Tryst with nature
K. Ramnath Chandrasekhar
Looking back at our cherished memories the best part of anniversary celebrations.
Nostalgia struck me when I started to weave together a few of my best experiences from my little green book for this article. It took me back to a few of the earliest years of my childhood.
Peafowls and spotted owlets were my evening companions of curiosity at a tranquil and serene archaeological spot, which now buzzes with boat rides and parks. My regular dose of adventure was the night drives with my enthusiastic father to spot slender Loris, a small nocturnal primate that used to be seen crossing the road.
Exciting nature escapades during my childhood became the foundation that led me to pursue my passion towards the natural world.
The streams in the Shola forest of the magnificent Western Ghats became a metaphysical source and inspiration for me to become a naturalist.
Filming a King Cobra building its nest triggered my curiosity to learn about animal behaviour.
The extreme winter expedition on the frozen River in the Himalaya showed me the fragility of an ecosystem and pushed my endurance like no other. Very often the beauty of our natural world blinds us from the reality faced by its destruction. I was able to see the interconnection between nature and us when I had an opportunity to photograph a few areas that were affected because of failed monsoons.
I deeply hope the forests and ecosystems that thrilled and impressed me remain the same for many anniversaries to come and that we do our best to remain sensitive towards nature.
(The author is an award-winning nature photographer and co-founder of the Youth for Conservation. In his MetroPlus monthly column ‘ Inside My Green Book,’ he talks about his passion for nature, photography and conservation.)
Hunting for the best of the city
S. Aishwarya
I have a bad memory. When asked to write about my experience as a MetroPlus writer, there was a just one dominant image that did a constant jig in my mind – there I am, eight years younger (which is a lot especially when you have a marriage and a kid in between), narrowing my eyes at a skimpily-worded computer screen willing it to rearrange letters of the alphabet, throw in a few punctuations and sign off with a period to whip up a Pulitzeresque article for that week’s MetroPlus. After what seemed like several millennia, I started with a lame sentence that read like a poorly written progress report.
Not a flattering reminiscence by any measure. So I had to sift through my old articles for a memory fix. What you are now going to read is a work born out of a self-tormented mind raking.
My stint saw the birth of Weekend – the cute-as-a-button MetroPlus tabloid. Along with it came a bunch of opportunities - columns on college hangouts (where students, predictably, voted canteen as their favourite hangout, I, predictably, tweaked it to a fancier location like a haunted classroom or an always empty garbage bin and no one, predictably, ever complained), restaurants’ signature food, and occasional celebrity visits. All these came with a creativity-crushing deadlines, of course.
Every week after brainstorming for about an hour (sometimes) or about a minute (often), we decided on an article. Our decision was never made in a search-engine-optimised way. It was always in a very rationalistic ‘what could be written for 1000 words before the MetroPlus goes out to print with an obnoxious empty white space on its front page’ way. That sounds hardly creative. But that always worked.
Once the articles are in shape, we, the photographer and I, would get to the tougher part – shooting celebrities with an exquisite backdrop. I can downplay this all I want but the most picturesque place we could find was the Bishop Heber College’s lush green patch. But we couldn’t take our interviewees there more than twice, lest the readers assume that we house a studio in our office with a cut-rate vinyl wall poster of a New Zealand garden. So we sailed on every week finding beauty at hotel lobbies and more hotel lobbies.
Working for MetroPlus had also been an auditory experience of sorts. Annually, I drove down to National Institute of Technology’s Festember, where the Barn Hall cracked with hundreds of stomping feet, then stopped at a spookily quiet conference room in Hotel Sangam where a holistic health educator taught integrative meditation and rounded off the day by telephone calling a playschool head whose voice got rhythmically drowned by squabbling toddlers.
Week after week, I wrote down my stories and watched them getting poured into design – all preened and polished. But the rituals did nothing to diminish the fairy-tale experience of reading the MetroPlus the morning it was delivered at the doorstep. It might sound outlandishly dramatic but the supplement brought the best in me as a storyteller. It constantly prodded me to hunt for the best in the city. And it turned out, the city really had abundant bests.
S.Aishwarya worked between 2006 and 2008 in Tiruchi and is now an independent content writer based in New York.
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Homework first and last
G. Prasad
How often during my schooldays did I hear the classic 'have you done your homework' question from my teachers? As a journalist, too, I had to contend with the same question. But this time, it came from within.
Most of my contributions for MetroPlus have been interviews with celebrities from the tinsel world. As accustomed as they are to the run-of-the-mill queries, it was a challenge to come up with something interesting.
'Homework,' then, was the first - and the most important - step towards finding such posers. Many film personalities come down to the city for film-shootings or to preside over functions. So then, interviews over dinner, meetings during cups of tea, conversations during the course of a drive, or even inside the caravan at shooting spots, aren't uncommon.
During A.R. Rahman's visit to Jamal Mohamed College in August 2008, I had to squeeze my way through the crowd of youngsters to fire away a couple of questions at the 'Mozart of Madras.'
It was an opportunity to see first-hand the popularity he enjoys among the youth. All through his stay in the campus, Rahman was surrounded by a sea of students. Nonetheless, he remained unperturbed, answering my questions with Zen-like calmness even as he signed autographs, waved at the crowd, and ate lunch.
But at times, I would get to do leisurely interviews, such as the one with the legendary director-cinematographer Balu Mahendra. I fixed up an appointment with him during his visit to the city in August 2007. The interview, initially supposed to be for half-an-hour, stretched to a little over an hour. With such an extensive interaction, I got more than what I bargained for, but before I left the hotel, Mahendra rang up the reception and asked if I could come back to his room. He wanted to talk about his assistant directors - Bala, Vetrimaran, Raam, and others - and their projects. And, the interview duly continued.
Sometimes, I had to cope with the disappointment of missing out on an interview owing to the time-crunch faced by the visiting celebrity. When that happened after an elaborate homework, it was undoubtedly too bitter a pill to swallow. But then, the next interview, and the 'homework' preceding it, was never too far away.
Principal Correspondent (Sports) G. Prasad reported for MetroPlus from 2005 to 2011.
