Back in the workforce, and looking for writers

After many lazy years working in grungy shorts and torn ganji, we had an offer we could not refuse.

We have pulled out our respectable work clothes and have joined Digital 18 Media Pvt Ltd (part of the Network 18 group) as Editor - Special Features of the Forbes - Network 18 magazine project. The mag has a great team, and we have always had a weakness for start-ups. The goal is attractive too: to create an international quality business magazine with local relevance.

Yennyway.

We (as in me, but also as in the magazine) have started commissioning articles, and we want you to let us know if you'd like to write for us. We (as in me, again - unless otherwise specified, it's always me, me, me in this space) are not talking the typical business feature here. The hard-core business stuff will be taken care of by folks far better qualified than we are. (If you want to write the heavy duty biz stuff, we'll put you on to them. Send us links - preferably - or a writing portfolio, and I'll pass them on.) Those are the parts of the magazine focussed on helping the reader make more money. The section we're handling is the part dedicated to helping her or him to put that affluence to good use, to, if you will, live better.

Stories could be anything from half-page quick guides (written by domain experts for intelligent readers who just don't happen to share that area of expertise) to several thousand words of rigorously researched, in-depth copy that looks at every side of the issue and has a point of view.

What about? Well, anything really. Make it interesting! Broadly, we want to help the intelligent reader expand his/her knowledge of issues, experiences and trends. No matter what the area, we will first want this question answered: why should our reader care, or need to know about this? And second, can your writing kick serious butt?

We can't go into details of sections and so forth, for that will mean the F-N18 team will take us out at dawn and shoot us (and you know how we hate getting up early), so, instead, just to give you an idea of the things we like, we went a bunch of stuff we have mailed to friends (there's an archive here, which you're welcome to go through) and pulled out a few.

We'd do a Sachin Tendulkar piece if we could get someone to write with as much style and substance as Federer as Religious Experience - David Foster Wallace in NYT
A nice fitness story: An Enduring Measure of Fitness: The Simple Push-Up - New York Times

Understanding Carbon Emissions Big Foot - New Yorker

The history of the web: How the Web Was Won vanityfair.com

Travel and Books - The Guardian - Part One, Part Two

If we were doing a story on popular TV, we'd want something like It's Saturday Night! vanityfair.com

Education? Give us an IIT / IIM story like The American Scholar - The Disadvantages of an Elite Education - By William Deresiewicz

Or how about this piece on Late Bloomers - Malcolm Gladwell - New Yorker

Great writing, great research, fascinating story: Mercenary - Esquire

A gimmick, yes, but what style, what depth! Pearls Before Swine - Washington Post - Gene Weingarten

Pico Iyer: On Travel and Travel Writing:1, 2, 3

The Greatest Mystery: Making a Best Seller - New York Times

Great popular culture / trends piece: Kids, the Internet, and the End of Privacy: The Greatest Generation Gap Since Rock and Roll -- New York Magazine

A cut-the-BS tech piece: Breaking the Myth of Megapixels - New York Times

Lit debate? The New York Inquirer: Against Literary Readings (and Especially Q & A's)

Anyone up for a 50 most important Indian web influencers piece? The 50 Most Important People on the Web - PC World

Behaviour and technology and pop culture: Downloading Is a Packrat's Dream

Complete whimsy. But what a nice read. Nick Tosches: Autumn and the Plot Against Me: vanityfair.com

A novel year-ender: 50 Things We Know Now (That We Didn't Know This Time Last Year) 2006 Edition

Travel, the economy: Russian Airports - The Economist

Advertising Steven Pearlstein - What Happened To Creative Advertising? - washingtonpost.com
Or The Future of Web Ads Is in Britain - New York Times

Health, pharma: Eternal Sunshine

On Crit: Giving It All Away - New York Times
And while on the topic: Harry Potter and the Death of Reading - washingtonpost.com

How children lost the right to roam in four generations | Mail Online

Science, a rant: The new age of ignorance | Science | The Observer (: Click through at the end of the article for the celeb quiz. See if you can do better. :)

Barack Modi

Saw this on the magazine rack in a bookstore. ("G2" stands for "Global Gujarati," to save you the click.) Lost for words.

(Oh, and the text above the dude in the suit is a pointer to a New Year's article, which is about "Whiskies to serve between midnight to morning." The global Gujju, one gathers, does not hold with prohibition and suchlike.)

Now that there's time to read and introspect

Suketu Mehta in the NYT

Dilip D'souza in the Washinton Post

Naresh Fernandes in The New Republic (See also his piece on Jews in Bombay)

And these pieces, on their blogs, by Amit Varma, Sonia Faleiro and Rahul Bhatia.

And these by Prem Panicker: 1, 2 & 3 (the latter two link to some other excellent pieces as well).

And this, by Ingrid Srinath (read also Priyanka Joseph's comment on that post).

