Tata ByeBye CNBC-TV18

So I gave up my job at CNBC-TV18. Finally mustered the courage after two years to do the womanly thing- give up a secure, well paying job in pursuit of happiness. Atleast pursuit of happiness sounds more filmy than ‘to figure out my life’. If I end up anywhere close to being the financial genius Will Smith was in the movie, you can imagine the irony in my leaving the leading business news channel in the country.

I wasn’t doing anything related to news at the channel actually. Except for three minute news updates on the weekend which I secretly hoped would make me appear to be more well informed than I actually was. It worked…till people started asking me details of such and such deal and I looked at them like I’d left my brain at home that day. Oopsy-daisy. Will set a reminder to pick it up from my bedside table tomorrow.

Looking back, my biggest takeaway from working at CNBC-TV18 was the fact that I learned to be creatively stimulated. Oh yes, and I learned to work in a team. Because I didn’t think I was cut out for that. Funny, how life throws you a curveball and you surprise yourself by diving like a pro to catch it. Ok, I wasn’t really a pro at it, but I gave a pretty damn good impression of it.

Now, if there was something I was a pro at, it was juggling. I never realized how closely my skills came to those of a professional juggler till I started producing a weekly show. Simply replace those ten balls in the juggler’s hand with the faces of the cameramen, directors, library personnel, editors, makeup artists and PR agents, and you have a circus in your hands right there. CNBC-ishtyle! Actually, ask any producer of any show and the story’s the same. Skills like juggling humans make us TV brethren dangerously similar.

But yes, I learnt how to juggle and I learnt how to dig. Dig myself out of crazy situations. Houdini could do the vanishing act pretty well, but then again he probably never had Mumbai cops to stop him. I have and let me tell you, when one of those overzealous entities decides to wreak havoc because you’re shooting without permission at the Bandra Kurla Complex, then the disappearing act becomes a little hard to pull off. So you pick up the spade and start digging. Dig deep into a person’s psyche and see what makes them tick. Or talk. Marathi, no matter how jarringly spoken, is always a boon. Then comes the press card and the spiel on how this ‘news’ story you’re covering is timely and has to be shot urgently so that our teeming population can know how rising gas prices are affecting the sport of remote control cars in the country. (Did I tell you I worked on a weekly technology show called Tech Toyz? Well, now you know). Everything that’s beyond the realm of common sense should be tried during the event of digging, and you will be surprised how quickly you hit gold. And I was a fast learner.

It’s funny how slowly but steadily I am realizing that in life that I am best at things that are most vile, baseless, cunning, conniving and manipulative. Yes, I derive innate pleasure in spelling this out because it drives home my next point- about having CNBC-TV18 to thank for infusing me with a steady dose of creativity (the good stuff). Here’s where I backtrack a little to my creatively stunted days. At one point of time, I used to file feature stories for the channel, and one of them was on the launch of an international chocolate brand in the market. Let it suffice to say that the creative peg I gave to my story was so bad that my boss used that piece as reference in one of his seminars under the section of ‘what not to do when you’re filing stories.’

Looking back from that high point in my journalistic career, I’ve certainly done myself proud. I say proud because I had sufficient grey cells screaming at me to stay on in a company that could only add value to my career, and I paid heed. A story on accessing internet on the phone? Why not get to the top of a crane and access the internet from there? Reviewing a camcorder? Why not shoot a short film using it and let the viewers decide if they like the quality….and this is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg that was my team at CNBC.

But despite that all, I left. And here I am, talking about my time at the channel, like a withered, old woman reminiscing about the good, old days. So why the hell did I leave if it was so damn good?! Because unfortunately for us, we’re wired to be curious cats and we live on a celestial body that’s too big a playground for our own comfort. There is so much more to do and see and experience (…and the fact that I’m not paying any loans right now or taking care of the 7 kids I want to eventually have) hell, I’m jumping into the wild right now. What’s the wild, you ask? It’s the tangled mess of writers, documentary film makers and globetrotters. That’s where I’m going. Till curiosity kills the cat. Or better still, sends her back to an air-conditioned office.

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