Exploring the unknown

I always thought that press conferences were meant for and targeted at journalists until one day I attended a C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing) press conference. It was a press conference to announce the launch of a new Linux operating system by the organization, which was supposed to be better than any other Linux distributions in the market.

The conference was supposed to take place at the company's office, which was no less a maze, which only the company officials could solve. When I reached the place about 30 minutes late, I was escorted to the secret room in that maze by a PR executive of the company. There were a few journalists already waiting there, but nothing had started. We were then told that it'll take another hour to get started. To keep us busy, the company decided to offer us 'snacks'. For some reason, they couldn't get those in the same room. So we were taken to another room through a similar maze, which had a huge conference table having a box of snacks and 'fruity' each for all of us.

After that 'delicious' treat, we were asked to stand outside the room for inauguration. All photographers were invited to click pictures, but since there were none available, someone from the company used his 'high-end' 2 mega pixel cell phone camera to click the pictures. Once the Chief guest entered the room, all the journalists were pushed back so that the C-DAC employees could interact with the IT-secretary. Perhaps they didn't want us to listen to their secret announcements which they called us for.

Use of a microphone seemed to be prohibited in the office. Though all of us (the journos, ofcourse) were interested to know what the new operating system had, even with a lot of effort, we could only make guesses about the features as nothing was audible. Nevertheless, the chief guest left after the presentation was complete and everyone thought that they'll now get some details about the new platform but no details were provided. Wondering why we were invited to the event, we realized that it was perhaps an exercise to test how techno savvy we were and how sophisticated gadgets we carried. Since, I wasn't carrying any spying gadgets in my arsenal, I failed the test to qualify as a tech journo. Disappointed at my defeat, I took a vow that I won't attend any C-DAC event unless I'm carrying enough hi-tech spy gadgets.

Why do wishes come true!

Everytime when my phone rings, it brings with it more and more tensions and problems and what not. With more than 40 calls a day, I've already started feeling like a call center agent working as a part time journalist. 90% of these calls are from the PR guys, only to confirm if I've received the press releases that they sent over the e-mail. I wonder what's the purpose of e-mails and acknowledgment features of the Outlook and Lotus Notes!

Tired of so many calls a day I made a wish...God! why can't I just get rid of my phone all together? Do something..please!...And there I go...in the middle of the Dubai desert I see the divine light. My phone was gone before I knew it and I was so glad that though not for long, I'll have some peace of mind.

But as the Murphy's law states..Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way. I didn't just lose the only cell phone I had but also lost all the contacts in it (since I never bothered to take a back up, being an optimistic person) apart from losing some candid shots I had captured and not to mention the recordings of the event that I went to cover in Dubai.

As soon as I returned to India, I was forced to get a new SIM and a temporary phone, with no contacts in it. I had to dig out e-mails, chat histories and business cards to retrieve some of the contacts. After over a week I was still begging over the mails to get back contacts. With no mobile Internet, no mobile camera and recording options, I was forced to use my age-old Nokia 1100(yes, the same torch waala phone). Though I couldn't do anything much on that phone apart from making and receiving calls, I liked the fact that I didn't have to charge this phone everyday (unlike N72 which required 2 hr of charging everyday). I was pretty happy with my simple phone and decided to delay my plan for buying a new handset for at least a month or two. But then again, things can never work the way you expect them to. Even my 1100 gave up on me within a couple of days and I was left with no choice but to look for a new phone.

Finally, I bought Nokia E-71, after pushing my budget as much as I could. Now, I'm just trying to careful with what I wish, as you never know, the wish just might come true!

Am I at the right place!

The best thing about our News channels is that they provide you with everything but the news. While IndiaTV seems to have posted 90% of their reporters in wildlife sanctuaries, documenting naag-naagin ki shaadi or billi aur bandar ka pyar, others are more focused on 'duniya doob jayegi...sab khatm ho jayega' type of drama. I always wonder how they manage to get all these breaking news! One channel I used to admire was NDTV for its actual News instead of entertainment soaps until I met her...NDTV's most intelligent journalist.

