I have shifted to a new house a few days back. When I saw the place, it attracted me, because of it's calm atmosphere. Little did I know that, there is a rail line behind my house and the tenant on the top floor has a cracked speaker. So my notion of getting peace here, died completely. 

First night spent in changing one room from other in measuring which room had less noise. If I chose back side room then I would have to bear the pain of train sound and front room has top floor issue. After wandering like a mad dog, finally I decided to chose back room. And that is because of my ego of surrendering myself to a machine rather than humans. Well, I know that's a weird imagination.

Though I decided to sleep, I struggled for more than 2 hours, thanks to the blaring of rail engines. But that reminded me of my childhood days, when I used to share bed with Papa. He used to snore a lot. And to make myself immune from that sound I used to plant a story in my imagination. I used to think there are lot of ghosts around, trying to snatch me away from my family. Till I hear papa snoring, I felt secure and connected to my world. Getting lost in that pleasant thought helped to bring a decent sleep. Otherwise a person like me, who cant stand noise for a second could not have survived without planting that story.

As a child, it was easy for me to hypnotise myself. But now I have no clue what to do. Probably that is why there is a saying, "Ignorance is blessing". Now I do not know how to get immune to noise since I have come out of that self-hypnotising mode.

These days you can find critics everywhere. Do whatever you want to do, they will always be there for you, some with their expert opinions and some just banishing your creativity like hell. Before joining media I used to think, media is the biggest critic of everything. Be it a famous player or a big artist, media will always be there to thump it's unwanted analysis.

With the growth of social media(Twitter, FB and Google plus), the dominance of media as a critic has doomed. But sadly it has reached to certain level that if people do not find anything to talk about they find "Media and Ethics" as the best thing to talk on earth. My first organization was TV Today. Once I was at my Di's place and her friend asked me about my profession. I introduced myself very proudly being a part of such an esteemed group. But her response shocked me. She said,"Oh Gosh what a news channel that was. Apart from Khalli and saas bahu, nothing left in that channel. That should not be a news channel, in deed that should be an entertainment channel." I was bit disappointed and asked, you still watch that. She replied, oh sadly yes.

Then after few months, I joined Network 18. This time I was at my ex gf's place where I was confronted with her jeeju. He had almost done post-mortem of every news channel. Thankfully he praised News X in spite of it's lip sink problems during it's initial days. But yes for him, CNN IBN was the worst English news channels he ever saw. Ironically when we were talking, IBN was on. I asked very politely the reason for hating this channel. He replied, Rajdeep. How could a single person be responsible for the performance of  such a big organisation.

Again after few years I joined NDTV. And now people on twitter and FB make fun of me for being a part of a channel which supports one of the National political Parties of India. Well, what makes them think so, I am yet to find out. If you see closely other channels, they do not have even balanced panelists in their talk shows, which at least we have.

Hence people always need something to criticise and complain about. Today its news channels, tomorrow it might be Twitter and FB itself.

I was never good at taking notes and that too in English. During my graduation days, I hardly acquainted with any high level English vocabularies. I took English Honours very proudly, thinking, "Ok, I am also into the world of legendary writers and poets." Alas littel did I know formula, in order to understand a world, one needs to know the route. And to know literature, the route was vocabulary.

I always found difficult to take complete notes in class and often peeped into my friend's note to see what the exact word was. And I had huge problems in catching lecrurers' pronunciations. But thanks to my friend for discovering the short forms, for example when it comes to write "Shakespeare", he used to write "Shaky" and etc.. I too followed his style and found the short cuts more interesting.

Well, one day when the result was out, one of my classmates curiously told me to go and watch the notice board. I thought I had topped the exam and rushed. But surprised to see the exam answer sheet put on the notice board with lot of red marks on it. I went close and more surprised to see, that was mine. :). My teacher had identified  five same words with red circles around them, where I had written "Shaky" and he also wrote that "I wish Mr Shakespeare himself could have seen this paper." Few minutes later he came inside the class carrying the answer sheet and read that loudly in front of the whole class.

Thank you "Shaky" for making a mockery of myself. :P

The other day, I have some work at AICC office, 24 Akbar road. When I reached there, I was surprised to see almost more than six hundred people standing in front of the gate and cops were standing with barricades, prohibiting those people from entering inside. Being enquired about the reason, a cop told me they have come for ticket distribution as polls in UP, Uttarakhand and Punjab are approaching. For a moment I thought how would I make an entry as I got to meet the General Secretary of the party for some interview.

Thank God, there was separate entry for media people. I managed to slip past. But the General Secretary's PA sahab told me to wait for some time as he was busy in some meeting. I came outside the cabin and waited under a tree. My eye fell on a beautiful reporter, but surprised to see her arrogance. She was treating an OB engineer rudely and did not even hesitate to slap a small boy who pushed her by mistake and made her microphone fell on the ground.

