Scribbled in the margin: "off the record" information
April 11, 2009 at 5:25 pm | Posted in Ramblings, Seen and Scene | Leave a commentTags: journalism, journalism ethics, notes, off the record, rapport, reporter, source
If there’s one thing journalists hate hearing from their sources it’s the dreaded “this is off the record,” as if that in itself makes the source immune to attacks, questions and criticisms. Some people may think “off the record” comments make the information useless. Not quite. Usually this information at least provides better perspective for the reporter so there’s less chance of misconstruing the words of the source. So not all off the record information is completely useless.
But today, during a casual chat with the manager of an e-waste recycling company, my source followed up half his sentences with “off the record.” I soon found it a waste of energy even picking up my pen to take notes, since almost all of his information was off the record. (I make it a point to literally set my pen down when any source says ‘off the record,’ as an indication and reassurance that yes, “This information is safe with me.”)
However, in response to one of my questions today, the source said, “Well the press never depicts anything realistically anyway, so just say such-and-such.” And that’s when I had to speak up.
Well, well mister, maybe if we were able to “record” more of the things you said, it would be possible to present a clearer picture of what the situation is. It’s kind of hard to report something accurately when sources keep insisting the information is “off the record.”
As careful as a person may want to be with regard to the media, and as skeptical they may be of the media’s intentions, sometimes, being overly caustious and hiding behind the “off the record” wall could potentially create more problems for the source him/herself if you ask me. Sure, sources don’t want to get in trouble from the authorities or be misrepresented, but if they refuse to let an entire chunk of information be presented to the public, chances are high that they’re still not going to be satisfied with what the press publishes.
Lawyers get a bad rep for being liars, business execs for being ruthless, and journalists, well, for not being accurate (sadly). Forgetting the sleazy journalists who only care about sensationalism and an easy buck–sources, the less information you give us, the harder it is for us to paint an accurate picture.
"A little less her mother loved her"
March 31, 2009 at 4:27 pm | Posted in Ramblings | Leave a commentTags: forgiveness, grudge, human nature, people, strength
-Mahatma Gandhi
Although I myself am quite a forgiving person and I think Dr. Wa gave some great advice, I don’t think it’s completely true that unforgiven people go on with their lives without feeling guilt.
When I think of forgiveness and punishment, I can’t help but recall certain scenes from one of my favorite books, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. My favorite scene is where a young child tells her single mother to “go marry” a random stranger with whom the mother has been polite. Mistaking her mother’s politeness for flirting, the young Rahel blurts out that her mother should just go marry the stranger. Without showing anger or disciplining the young girl for her careless words the mother calmly replies, “Rahel, do you know what you’ve just done? When you hurt people, it makes them love you less.”
These few sentences from the mother’s mouth have such an impact on the young child, that she tries to win back her mother’s acceptance and affection for the rest of the novel. Rahel even tries to punish herself because she feels so bad and just wants her mother’s love. Rahel’s candor in expressing her guilt has always struck me.
Despite what Dr. Wa says, I think sometimes when we aren’t punished by the ones we’ve hurt, we can’t help but punish ourselves.
So whether we are in a position to forgive but we continue to hold grudges, or we’re seeking forgiveness and hold a grudge against ourself, I think it’s most practical to live by the words of Thomas Szasz:
the naive forgive and forget;
the wise forgive but never forget.
Tomayto, tomahto
March 30, 2009 at 3:54 am | Posted in Ramblings | Leave a commentTags: chain mail, cheap, Indians, resourceful, stereotype
I recently received one of those chain e-mails on “How to Identify An Indian.” It’s not the first time I received this e-mail, but it was the first time some of the entries actually kind of bothered me. I don’t know whether it’s because over the last few months I’ve seen just how generous and resourceful Indians really are, or because I’ve taken more pride in being Indian myself:
“2. You try and reuse gift wrap, gift boxes, and of course, aluminum foil.
