Writing it right

For all of my working life, I have been associated with writing, in some way or the other. First it was books in a circulating library I helped a friend run for a brief time that I was actually supposed to be in college; then it was term papers of various flavours. I even helped a close friend write a sales pitch for frozen yogurt! But I actually became what is called a ‘journalist’, for lack of any other word that is easily understood, when I was done with academics and decided that making money was more fun.

So I started writing, since that was what came easily to me and happened to be what I enjoyed doing. It also gave me the chance to wander about the city I came to know in a very different way, meeting unusual people and making new friends on the way. I did interviews and reviews, fluffy stories and more serious articles, covering science, arts, style and design and so much more than I cannot even start remembering.

Perhaps my favourite piece was the one on moustaches. Why do men have them, was the question, and I trolled my directory to find the answers. Friends laughed, then yelled at me, then muttered direly and finally gave me responses that ranged from the flippant to the deadly earnest. From there I moved on to ties, talking about the provenance and personality of that strip of fabric, wondering why it was so easy to talk about but so difficult to write 500 words on!

As I grew up, journalistically speaking, I also did some exotic travelling. Trips to Europe, China and parts of the USA I didn’t know were fodder for the glossy pages of various publications, complete with pretty pictures and evocative descriptions. From there, it was but a short hop to food – no restaurant reviews, just stories about food and cooking that kept me and mine (friends and family alike) entertained.

And, of course, there were the interviews. I met people who were lawyers, dancers, artists, fashion designers, marketing professionals, everyone who was anyone at any particular point in time. I wandered into fiery-hot kitchens to talk to a chef who is still a friend; I waited for hours for a couture creator who was busy engaged in unmentionable activities with his delicious male models; and I spoke to a world-famous dancer who adopted me into her world of intense whirlwind activity.

One meeting I will always giggle about was totally unexpected. I had wandered into the office bright and early, the only person there at that time of the morning. Ratty jeans and stretched-out Tshirt was my fashion statement, hardly appropriate for anything more public. I had no journalistic tools with me – no recorder, no pencil, no list of questions. But suddenly, before I was completely awake to the work-day, I found myself speeding off to a luxury hotel to talk to a renowned advertising guru, someone whose name still counts for more than just a respectful salaam in the world of creative sales and marketing. When I got there, it was obvious that I needed some help. The hotel gave me a tape recorder, pencil and writing pad, and I went through the interview easily enough. Then, having taken the tape with me, I sped back to the office to decode it. Therein lay the snag – the cassette would not play on any other machine. And when I called the hotel to beg to borrow theirs, they had bad news for me – the guru had just left the hotel and the country. Unfortunately, he had taken the recorder with him.

I still have not been able to talk to the gentleman again.