of roses and gerbera spill out onto the sidewalks along the road. A collection of street stalls selling cut flowers and potted plants. Delicate orchids and the vivid birds of paradise are some of the more exotic blooms. During the Chinese New Year, there is a roaring trade in narcissi, poinsettias and bright yellow chrysanthemums, all considered auspicious flowers, indeed.
More than a thousand citizens of Hongkong are engaged in every possible activity connected to the business and aesthetics of floriculture, from dawn till the late evening every day, and satisfying their choosy customers.
The flowers sold here are always fresh and smell very good. So, head down to this market next evening to gift that someone special a nice bouquet of a variety of flowers from this market. And, in true Hongkong style.
I had two interviews of owners of shops, one who teaches floral designs to customers at a price as well, and two customers of the market.
Others also had lovely stories, on the life of a Swiss lady in Hongkong, one on a librarian from Central Asia now an icon of the local university, one on the lovely birds market of Hongkong, et al.
Our stories were analyzed, critiqued, and alternative approaches discussed, the entire workshop members participating in the debate.
Later, impact of digital revolution on the news media was discussed in great details. How it makes ‘public use media’ possible to exist which gives the masses the real power to create public opinion. The transition of private media to public media and now to the public use media was traced in great details.
Next, the idea of the mobile journalist, Mojo, the reporter who uses nothing but a high-end multi-functional mobile phone, was illustrated so very well: the history of mojo, why the concept is evolving, its spread around the world today, and implications for journalism. Roles of mojos in the context of daily newspapers, video content for a portal, web-based television for a newspaper, and free-to-air or cable television journalism were all discussed, including business models of such one-person operations, and details of the range of technologies available to mojos.
An interesting discussion focused on how new technology speeds up the transmission of international news, gives fuller coverage of natural disasters like earthquakes and floods, but it does not impact on the news ranking of the country reported upon. This ranking is still dominated by factors which Galtung and Ruge established long ago: negative events like conflicts, elite persons and countries, et al. For example, despite the new technology having overcome the tyranny of distance for Australia, it still remains a middle-ranking country in terms of foreign news value. The news reports from and about Australia are rarely about politics, but steadily on business and finance, especially in the resources sector, and sport and lifestyle.
Another paper argued that the focus of ‘citizen journalism’, it appears, is shifting from people caught up in incidents unmediatedly relaying their experiences (specially observations and situations), either directly or through secondary mediation, to shine a spotlight on their immediate locales, to finally collaborative and aggregating reaction by those commonly some distance from the events in a kind of global echo chamber. Examples were given from content sent by people caught up in Mumbai terror attacks from within the hotels to cyclone in Brisbane, both happening in November 2008.
Finally, some questions were raised as to news in digital age may not always be doing justice to the quality of journalism. Journalists are becoming packagers of content, rather than investigating enquiring minds with original ideas, unique contacts and with the time to follow a story. Websites use more of subs/copy editors than reporters. Managers have always tried to cut costs, now they dress up crude cost-cutting exercises in fancy jargon. They can stack spending in areas such as web page design and engineering in a home-based head office, while subtracting costs for journalism in far-flung areas. If editors in Europe, for example, can watch a press conference of Hillary Clinton in Jakarta, live, why bother hearing from the journalists at the press conference?
However, there were several criticisms and counter-opinions to this point of view, as to how new angles, alternative angles, reactions etc can be brought in to such a press conference by the working journalists on the field.
Finally, over dinner, a marvelous talk was given on how the future journalists have to be multi-media experts, convergent in practice, with higher ethical standards in quality of journalism and can reflect public opinion or the reality as they see better. Examples were shown how initial practices to present the same story on the web can be presented very well through a mix of video, text, interactive info-graphics (you ask and the story gives you the demanded graphics), picture gallery, and podcasts (audio), all ending up into a discussion board with readers/audience and journalists participating in it. And, how certain elements of the news-story can best be conveyed by a specific medium or channel and not otherwise.
Hail SIMC! We are far ahead in our philosophy than many other media schools of the developing world, and I could establish that once more through participation in all these discussions.
And, for the dinner, well 15 course seafood preparations, elaborate starters and desserts, well, do I need to say more?