Come on, I know the value of camera and microphone madam. But that child who has no idea, what is the use of beating him? Few minutes a later, a tall man cladded with a white pajama appeared and gave his introduction to me. Alas I must say that was quite a Ramayan in deed. From his talks all I could imagine was, he wanted to get an election ticket. He thought, since I belong to media, probably I can help him to get a ticket. In spite of my thousand excuses of my inability to help him out, he did not budge. 

Thankfully my eyes again fell on that beautiful reporter. I asked that fellow to go to her if he wants his job gets done. He enquired the reason. I told him, "Boss that lady can surely help you out because she is a reporter and apart from that she is damn beautiful and you know how politicians are. They might reject my proposal, but not hers". That man was convinced and rest was history. :)

My ex-boss has a weird habit addressing everyone as "Boss". Be it his boss or subordinate or colleagues, he never calls anyone by his or name. Once his immediate boss asked him, "Do you also call you father as boss?" He smiled and said, no boss.

Once he took us to a restaurant for dinner. We ordered accordingly. After waiting for more than 40 minutes, our patience dried up. Finally my ex boss decided to go after the waiters, but he could not see any one. One person drew our attention as his shirt was matching slightly to the waiters' uniform. He shouted at him "Hello boss, what's wrong with you. We have been waiting here for the last 40 minutes and food has not been delivered?" 

He turned back and came to us with a smile and said, "Yes, I am the boss of this restaurant. How can I help you?" Since that was a five-star restaurant, my ex boss's lips got sealed and he said, "Sorry boss." Sigh...again "Boss."

A few days back I desperately needed the help of twitter for the first time in life. I am working in a news channel and we needed some twipple to attend our show, as the show was on "Internet Censorship." My producer told me to take the help of twitter since I am bit active in Social media. Hence I put in a request for invitation in both twitter and Face Book. She did the same.

After few hours she called up to say, "Manoj, have you noticed one thing? Its been two hours since we put our request on FB, but the response is nil." I was equally upset as there was not even one like on My FB update. We again logged in after an hour and happy to see both of us have got ten notifications each. But that did not bring any respite. People were pulling our legs and making fun of our agony.

I logged into twitter and happy to see my tweet have got the most number of RTs on that day and that's all I could show to my producer. People could not turn up for our show. I am not blaming them, but over all my little bit popularity on social media has of no use on that day. 

One of my colleagues put the request for the requirement of "A" Positive blood on twitter. That tweet of her got almost 100 RTs. Only one twipple came for help. Thank God, she scored at least one.

Finally I realised what's the use of such popularity when you are not influential at all. But yes, I should not forget, those social networking websites are still virtual world. One should not expect more from it. 

A couple of days back, I had an amzing conversation with an auto vala. After my office,  I took an auto to return my home. Normally I do not like to speak to auto drivers when we are on move. That day we were stuck in traffic jam. Seeing me in an irritation mood, he said something funny about traffic jam and I just nodded. We moved slowly. Gradually I realised him talking something about 2012.

Since 2012 always excites, I tried to hear what exactly he was trying to say. I asked him, "Do you believe in 2012 theory?", expecting him to say no. To my surprise, he said yes. My next question was why? He replied, "Sir, the way things are going, we are definitely going to meet the end in 2012. Cost of living is increasing, today we are fighting over petrol and diesel and tomorrow our generation will fight over food and water", which has already started I guess. The funniest part he said is, "In spite of petrol and diesel hike, people in Delhi go for vegetable shopping by cars." And I guess, this person has a valid point.

I dont believe in co-incidence. Just because I believe in 2012 theory and I got that auto driver to discuss about it, can not be mere a co-incidence. Though I did not find the reason. Yet, the message is clear, somewhere down the line people believe, the ultimate truth is END. Some call it 2012 and some death or destruction. 

Few years back world economy was rising and everything was fine. And now, no one can predict whats going to happen. Whether you become conscious and save energy or spend them like hell, it doesnt matter because ENERGY takes it's own course. We can not dictate it. We are just a part of it.

There is a famous sentence in Hindi movies, "Saap bhi mar jaye aur lathi bhi na toote." But I could never imagine how it is possible until one funny incident happened. Like everyday I was having my lunch at a dhabba, nearby my office. I saw a man parked his car in front of that dhabba and kept talking on phone. Seeing the car standing their for more than twenty minutes, the dhabba owner requested the person to move the car and park somewhere else. I really do not know why do the shopkeepers have problems when people park any vehicle in front of their shops. In any case in spite of his continuous requests, the car driver did not budge.