And while we're about it, let us also say that we count all these names among our friends. Except for Mr Mehta; but then we have drunk his booze in Jai Hind the night he won the Crossword Book Award, so perhaps we can claim him too. At any rate, Mr M, in the unlikely event that you're reading this, when you're next in the city, maybe I can buy you a drink? A cheaper one, though.

Abide with me

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word;
But as Thou dwell’st with Thy disciples, Lord,
Familiar, condescending, patient, free.
Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.

Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings,
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea—
Come, Friend of sinners, and thus bide with me.

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile;
And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee,
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.



I'm not religious. Haven't been since my teens. But this hymn can make me cry. It was the favourite of one of my grandmothers. Also a favourite of Gandhi's (which us why you'll hear it at events associated with him), and just about the only thing my nana had in common with the Mahatma, who she didn't like very much. And it was sung at my mother's funeral last year.

Godawful Poetry Fortnight - 13

Good poetry, I say, is never hard,
Oh so easy, just look at me!
Dante did struggle, as did the Bard
And other writers of poetry,
When compared to good ol' me,
Faded hacks trail by many a yard.
(Ulysses wishes that I had been free —
Look what he got with that Tennyson laird.)

So come, gather round, kick off your shoes!
On our pedestal come rest your weary heads.
Now watch as we perform, we do party tricks!
No sweat, we could do this without getting out of bed.
Even two-in-one deals, you can't lose!
(This poem is also an acrostic.)

Godawful Poetry Fortnight

Godawful Poetry Fortnight - 12

In which we do keh-mukarni His pulse is racing, heart a-flutter, Into the night,, he pines, he's tense Does he expect a love letter? No, cupcake, he waits for blog comments And anthadi How do I love thee, let me count the ways. The ways in which I love thee, I shall enumerate this day. A summer's days I shall compare thee to. To find another line to steal too. Stole my heart away you did. Didn't you? And I forgot to rhyme that bit. Bits an pieces make sense here. Here I am, half-asleep in frog pajamas. Pajamas, Bahamas, I love the Lama's Llamas. Llamas are found in Peru. Guavas are found in my garden. Gardens are nice places to end poems. Except I need to bring this back to an ending that locks with the beginning. How? Godawful Poetry Fortnight

Goddawful Poetry Fortnight - Guest Post 3

Another anonymous submission, from the bashful poet who wrote this one.

Day before I thought I found my calling
With my first godawful poet penned
So I sit today to write another
To this all my faculties I lend

And then I realize that no words flow
I write cruddy muck and backspace and delete
What I write sounds too awful to be godawful
And yet I feel no conceit

My poem is too bad to be good-bad poetry
And yet not so craptacular that its good
It is poetic when it should not be
And yet too odious to be withstood

What does one do when she can’t write good rhyme
And can’t write bad rhyme either?
Does she write prose then?
Or from composing take a breather?

What can be worse that not be able to not write;
Not be able to write sucky enough?
Especially when you can’t even write things well
Can life give you a better rebuff?

The godawful poet relinquishes her throne
She decides to call it a day
And maybe its just in time too
Because doesn’t the fornight end tomorrow?

Godawful Poetry Fortnight

Goddawful Poetry Fortnight - Guest Post 2

by Annie M Mathews

I slouched at my computer disconsolate
My inbox empty as it was wont to be
When suddenly there came a spate
Of mail I greeted with much glee
Viagra, meds, ten-inch you-know-whats
Everything to hit the ‘other’ spots

Messages in English and Spanish too
Inviting me to visit their page
My heart to point of bursting grew
When offered work with plentiful wage
I skimmed, perused, mulled and soared
To be thus wanted had me floored

I little knew what worlds there lay
With a little link that led elsewhere
So very many with so much to say
The few of words had much to bare
And now when on my comp I slouch
Mail I will receive, for this I vouch

Go find more: Godawful Poetry Fortnight or search Google

Godawful Poetry Fortnight - 11

The admiring masses have, no doubt, noted the variety of forms we, in our verse-a-tility (ooh, he puns too!) have showcased. This next one's in blank verse.











Blank. Geddit? Geddit?


Godawful Poetry Fortnight

Goddawful Poetry Fortnight - Guest Post 1

From a friend who prefers to remain anonymous. We wonder why.

I have never been much of a poet, not I
But this noble cause made me try
For even if poems make me nod
-off to sleep, godawful poetry strikes a chord

Is it the whole wretchedness of it
That wrings my heart to complete grit?
Just like pity for the hungry tramp
Is it the abjectness that makes my eyes damp?

Is it the brave face godawful poets don
Under assault of classic poetry they hold in scorn?
And attack it back with absolute tripe
That looks like it appeared spontaneously on an asswipe?

As I write these words at night
I see the end-of-the-tunnel light
Could it be that godawful rhyme
Holds the key to the heavens sublime?

Godawful Poetry Fortnight