Lockdown Discovery
What I do during the lockdown
The usual morning walks or the evening ones during lockdown having now gone down the drains, the only activity after the WFH time is to glue on to your screen for a binge watch. But even this turned out to be boring. A walk on the isolated roads was an idea I toyed with. But one of my neighbours who went for a walk got arrested and I had to bail him out. And I dropped that idea for ever. Even the trainer, whom I had arranged to shed some fat, also stopped coming. Though he is eager to resume, I am in no hurry. But this lockdown has got me watching some good talents in the country. Apart from Netflix, Prime, Hotstar and Apple TV, I realised there are some raw Indian talents where I can binge on to and watch some LOL moments. Some are fiction while others are non fiction.
Among the non-fiction series, I like Newslaundry Newsance presented by Manisha Pande. It is a perfect spoil to the home grown and pro-government News Channel industry — which is also called as Lashkar-e-Noida. I stopped watching news on TV a decade back. This show reiterates my belief that news is nothing but entertainment. Being a ground reporter myself for almost the entire career, I realised how TV news was cutting budget by increasing debates than ground reporting and then making you believe it as the real news. TV Newsance comes as a relief to see how I was so true.
The second non-fiction is Peeing Human. It bring the real news out of the nonsense that is beamed daily on prime time. So much so that I like this than the real news.
I also watch some real news reports through twitter. I feel Barkha Dutt latched on to a life time opportunity to travel and report from the ground and her stories are some of the best. When history will recollect these memories hundreds of years from now, her reporting will be a benchmark. Though not produced in high quality, being on the road, it is actually the reporting that a journalist should be doing. Not that she is alone on the road reporting, but there are few institutional media houses which have encouraged reporters to report from the ground.
Political satire is my next favourite and no one can beat Rajeev Dhyani in this category. He hits hard and his choice of words are not only witty but very apt. He just nails out the common man’s thinking about a particular situation and makes a great satire out of it. Though it is a bit longer, it is worth listening to each every word he is uttering. I strongly recommend to subscribe to his channel.
Perhaps, taking a leaf out of Dhyani, another satire that is hitting the block and becoming popular is that of Urvish Kothari whose Gujarati funda is a perfect reflection of the thinking of a typical Gujarati. He makes a great recipe of the incident that gets discussed in local circles.
Some of the best lockdown narratives and memes are in Malayalam. This one by Karthik Shankar can be termed as the most innovative LOL moments. I don’t really know whether they are real life mother-son combination but the concept is too good and very intelligent. Though there are subtitles to the videos, the real satire can be understood only in Malayalam language.
One of the best international spoofs is by Michael Spicer who becomes Trump’s speech advisor almost every week. Trump gives enough chances for him to make spoof of him.
I am a podcast producer and so by default a podcast addict. I cannot afford to miss my regular shows. You are spoilt for choices in the podcast industry and you have limited time listening. But among the favourites are:
One show that I never miss any day is The Economist Intelligence. The host Jaison Palmer gives us the best outlook of what is happening in the world. I recommend this show as the only show you may listen to every day to know the world. Instead of sources, he asks Economist reporters to explain in detail about any incident. This gives so much in-depth knowledge that you hardly need anything else.
But if you are looking at a detailed description, then you may also opt for Economist’s Money Talks which is more oriented towards economics. It gives good analysis of the world of economics.
But if you want to have something that is more sociological and political, then listen to FOOC from BBC. Presented by the iconic Kate Adie, this show is the first person account of BBC reporters from around the world. It is one of its kind and if you miss it, you are missing the world.
Another show you must not miss is BBC Business Daily in case you are more inclined to the business part of humanity. Mostly presented by Manuela Saragosa or Ed Butler, this show explores a theme every day and gets deep inside in under 20 minutes.
But there are so many raw talents that appear from anywhere. This includes absolute gems like this:
or some great thought provoking cartoons by many cartoonists. Some of them are unknown, some are from Hindi and Malayalam background while some like Sandeep and Alok from mainstream.
Twitter is my favourite medium to get everything that I need. I have filtered out the nonsense from it so that I get facts and real stuff that I can vouch for. I think even after the lockdown is over, these lockdown discoveries will continue to be my favourites.
These were my lockdown discoveries.
One habbit that I continue with or without lockdown is to listen to some great news stories from around the world through curio.io
And of course my regular books through Audible. Once the lockdown is over, I can be normal and share what I used to do. But then there is a ‘but’ here. If at all everything returns to normal.