15. You have a vinyl tablecloth on your kitchen table.
16. You use grocery bags to hold garbage.
19. You carry a stash of your own food whenever you travel (and travel means any car ride longer than 15 minutes).
Ok, so I’ll be honest, they’re all true for the most part and it’s not like any of them are outwardly insulting. Hey, I do have a sense of humor, and I’ll admit I found myself smiling to all of these because they do characterize the Indian mentality. At the same time, it’s disturbing that
there are so many entries that focus on the rather “cheap” practices of Indians that could actually be considered resourcefulness. As I noted in an earlier entry, Fulbright Fellow Shiva Ayyadurai of M.I.T. said Americans talk about sustainability, but Indians actually live it. Perhaps that’s (somewhat) the case here.
Sure, Indians still have a long way to go with regard to sorting out recyclable materials, trash disposal, and managing e-waste, but when it comes to conservation, we got it down pat. Indians just expect value for their money, so they will milk every paisa out of their purchases. It’s not cheap. It’s resourceful.
Plus, Indians are actually quite generous. When I go to my aunt and uncle’s house on the weekends, I’m offered food at least six times, even if the last meal I had was half an hour ago. I’ve only been working at The Hindu for a month, and already five different people have taken it upon themselves to “treat” their fellow office members for any happy occasion: birthdays, front page stories, bylines….one girl bought catered food for the entire City/State section because she lost her cell phone for five minutes and found it again. At first I thought it was silly, but now I see it’s sweet: although competition is fierce, they share their successes and happy moments with their colleagues. In the U.S. it’s the other way around–on your birthday, you expect everyone else to give you gifts.
When I see the true generosity of Indians, it’s really hard for me to label them as cheap. Your cheap is my resourceful. Tomayto, tomahto.
What’s love?
February 13, 2009 at 9:17 am | Posted in Ramblings | 1 CommentTags: ego, love, marriage, pride, romance, Valentine's Day
My grandmother got married when she was 15. This year, when she lost my grandfather, she told me, “I have known nothing else since my teen years. I have always taken care of him. And now? What am I supposed to do with all my time?”
She had spent all her time giving, taking care of him, never complaining. She told me he wasn’t one who believed in romance. She wouldn’t describe their relationship as romantic. At the same time, it must be noted: there wasn’t a single day my grandfather didn’t have her at his side. They traveled the world together, he took her everywhere. Even in old age, within the house, he always had to know her whereabouts, because he couldn’t stand to be away from her too long.
That’s love.
My dad does not buy my mother flowers, write her poems, kiss her in public, or hold her hand. But he does go with her every other week to Jacksonville where she teaches dance to give her company and moral support. He’s always in the front row with his camera to take pictures of her and video tape when she puts on dance or music performances. He comes home every day for lunch to eat with her, whether she asks for it or not. Instead of taking her out on cutesy dates, he is a family man, so caring that he takes his daughters and son-in-law along on vacations.
That’s love.
These are the images of love that I’ve grown up with, and to me, they are great examples of consideration, affection and steadfast commitment.
I don’t believe in mind games, cheating, jealousy or “Girls’/Guys’ Nights Out.” The more I notice couple dynamics among people I know, the more I see that it’s one’s ego, pride, and selfishness that get in the way of giving oneself completely to another. These days, in an attempt to save face, seem strong and independent, too many people put up walls as defense mechanisms. It’s led to a culture of people who, in an attempt to avoid being labeled “whipped,” make it a point to have a night out with single friends of the same sex, regardless of the influence (cough, cough, threat) these single friends may possibly pose to the current steadfast relationship with their significant other.
It’s led to a culture of people who regard only the superficial actions as “sweet” or “romantic,” but the truly sweet or selfless acts as “clingy,” “needy,” or as indicative of “not having a life.”
Someone once told me that relationships are never equal, that one person always “wears the pants,” has the power, and the other party is the one who is “whipped,” so in love that he or she loses all self-respect or sense of self. He told me one person always loves the other person more.
