On TV, and in the Papers

If you had not switched on the television at seven in the morning last Thursday and had not watched Doordarshan you better be prepared to spend the rest of your life feeling utterly miserable, so unlucky you are. Tsk. I can only pity you for missing an once-in-a-lifetime event. It is your bad luck not having watched what I think is my only appearance on TV as a talking head. You’ve really missed watching me live at my bureaucratic best in appearance and also, performance. I feel sad for you that you will never get the opportunity again, at least not on DD. As it is, I break into a sweat at the very thought of meeting strangers or facing an audience of more than three people. Imagine how many liters of sweat I must have perspired on being told I have to face a tv camera. My first worry wasn’t how I’d get through the talk show but about how I’d appear and how many people would switch off the television the moment I appear on their screens. In case you did not know or hadn't bothered to check the picture on my profile, I’m not exactly Shahid Khan but an almost 50 years old guy seriously lacking in the looks department. In short, I am not terribly photogenic but there was no way I could avoid being on the show what with the cyclone ‘Nilam’ wreaking havoc in the State. I was to inform the audience (if there’s any) what the government was doing. I think I was on the screen for approximately 17.4 seconds (in a program that lasted thirty minutes) and the rest of the time the camera seemed to have been focused on three other people including the anchor. I do not know what message I managed to convey to the public about the measures taken by the government in the face of the cyclone. But I got the message that on these kind of talk shows it is the anchor who is right, and it is the anchor who gets the most screen time. It is natural because he is the anchor. Anyway, judging from the fact that neither I nor DD were flooded with calls shows that the show seems to have gone completely unnoticed which also means that not many people got to see me. No one I know seems to have watched the show. Even my own family did not bother to watch it which speaks volumes about my looks. Ahem. Apart from this historic and rare appearance on TV, I also made it to the newspapers. Were it not for ‘Nilam’ cyclone ‘The Hindu’ may not have bothered to mention my name in their columns. Last Sunday my name was mentioned in a report about the damages wrought by the cyclone in the State. It carried my designation as well which is bigger than my name. They also got it completely wrong. I do not mind though. For a couple of days I was flooded with calls from BBC, CNN, Wall Street Journal and something called the German Press, asking me for updates on the cyclone damages. I do not know if I made it to the international press also. But it was an experience that merits an entire post. But next time I'm the news I hope it will be after my novel gets published.