A Lifetime of Roles

Math & English Teacher:
Just after wrapping up a bachelor’s degree in Electronics from Bangalore, I got to teach. At Kendriya Vidyalaya, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, where my father, K V Vijay Sarathy, was posted. He was an engineer working at the reactor of the power plant. My first job – and the first salary – gave me as much of a high, as being a Class Teacher of VII A did. In the higher classes, it was fun to teach students who you “looked up to”; most were much taller than I was. The only turn-off was the screech of the chalk when you wrote on the blackboard!

Sub-editor:
My first true-blue job. One that I could call, a profession. Ever since the time I had idolised the daring journo Chitra Subramaniam who brought the then Rajiv Gandhi government on its knees with her Bofors scam expose, being a journalist was the coolest thing to be. Never mind I ventured into science & electronics, I was saved by Destiny just in time. If I hadnt got into the newsdesk @ Indian Express in 1993, I might have been Ms Misfit Engineer. Or one of the Idiots for Aamir Khan’s future venture.

Virtual Editor:
The Year 2000 brought the dotcom wave. And, money for the media hack. Until then, journalists believed that they were born in their jobs to change the world; and they better not mind the small change they earned while they did that. But for me, the joy of the new job lay in reclaiming evenings that I had lost in my newspaper years. And in knowing what Weekend actually meant.
When I was not lapping up Saturday & Sunday offs, I actually managed to manage the editorial @ indiamarkets.com.

Film Critic:
Never again will I say what a great job a movie critic has. Because only I know what it meant to sit through Fardeen Khan’s debut movie Prem Agan (did you know, they gave him Filmfare best Debut Award for 1998? You don’t, I do) and Sridevi’s premarriage farewell movie Army. And why? Just so that I write the Express `reviews’, while one view was ordeal enough. So what if I got to watch Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam on a rickety chair that the guy put out for me in his Houseful theatre? But surrendering my Fridays to first day, first show, was like getting a Balcony Seat to see India at its movie-obsessed best…

Network Co-ordinator:
Thanks to senior journalist friend Ammu Joseph, got a chance to be the Karnataka co-ordinator for a network of media women. Called the Network of Women in Media, India, NWMI is an informal collective of women who are working or have worked in/for print, broadcast and electronic media. Being coórdinator for the Bangalore chapter taught me other skills as well: how to organise events even when the wallet is empty, how to bring people together even if they got along each other’s nerves. But the joy of bonding with women, on issues about women, was priceless.

RJ:
The most-high profile job I ever held, despite being least-trained for it. I was jobless after a previous company folded up, and the next I knew I was breakfast show anchor, RJ Vasanthi @ Radio City 91 FM, ‘Bangalore’s hit music station’. All thanks to a rockstar jock of those times called Suresh Venkat, who hired me, even as I tried convincing him that I was so not suitable for the job. But he had his way, and my mornings 7 to 11 am were never never the same again. At least for the next four years. And when ‘reluctant RJ’ won the Radio Excellence Award for being Best English RJ in 2007, I was convinced that sommmeone had been listening to me, after all…

TV Reporter:
Being Special Correspondent @ NDTV’s Bangalore bureau gave me a never-before thrill, especially of reporting news from the real India, rural Karnataka especially. And besides Breaking news, bonding with people who you would never want to meet again in life. Chief ministers, former prime ministers, wannabe newsmakers, have-been celebrities, pr-savvy politicians.. Mike, Camera & Re-action: The three constants in a tv journo’s life. But great moments too were in plenty, when you met ordinary people and reported on their above-ordinary spirit in the face of struggle. Like 14-year-old Durga, who escaped her torturous employers and still manages to smile…

Documentary Anchor:
It was surreal moment for a Bangalore journalist to see her credits on the BBC, no less.The show: One Square Mile. The episodes that I anchored from Nepal & later Laos for the venerated channel. A socio-political documentary that has the reporter-anchor walk through the square mile of the featured country that represents its people, their struggles and victories.

Show-host & Voiceover Artiste:
To lend your voice for a programme or product is to lend your personality through that voice. Whether you moderate a debate or emcee a ground event, its your persona that can light up the show. And the opportunity to do that, whether it was the one with Sunita Williams at the Infosys global meet or anchoring the Anup Jalota Bhajan Sandhya, was a chance of a lifetime. Today, I continue to play MC at corporate events, cultural functions, special events, music nights…

Singer:
To be able to sing is a blessing. To have an audience to listen to you sing, a bonus! And its these willing listeners who give you the confidence to go beyond being bathroom singer. Singing is a passion with me. Carnatic classical, folk and of course, the usual Tamil & Hindi movie songs that always have takers.

Mother:
Saving up the best for the last, this is one favourite ‘job’ that one doesnt mind doing 24×7. We women, or for that matter men too, are in role play all our lives. As daughter/son, friend, spouse, soulmate. But being mom is a role of a lifetime. And so I learn everyday from Anirudh, things I have never been able to perfect. From getting names right of Barca’s soccer players, to saying “Whassup Yo”, the kind that will get a teenager’s approval, Iam still learning.