I can’t agree with that. Yes, many (too many) relationships do fall under this category, but can you really consider those relationships worth holding on to? Love isn’t a contest to see who gives in first, or who loves the other more. Nor does it automatically make the person who loves more “weaker.”
Sure, perhaps some people may consider it unwise to grow too dependent on someone else in this day and age (chance of divorce over 50%….). But the most successful relationships I’ve seen are actually the ones where both parties give unconditionally, without letting their pride get in the way of giving everything they possibly can.
So this Valentine’s Day let’s drop the roses, the candles, the hearts and cheesy poems. Instead, let’s not hold back. Let’s love unconditionally without fearing the other person may gain the upper hand. For once, let’s not let our egos get in the way of something good.
Third eye (not) blind
February 8, 2009 at 1:23 pm | Posted in Ramblings, Seen and Scene | 1 CommentTags: bindi, culture, difference, Tamil
I’ve always thought since I was young that my bindi sort of “marked” me, that perhaps it is the reason why strangers remember my face, why guys don’t approach me at frat parties, or why even desis think, upon first glance, that I’m ultra conservative. People have always watched from a distance, wary of what my third eye represented.
So I figured these few months in India at least, I’d blend right into the brown.
Instead, my accent, gait, tone have given me away. The fact that I wear a salwar kameez when I go out on the street is not enough. If I’m not wearing a dupatta I can command the attention of every male street vendor, auto driver, college student and IT executive within seconds.
Until this year I thought I could speak Tamil pretty well. Close relatives would tell me how my sister always could speak better, but for the most part they could understand me and were even impressed that for growing up in the States, I could speak conversationally. But my ego has taken a blow now that I have been laughed at repeatedly because of my accent…. because I don’t know the local terms. Some of the news reporters will sometimes choose other interns over me to talk to local people because I “talk differently.” They actually mock my American accent: the muted constants and stretched vowels.
I’m puzzled at how, somehow, I have managed to be the oddball, yet again. It’s funny: as Americans, we think the world looks up to us, strives to be like us, so much so that I am ashamed at how pompously I approached this experience at first. As a Tamil-speaking, vegetarian, Bharatanatyam dancer who volunteered herself to spend a few month in India, I figured I’d get a few extra points, a pat on the back, a reaction of pleasant surprise at how very Indian and Hindu I was. But instead, it’s been a humbling experience actually seeing how condescending (or even disgusted) some of them can get by our cockiness, our complaints, and at the most basic level, our differences.
Well I still think it’s immature. People of different cultures will obviously have a different accent. As long as communication is still possible, why should it matter?
I finally reached the height of my tolerance to their intolerance when one of the reporters started dumbing things down for me and questioning my intelligence just because I am a desi. I finally responded, “I, too, am human. I was born with a brain.” I think she finally took the hint.
I for one am glad that my third eye can at least see past our differences.
Happy Pongal
January 14, 2009 at 2:47 am | Posted in Ramblings, Seen and Scene | Leave a commentTags: ekamra nivas, kolam, Pongal
Some kolams done by my grandmother outside our home in Chennai for the Pongal (spring harvest) festival.
Notes from the motherland
December 30, 2008 at 3:47 pm | Posted in Ramblings | 1 CommentTags: desi, India, internship
I never imagined volunteering myself to stay in India longer than three weeks. My parents had brought me to Chennai every single year of my life. The images of India I had always conjured included countless mosquitoes, power outages, and sweltering heat. I’ll be honest. I didn’t like it.
But after the demise of my grandfather over the summer, and the realization that I could graduate from UF a semester early, I decided to use my free extra spring semester to give my grandmother company in the haunting and historic house we affectionately call “Ekamra Nivas.”
Of course, there have been some been some selfish factors at play as well. Over the years I have actually grown accustomed to life in India, and I thought the best way to see if I could ever bear living here is by immersing myself in Chennai for a few months at least. That, plus, I lined up two internships: one at CNN-IBN’s Chennai Bureau office, and another at The Hindu, India’s largest national newspaper.
