So, if you were watching NDTV at about 955 last evening, you would have seen:
-An introduction to a piece about new-age astrologers with laptops
-immediately followed, surprise, by the blogging story, which consisted of –
– lots of cutaways of my room, my posters and my books
– two incoherent quotes from me (taken from a loooong interview, part of a fairly gruelling 2.5 hour shoot at my house, where shots were taken of a (they said) ‘lonely loser’ blogger’s surroundings. Me standing on the balcony looking at a dog, me scribbling in the NDTV reporter’s diary, me reading Watchmen, me climbing stairs, me opening doors, me fingering my keyboard, me staring solemnly and cheesily at my book (ha! I used the Swedish translation, and they never knew). Praise the GODS that none of this actually went on TV. Incidentally, I am now the size of a medium-sized whale, and fairly glad that the new book wont get any media attention because then i would have had to become thin. Why am I so much more bloated on video? Friends reference – Monica: The camera adds ten pounds! Chandler: So how many cameras are actually on you?
– lots of shots of my blog, the ‘your blog has published successfully’ thing, and some other blogs. I noticed Jais and eMs.
– random cybercafe-type place shots, unless it was the NDTV office 🙂
– and just when you were waiting for Jai, eM, Hurree Babu and Kiruba Shankar, the other people interviewed for this story (and i have to say they did a LOT of shooting for a small feature), or even for shots of the very nice, bright-future reporter (sorry about the flush, K) talking to the camera, you got
– a few seconds of black screen
– Vishnu Som (I think) saying solemnly, there were problems with that clip (like someone had discovered it wasnt about new-age astrologers) and ok, byebye now.
I apologize to the Indian blogosphere at large for being the only face shown in the story, for not saying anything interesting on TV (though i promise i said many clever and interesting things during the long interview) and for being the most unattractive poster-boy for blogging since…well, ever, actually.
Advice for the good people at NDTV
– In future, do not shorten what could have been stunning docu-features on blogging (for what? news! I ask you, dont you get tired of the news on a 24×7 news channel from time to time?), or if you do play the intro to one, do call it a blogging story
– Show all the attractive bloggers during the first part of the story
– Blog
Samit Basu 
What! You mean after that three hour shoot there was a PROBLEM with the story?? I never watched the show (since E has deprived us of a TV) but I’m sure you redeemed it. 🙂
Posted by motheater | August 8, 2005, 10:34 amDang! Was watching Aliens on Star Movies!
Posted by VM | August 8, 2005, 10:53 amSo for a minute there, I was thinking WOW Samit’s making money with astrology predictions…?? But hey, nice posters!
Posted by Mangs | August 8, 2005, 11:20 amyeah, the posters were one redeeming factor. i was supposed to meet them at a coffee shop but brought them home when they didnt get permission to shoot; house was full of people and scattered objects, and they made me very nervous by taking pictures of said scattered objects. and my toenails. fortunately john malkovich won the day. the other posters are most jealous
Posted by samit | August 8, 2005, 12:18 pmShit tell me about it, I watched that damn show for the whole one hour and they cut it off just like that !!!
I can’t beleive they actually interviewd you for 2.5 hours and aired only that much !
I think you should try and steal the tapes and make a documentary of your own.
Posted by Rat | August 8, 2005, 12:34 pmYes, NDTV has a toenail fetish. They kept zooming in on my holey socks.
Posted by Jabberwock | August 8, 2005, 2:30 pmSamit…the redeeming thing is that they showed “something” of you. Once DD’s great Pankaj Saha , during his Noboborsho program, “interviewed” me ….I told all my friends about my achievment…my grandma woke up early in the morning to catch her nati on TV…one lady friend, who I was tring to impress desperately then, was also coaxed to do so…and to my embarassment, they had cut out the whole segment altogether.
Well congrats for bringing bloggers out of the closet….
Posted by GREATBONG | August 8, 2005, 4:22 pmvm: good call
rat: they spoke to me for about half an hour. the rest of the time they shot random stuff around my room, and made me jump through hoops
jabberwock: foot fetish. foot fetish. maybe theres a story in this. i wonder if they shot Hurree Babu’s feet, or eMs.
GB: Heh. I feel lucky now.
Posted by samit | August 9, 2005, 2:43 amoh no..wish i’d seen it..my sister commissioned the story for the channel,i think,but she’s off in lei now,so she never let me know when it was on.
did vishnu make an idiot of himself?
Posted by cass | August 9, 2005, 5:20 amNo feet.
Plenty of hands, though 🙂
Then again, I WAS in a bookshop, so it would’ve been rather hard to take off my sandals and wave my feet around. Maybe it was just you and Jai 😉
Posted by eM | August 9, 2005, 8:35 amit was quite sad.. I watched that program from nine to ten and all I got was we.. you!! 🙂
What was that whole astrology thing, anyway?
Posted by Jasmine | August 14, 2005, 9:28 ammust have been an experience in its own kind..
Posted by Twilight Fairy | August 15, 2005, 11:57 amha ha….
nice editors at NDTV huh…
BTW nice BLOG
Posted by Prahalathan | September 2, 2005, 6:56 pm:))
Posted by wise donkey | November 12, 2005, 11:57 am