I was sitting in a Dell press conference where the founder of the company was supposed to announce the launch of some new notebooks. Knowing that Michael Dell would be present himself, a large number of journalists appeared for the launch. The company was lauching a new range of notebooks with over 10 hours of battery life and an extended 9 hours with an attached battery unit. After describing all the 'cool' features of the notebook, the house was open for questions. Grabbing the opportunity to ask the question first, an NDTV female correspondent shouted out her question (waiting for the mike could've meant loss of opportunity for that very first and the most innovative question).

She stood up to ask the question in a voice that was loud enough to compensate for the mike. Finding the laptop launch weird for some reason, she asked, "The world is reeling with economic crisis, with fuel prices going up, economies struggling to control inflation. Do you think in such a scenario where people don't have money for the fuel or even food, they'll have money to buy laptops!" Well, as far as I knew, laptops weren't meant to be a substitute for either fuel or food. But anyways, this intellectual question from my favorite lady added fuel to fire. Post this question, there were queries about everything but the real topic of discussion--the new laptops.

Yawning at the questions and answers session, a fellow IT journalist quietly asked me, "Are we at the right place!"...Well I guess we had reached some place where all the News channel reporters flocked to get their BREAKING NEWS.

We the JOURNOS

Journalists are the most underpaid people in India or so it seems looking at them in any late evening press conference (I wonder how many people have the same opinion about me!). I usually avoid late evening press conferences cos you rarely find anything worthwhile in any such events. Most people (and I'm talking about my very own journalist fraternity here) attend late evening conferences only because they know they'll get some free drinks (or daaru).

Looking at the gathering at the HP product launch today, I was surprised to see that its not only me who makes the mistake of reaching on time. The conference hall had at least 20-25 people when I entered bang on time. While the reporters seem to be sitting at the tables, the cameramen (from the TV channels) were busy drinking while setting up their cameras for the launch at the same time.

As I sat at one of the tables, some senior journalist (I'm not too sure if he was senior in terms of experience or just his age) joined the same table. He looked like those typical journos seen on in Bollywood movies, with long Grey beard, khaadi shirt and stoned eyes with dark circles. The only thing that seemed to be missing was a jhola. He was doing something weird. I couldn't really understand what he wanted to do. He seemed to have been drinking a lot even before I walked in. For some reason, he found the table cloth very appealing. He was caressing it, touching and feeling it, trying to adjust it in some way that only he knew better about.

After observing his interesting behavior for almost an hour, the conference began. As the presentations went on, our senior journalist was oblivious to the environment with a few more pegs of the golden drink.

After the presentations, a new product was launched and one could feel the heat in the room. The Television cameramen were too drunk by this time to realize that they were (supposed to be) civilized. As the photographers flocked the stage with their cameras, the Television cameramen were shouting on top of their voice, asking the photographers to leave the stage so that they could also shoot. Well, I wondered what kind of pictures they would've clicked without the tripod stand!!

Meanwhile, our special guest (yes, the same Bolloywood ishtyle journo) was still in his trance. The Q&A session began, starting with a few questions from some kind of fake journalist who seemed to have been planted by the company itself in order to ask questions that go in the company's favor. It was followed by many other questions from other journos. Just when the session was about to end, our bearded friend woke up from his trance, and raised his hand for a question. He popped his question with great enthusiasm, "I like it...who are competitor and if you no competitor then how long will you enjoy the market." Well those were the only words he spoke. I guess with the golden drink running down his throat, no one wanted him to repeat his golden words!

Buy Intex notebook and get a hernia free!

Sitting in the conference hall of Shangri La, I was waiting for the launch of Intex's new range of laptops. Soon enough, a young lady took the podium and after welcoming everyone started announcing something. I was attending to an important sms while this happened. Suddenly, I heard a huge round of applause from the crowd. Bewildered with the sudden applause, I turned my complete attention to the stage.

There was something happening on the stage that gave me a feeling of déjà vu. After straining my memory a bit I realized that I experienced a similar event a month ago. It was the prize distribution ceremony of my 8 years old nephew's fancy dress competition. Here, I was seeing some Intex personnel being invited on stage to receive a bouquet of flowers from some unknown lady just because they were about to give their presentations (Wow!..what an achievement). This confused me even more as I started wondering why the hell are people clapping!