Day 2: Hongkong: Video at the Front: International Multi-media Journalism Workshop
One Day Two, we move to video journalism for the web. And, there comes the Director of New Media of Washington Post, Ben De La Cruz, with his ten golden rules of the game.
But before that a few touching stories from WashingtonPost.com. The inauguration of Barrack Obama was seen from every the perspectives of people at every level, the young weeping black couple amidst millions to see him take oath, the white woman’s aspirations, the black octagenarian couple sitting on the home television who never thought that this day would ever come in their lifetime, the revelers in the pubs and the consumers in the mall, to politicians and hyper-active media men.
The annual health fair in a far-flung district town of USA for the common man and how elite medical professionals take on their task of coming for social service was another story. The third was on a rally for choice, choice of the unborn to be born, against abortion, and the socio-ethical debate around it.
There were two stories explained: one on being a black man in Washington Post and the other on debt trap in New York Times. Both these stories are presented in their respective portals as truly multi-media stories. There are written features, videos, first person audio testimonies, hundreds of interactions in the discussions segment, dozens of related photos and interactive info-graphics, all often woven into one single story apart from being additional inputs to the larger story. A different genre and experience of journalism!
Discussions were on the rule of thirds in video compositions and their uses, on each and every function of an usual digital camera for news shooting, on filters, lenses and natural light shooting rules, et al. Interestingly, no pans and zooms in shots for the web. Static shots of various durations and positions, with different frames telling the story make a basic rule of the game.
Finally, the interesting part. Going out to shoot with one set of equipments all by yourself. For ease of movement, we were in pairs of two. My partner shot a short film on the birds market of Hongkong, a unique part of the business district. I shot almost 30 minutes of rushes on the famous flowers market of Hongkong. We shall use FCP to edit our own stories tomorrow morning and I hope to edit the same in two minutes or so.
But, that’s not before I get up at 5 am and go out to shoot another story on the morning hours of Hongkong, 5.30 to 7.30 am, at Mongkok metro station, Edward Road, et al, albeit with my partner.
The moral of the story for today: video stories are not for the television medium only, which is the dumber use of the video. The more intelligent and challenging way to use video journalism is for the internet in web 2.0 and web 3.0 scenarios, with an integration of various media and presentations in the same story or theme. And example is always better than precept.
Day 1: Hongkong International Multimedia Journalism Workshop
Whats it to be a student all over again twenty years later?
In a sense we are always students. But to be a student in a multimedia workshop and going out to get an audio story yourself and then editing it into a small succinct radio story using Soundtrack Pro on a Mac workstation, and all in one single day, rather six hours: from learning to producing and critiquing the stories of all participants.
That’s exactly the story of my day one in the International Multimedia Journalism Workshop in Hongkong Baptist University organized by the Knight Frank Centre of International Media of the Miami University School of Communication.
And to have sessions in a multimedia studio with 30 Power Mac workstations, each with FCP and Soundtrack Pro, is a fun by itself, unknown in the Indian context indeed. Cannot boast anymore to be technologically challenged.
Doing it with MSNBC.com chief producer, Washington Post Head of New Media, several academicians of the Miami University, and Universities of China, Hongkong, India, Thailand, Malaysia, et al is another big time fun.
And, lo and behold, the researchers and PG multimedia journalism students of the host University helping all of us in getting this organized, even teaching us the tools of editing et al! Good fun to be a student again.
Don’t know why the kids back home fret and complain so much about it! Much better than signing papers, ordering people and being forced to judge people, and between people, or between options all of which look attractive!
The story I did on the streets for radio was on how Hongkong youth who have gone to other nations compare the life and attitudes and social involvement of the youth in their country with those of other nations around.
Day two shall be on electronic media and am looking forward to that with my background of television journalism.
The five days workshop makes everyone a participant and a speaker, and is aiming to create a scenario for futuristic multimedia convergence based journalism where a news consumer will simultaneously consume content in the interactive, text, video and audio formats seamlessly moving from one to the other in one go.
Neither practiced, nor even thought of in the Indian context so far. Sameer Jains, Aroon Puries and Subhas Chandras of the world may jolly give me an audience after this if they want to make the next big buck in news media.
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