Thursday, August 31, 2017

How to be a Successful Media Person



‘Techne’ is an old Greek word. If one has techne, that means one has ‘expertise in one’s chosen craft ’. Techne - that was what craftsmen of the past seemed to have aspired to possess.  More than two thousand years later, it is understandable that today standards cannot be what they were. Yet, at least an attempt must be made to slow down our headlong rush to total obliteration of all standards.

For example, to be a successful media person one needs to possess the following qualities:  

  1. Verbosity
  2. The ability to use faulty grammar
  3. Opinionated-ness  
  4. The ability to be cocky/ condescending/ flirtatious/ deferential in demeanor
  5. Emotional
  6. Visibly patriarchal/feminist in attitudes
  7. Uninformed
  8. The ability to wear glaring costumes
  9. Code mixing and code switching
  10. Accented speech

The Boy Who Started the Syrian War



 
“Dr Asad, it’s your turn, next,” you wrote on the wall,
And started the Syrian War, they say.
[Bull! All of it, I’d say.
But that’s for another day, not today.]
Now six years and so many bodies later
Burning cities
Shelled out shells of homes
And haunted eyes of the PTSed masses
Flash across, fodder for the world media
And the war mongers of the west –
Are they really two? –
Bodies lie rotting
On the brine swept sands
Vigilled by the fish, gulls, and the dogs
Burkas torn
To titillate the jaded palates of the North
Forearms marked
By many little deaths and short trips to heaven
Sons and daughters of the Sand lie stunned
Seven virgins – not for the girls – each in attendance.

So the Boy who Started the Syrian War, now a man,
When you plunge
Into the honey depth of your chosen
Don’t you hear the whimpers
Of those others
Who lie on their back
In their musty streaked pads up north
And think of you
While some pig grunts atop them?
When you pick up your new-born
Fresh out of his mother’s womb
Don’t you get the stench of that rotting corpse
Of that little boy on the beach?
Your home in some northern clime,
Don’t the very walls drip blood
And your roof scatter sand on your head,
You, the boy who said to have written on the wall
And started the Syrian War?

The “humour” poems in our syllabus while providing humour, attempt to convey some greater truths. Discuss this statement with relevance to three poems in your syllabus:

  The term “humour” is often associated with silliness, meaninglessness, lack of depth, etc. Therefore, when a poem receives the “appellatio...