Normally, the dhabba owner never lose his patience and he is a cool customer. Suddenly he started shouting at the car driver and gestured him to move the car and that was his last warning. But the driver gave the same response, as if he did not care. The dhabba owner got up from his seat and went towards the car driver . Now this situation made me bit scared and I felt there might be some violence going to take place. 

Alas, the dhabba owner got up ferociously, but intention was not to beat that driver. Indeed, he called someone named, Hari. I thought, he might have a bouncer. But Hari was not a bouncer. It is a street dog. He instructed something to that dog and it started peeing at the car tyre. That certainly irritated the driver and he left within a minute. I looked at the dhabba owner and we both started laughing. :)

Few days back my friend wrote an amazing blog post on why National news channels should stop calling themselves "National". Here I am posting the link.

I would like to add few more examples out of my own experiences.

I have come Odisha for Durga Puja vacation. Few days back Odisha was hit by one of the worst flood situations. And its written in the blog how National news channels covered the news. I was talking to a friend of mine about OTV's coverage. I was taken completely into surprise. The channel announced a help line number for flood victims. One of the victims gave the byte, saying his wife was pregnant and they were completely surrounded by flood water. But there was no help from the Block Development Officer of that district. They called OTV for help and within half an hour the rescue team was sent and saved the family. While during a train accident a leading national news channel announced five help line numbers. I dialled the first two, and got a reply those numbers did not exist. Well, may be network problems.

This is not the only instance. The channel has helped saving few more lives through their coverage. They went live even during mid night, giving report from ground zero. The other day I was watching Durga Puja coverage on OTV. Though they have followed certain things from National Channels. But still it was awesome. I was surprised by the anchors' presentation and the specially the amount of research they have done. I grew watching OTV and I can bet the way they have improved themselves, is outstanding. I work in a National news channel. But my father prefers watching OTV at 10pm everyday rather than watching those so called "National Issues" in National media.

Whenever there is a breaking news from any remote areas, national news channels cut live to the regional channels. During my graduation days, a teacher told me, "People will bother to see if a bull hits a man in their own locality rather than what the PM is going to speak in USA". 

"Manoj, you sit at chair no 28, Uncle yours is 58, Aunty yours is 48, Mine is 28 and Maa's seat number is 55." That's what Vimoh told me when we got into Dehradun Janashatabdi express for Haridwar trip. My sister Mama asked then where is my seat? Vimoh has no answer. He kept looking at the ticket. Mama snatched the ticket and laughed at him by saying, "Hapi bhai why were you asking us to sit in terms of age? These are not seat numbers. The seat numbers are 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45." We all laughed. Alas the problem was not solved. On seat number 42 and 43 couple was seating and claimed that those were their seats. Now Vimoh started looking at the ticket once again assuming he had booked the tickets on a wrong date and I was looking at him. Thank God the couples have realised they had come on a wrong date and left the seats. That is how our trip began.

It took four hours to reach there. Since there was nothing much to do in train, the only option we had was 'Eating'. Yes we ate like dogs specially Vimoh and me. We kept watching whosoever coming through the door and expecting them to carry some food. We were not that hungry, but four hours of boring train journey made us feel hungry. 

Finally we reached Haridwar and welcomed by rain. Seeing rain after a long time, I thought journey will be very exciting, thinking about river Ganga and the natural scenery. Unfortunately the rooms we booked were nasty and filled with mosquitoes and other insects, created due to rain water. We were so tired that we did not bother that. But thanks to Uncle(Vimoh's father) who asked me to carry All Out machine with us. I went one step ahead and bought Hit mosquito spray. But to combat with those insects was not that easy. My sister and me were badly stung by them. No idea what happened with Vimoh and aunty.

In any case we got up early in the next morning and booked a car to Rishikesh. But I was sad to see bright sunshine with humid weather. Still we made our journey enjoyable. I was quite excited to see foreigners there. :p. The funniest part of that journey was, there was a bridge over the river Ganga, and that is called 'Laxman Jhula'. When tourists pass through that bridge it swings slightly. That made Papa so scary that he had almost decided not to cross. But Vimoh pushed him to cross that bridge and he crossed like Rajdhani express. While we all paused there and took snaps, he used his full energy and disappeared. But yes, I was quite exhausted after visiting Rishikesh and all the major temples on our way back. Until we sat near banks of river Ganga at Harkipodi, I thought there was no fun left in the journey. But yes, the moment I put my legs inside the floating river, all my tiredness disappeared. It tempted me so much that I felt like swimming. Unless you make yourself drown in that water, you would never feel why the river is called so auspicious. We sat there for two hours which healed all my anxieties and that stay was followed by an amazing Ganga aarti.

I felt as if I have achieved something big in life. If not complete peace, at least soul has got some solace from this journey. I had no idea why people call this place as 'Teertha'. But this journey gave me the answer.