I skipped graduation, said goodbye to my friends, and for the first time in my life, after traveling across the world more than 30 times, I made the trip alone. Until just a few weeks ago I had always made this trip with my parents. As (bad)luck would have it, this was also the first time it took me three days to get here thanks to a three hour delay in Detroit.
When I (finally) arrived in Chennai airport, for the first time I thought “I made it. I’m home.” Yes, home. Never over the course of 20 years had I said that before. I suppose that 21st year gave me some perspective.
I’ll be spending the next few months here working alongside Indian television and print journalists….living with my grandmother and servants who have seen three generations of the same family blossom….immersing myself in a culture which I’ve never identified as foreign, but one which I have had to deliberately work to make my own. I give you notes, from the motherland.
The Saga
December 25, 2008 at 2:30 pm | Posted in Ramblings | 1 CommentTags: airlines, tourism, travel, travel diaries
I can’t believe I actually made it here. Wait until you here the SAGA that is the Amritha Alladi trip across the world. It should have taken any NORMAL person like one day. Me? It took three….
I left from Tampa on Monday morning. My sister dropped me off at the airport. It didn’t really dawn on me that I wouldn’t be seeing her for five months until she got a little teary-eyed. It was sad, but I wasn’t too worried because thanks to Google video chat we can stay closely in touch now.
The flight to Detroit was short. Nothing to complain about. What I WILL complain about is the three hour flight delay. I waited INSIDE the aircraft for my next flight (Detroit-Tokyo) for over three hours. This means I knew I’d be missing my next connection in Tokyo to Singapore. Now this is the little bugger that screwed me up for the rest of my trip….
On the plane I decided I couldn’t worry about it. Hell, I was in the air, and couldn’t make any calls. I spent most the flight reading and sleeping. When I finally got the crappy airline food (gotta love prepackaged, over-processed airplane food) I actually ate it because I was starved. When the snacks rolled around it was worse. Somehow they think being vegetarian means you’re a rabbit. The people next to me got a sumptuous turkey sandwich with CHEESE. I got dry carrots and grapes. No matter what, I will always think the airline food is selected by sadistic bulemics who wish to torture us with unedible mystery food. For “breakfast” before arrival I got some disgusting unidentifiable rice-type dish with WARM cooked oranges. Yes, slices of warm mandarin oranges. Ew. OH WAIT. the icing on the cake: I got a rock hard bagel. For the past 20 years I have traveled, I have gotten this same species of rock hard bagel. Every. Single. Time. My sister and I joke that this ridiculously stone-hard bagel could be used as a weapon. We wonder how they let it on the plane and yet security makes us put toothpaste in little baggies.
Anyway, they didn’t even give me cream cheese for this disgusting, jawbreaker of a bagel. Needless to say I didn’t eat it.
Got off the plane, missed my connection, got put up in at the Radisson in Tokyo. I didn’t do much in Tokyo. Just caught up on sleep. Woke up the next morning to fly to Singapore. Slept the ENTIRE ride to Singapore because the two seats next to me were vacant and I could stretch.
Slept some more….and then the real adventure began….
I arrived in Singapore looking forward to the frozen coffee drink I’d get there (as I always do at Singapore airport–I’m a creature of habit so it was a must). But I had to get my boarding pass at the Singapore Airlines counter (in Terminal 2) first, because Northwest, after the delay, had rerouted me through Singapore Airlines.
I went to the counter only to discover that I had NO ticket. The agent told me it was only a reservation that Northwest had made on my behalf. Wonderful. She told me to go back to the JAL transfer counter back in Terminal 1. I took a shuttle (Whoops) to Terminal 3…..had to get back to Terminal 2 to take a shuttle to Terminal 1 (clock ticking in the meantime…flight 2 hours away….yes, I know I have racked up more blonde points than Paris Hilton on this journey). Anyway, so I go to the JAL desk. They say they can’t help because the original bookings and ticketing were made by Northwest. I have to go to the Northwest counter instead. But as fate would have it, the Northwest counter doesn’t open until 3 a.m….I start panicking.