So, as I looked around to see who's actually clapping for no reason, I realized that about 90% of the crowd comprised of people from Intex itself (I could recognize them as all of them were wearing some fancy red Intex T-shirts) and so it's needless to say who the real culprits were.

Well, after their moments of glory, the Intex guys started giving their presentations about the company and their products. While, their ‘Oh so interesting’ presentations went on, I took a sneak peek in my press kit and noticed something really shocking! In the specs of one of the laptops that Intex was launching, its weight was mentioned as 3.95 kgs. So, I immediately raised a question to the Intex spokesperson to confirm if that was a printing error and if not then why in the world would anyone want to buy such a mammoth. His reply was even more shocking. He said, “This particular notebook is targeted at gamers who do not require mobility.” I guess he forgot that he was talking about a ‘mobile’ computer. The presentations went on with further interesting revelations: “The gaming notebook is priced 'competitively' at Rs 76,000(this was the same 4 kg mammoth)…It has a dhai saw GB (250 GB) hard disk…sitambar mein (in September) we’ll be launching more notebooks (not sure which language to use)….”

Completely tired of the whole thing, half of the journalists decided to take a leave while the drama was still on. I stayed on to get hands on experience with the notebooks that were on display. While, I started to check out one of the notebooks, a young girl from the company politely told me not to touch the notebooks. I wasn’t sure if that was an extremely rude behavior towards a technology journalist(whom they only invited to check out the notebooks) who sees much more expensive and much more sophisticated gadgets everyday or was she just considerate that I don’t get hurt from their 4 kg mammoth.

Full Monty with the phone!

Nokia, being the number one cell phone company sometimes forgets how important it is to have some sensible people on board. The launch of its latest E-series phones not only involved unveiling of new gadgets but also the great fundas of their top brains.

While, the world is talking about maintaining a good work life balance, the Director-Marketing, Nokia India, Devinder Kishore feels on the contrary. After giving a long and boring presentation about cell phones market in India, it was time to finally unveil the new phones.

So the lights go dim and Kishore though in the dark, still visible, starts to unbutton his shirt. Though the spotlights were not on him all eyes gazed only at him. He takes off his formal jacket, folds his shirt sleeves and while unbuttoning the shirt, attaches a wireless mike on his shirt. There is a huge sigh in the crowd thanking god that he didn't actually strip. So the curtains rise and there comes a golf course scene in the backdrop with a pseudo hot girl playing golf in her stilettos.

Kishore joins the young lady while holding the new phones and announces, "I'm at the golf course on a weekend and still I can respond to my official e-mails, thanks to the new E-71." He probably never heard of a blackberry before. Well, his message was that you can say F*** off to your personal life and invite all the trouble by mixing your work with personal life.

And hey, I forgot to mention where this topic came from. After revealing the phone, Kishore uncle decides to make some swanky comments by saying that "The new phones are now available in stores and you can go there and do a FULL MONTY with them" !!

Koreans, gadgets, actresses

I enter into Oberoi's a couple of weeks back and as usual rushing to reach on time. I had to attend a Samsung press con and I was told that for a change this press con would start on time. Keeping an optimistic figure in mind I enter the place about 20 minutes late. Surprisingly the conference had already begun but I had no reasons to worry--they were playing some stupid video, which nobody was interested in.

So, I quietly locate a couple of fellow journalists and find myself a place to sit. After tolerating that horrendous video for another 15-20 minutes, a Korean guy takes the stage to give a presentation about Samsung's various products. It seemed like the English he was speaking was written in Korean. He took so much time to complete one sentence that he could've rather placed his speech on the projector-making it easier for the poor journalists to at least comprehend what he was trying to speak.

Samsung was launching its new range of LCD monitors and digital photo frames in the country and had invited the Sagarika Ghatke (Preeti Sabharwal of Chakde) to endorse the products. When they unveiled the product, there stood Ms Ghatke in some corner with the LCD monitors. The poor girl was soon cornered by all the koreans who wanted to be clicked with I wonder who--the monitors or the young lady. Amongst them all it was only the monitors that seemed worth clicking.

Anyways the 200 pound actress was not that bad to look at nor were the new monitors. So though I didn't get any interesting story from the conference I guess the drama that went on was a good stress buster.