Come summer, three bright uns will join us at Team ET from Stephens. They must be crazy. What will three bright kids from Delhi’s upper crust, who could have got the best deal in campus placements, do with a pack of jokers? I’ll give you a hint of the best campus deal this summer at Stephens. It’s gone for 650 grand. But our bright uns ain’t no losers. They’ll make do with a starting pay cheque that bests KPMG and E& Y. Jokers us, nevertheless? Go, ask Bull. Bulls are a crazy sort.
He’s the guy who runs the show at Corporate Dossier, CD for short. Before he stepped in here, he did a stint at advertising hotspot Lowe, then Lintas. He kicked that job to be with us and get his one-on-one with the likes of Jim Collins. Jim Who? I knew you’d ask that question. You see, this crazy bunch at ET. They never talk to the likes of Tom and Dick and Harry, unless, of course, Harry is the third in line to the throne in London. Bull says he’s more comfortable with the likes of Jim the management guru. Even Deepak Chopra will do. Aah Chopra, the spiritual master!? That reminds me of Rebecca. She dined me to greens at Ye Shanghai in, well, Shanghai’s upper-end Xintiandi last September when I asked her if she’d become a vegan outta spiritual compulsions. Rebecca revealed hers was a fad, before taking to the dance floor. Now, I’m sure you’ve met Rebecca by now. She’s the better half of the Carcelles who have been dropping in once-in-a-while at Delhi and Mumbai; husband Yves makes do with running the show at the world’s biggest luxury brand LV, makers of those super brand handbags. Aah, all these people. Now, Baba says they are PLUs. People Like Us, you know. Baba runs the show here in Delhi. I never question him.
This journalism thing, you know. Our journos at ET have come a long way, baby. It’s no longer the jholawallah types, you see, in Kolhapuri chappals. Those middle-class sorts. It’s Marzotto in winter in the newsroom. And Heidi Slimane linen in summer. Jija has even been sporting a pair of espadrilles to the office that she picked up from Barney’s in New York. Jija’s the one who runs the show on Sunday ET. But then, journalism at ET’s always been like this. And so have ET journos. Like the caviar garnish sprinkled on a tasty dish. Writing for People Like Us. You can check that out with Resh at ET Travel. She’s been indulging herself in caviar and Moet Chandon since God-knows-when, the way the PLTs make do with chaai-paani. Can’t help it, ya know. After all, ET’s not a run-of-the-mill broadsheet that hawkers go peddling at traffic lights. You only get to see this Pink Edge thing in the hands of the back- seat commuters in limos at traffic lights. Which is why it sells so less. To just about 1.2 million readers. Which is less than one-tenth of a per cent of the country’s population. Even our great-grandmother from Boribunder, The Times of India, is read by ten times as many readers. Poor us, guys at ET. Poor me! It’s just that I can’t complain any longer. Life on the other side of Fleet Street has been stressful. Makes me feel like those middle-class sorts on DTC buses or tin-box motorised rickshaws. It’s been good money for a while here now. I’ve paid through for a four-wheel drive once, then taken on a sedan to make it to the office from my suburban pad. Yet, those fourth-floor types who sign our pay cheques thought I hadn’t had enough. So, they threw in a canary yellow car of choice for my weekend outings. Can’t help it, you see. But life’s like that. And better take it as it comes. So what, even if the tax guys have been taking a big pick out of my pocket, and now they have this fringe whatever. But that’s a concession you make when you live life on the high street. Writing for people like us. Writing on people like us. Like Kumar Birla, for instance. We write for him. He too writes for us. Just as he did when Bill Boy came to town the other day. Kumar drove with Gates for a one-on-one on behalf of ET. Like the rest of the gang does on Budget Day. Sunil Mittal, Mukesh Ambani, Anand Mahindra, and the lot. We write on Budget for them. They write on Budget for us. Like TK does on the edit page day after day. Telling the FM what he must do for us. Telling us what we must do about the FM. He’s the kind that makes for the intellectual upper crust who couldn’t care less about life on the backstreet. Because ET’s not read on the backstreet. Or like Swami does on Budget Day, flying down from D.C. Or as Ajay does with his team at ETIG crunching numbers to make sense for those who matter. Now Ajay’s the guy who dropped in at ET from IIM-Bangalore so that he could tell the likes of him how to go about their business better.
Life’s a Big Party at ET. We have no bread to offer. So, I make do with the cake. We have the cake and eat it too. For life on our side of the world is tinted. Sometimes in Pink. Most often in the colour of the Dior sunglasses that Barbie wears to the office.
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