Now, I go to a pay phone. Time to pull out the handy dandy credit card, whose balance my dad had cleared for me before this trip just so his little princess could use it for emergencies like this. I try calling India. For some reason it doesn’t work. Way too many digits in the long-distance number I think? So I call and wake up my sister in Tampa instead. She calls India. I call her back because she can’t call me back and neither can my parents on the pay phone…We continue this pattern for a good 45 minutes: me calling sister, sister calling parents, parents give sister instruction to give to me. I call sister back to get the instructions. Meanwhile (I’m getting pissed and unnerved because I still haven’t gotten my frozen coffee drink!) since I’m making SO MANY CALLS, after a point my credit card STOPS WORKING. And the operator can’t help me because they can’t charge my credit card anymore. I freak out thinking that all the gazillion calls have perhaps somehow surpassed my $1300 limit– but that can’t be! So I figure it has to do with the fact I didn’t let Bank of America know I was traveling and they thought it was someone else abusing my card. So now I pull out the debit card (balance: $150)–as IF I can afford to. More calls. My sister tells me that my dad told HER that I need to go to Terminal 3 (YAY, another field trip) to go to the JET AIRWAYS counter. (See, my orginal Singapore-Madras/Chennai flight had been a Jet Airways one, because Northwest is a Jet Airways partner and doesn’t go to India) So he told me to fall at the feet of Jet Airways, begging them to give me a ticket to Madras because of Northwest’s mistake and because my ORIGINAL ticket had been confirmed with Jet Airways.
I go to Terminal 3 and…yep, you guessed it…counter closed. The Jet Airways counter doesn’t open til 3 hours before a flight. At this point I’m about ready to pull out my hair, run straight into a wall, and spontaneously combust all at once. I make more calls. My sister finally tells me my dad DID finally contact a travel agent we have in India to fix allllll of it. He got me a ticket on the morning flight to Chennai by Jet Airways. He confirmed it all and I’d just have to do is go to the transfer counter (Terminal 3, Jet Airways) in the morning to get the boarding pass.
You better believe I got the fucking boarding pass. Thank God.
Acquainted With the Sun
July 21, 2008 at 3:35 am | Posted in Ramblings | 3 CommentsTags: Uncategorized
I have been one acquainted with the sun
I have walked out, squinted into her scorching depths
cautiously peered past the jagged asphalt ledges
lest her shards carve out my eyes.
I have outwalked the reaches of her glowing fingers.
She has illuminated these rolling ridges, and
I have looked down all their green-grassed sides
I have found no single side more verdant than another
I have stood still for sunsets, sand crumbling beneath my feet,
when far away the blush of its rays at dusk
has outlined the edges of the clouds
not to call me back or say goodbye—
but to leave me bronzed and sunkissed.
That glowing orb teems with life,
proclaiming that she is all at once….
I have been one acquainted with the sun.
A Tryst with Miss Fortune
July 21, 2008 at 3:33 am | Posted in Ramblings | 1 CommentTags: Uncategorized
The hunger grew until it hurt
clawing within the confines of his chest
for a chance to flirt
with his most prized mistress:
Lady Fortune’s presence was fleeting at best.
His craving now transcended all restraint he could muster.
He knew not to trust her.
She had eluded his forceful advances before,
and her smile twisted cruelly as she rapped at his door.
There she stood, pristine and untouched
merely inches away from his covetous clutch.
She humored these courtships;
How foolish he was to think
that upon her grazing lips
he could taste success.
Lady Fortune’s indulgence was ephemeral at best.
Neither wine nor words could weather her will.
He tried to flatter, and still
She remained resolute.
He knew that his pursuit
was likely to fail.
Lady Fortune was meant to be wooed by the youthful
and to be quite truthful
She had no patience for the frail
attempts of old men.
How long had he lusted, starved for her over time!
Perhaps in his prime
she would have been impressed.
But Fortune’s a woman, and she’s fickle at best.
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