A glass of steaming milky syrupy tea is best served cut. One by two or two by three, it embodies the spirit of sharing and camaraderie (and more significantly a resource crunch). Come, have a sip.
There is nothing new about the news of news being paid for. I first became aware of this practice as a mass communication student in the early 2000s. To me, then, it seemed that it was not just news but the soul that is being bartered. The feeling still holds true.
Today there was an nice piece in The Sunday Express titled "News, Sponsored." The contents of the article wouldn't be surprising for people who are in the business of the media, we have learnt to take it in our stride. A necessary evil for some.
Friends in the Hindi news channels term such content ad ki khabar (ads as news) and they usually get preference over other genuine news content. Obviously so, because there's money in it.
Such initiatives by the media organisations could be beneficial in these cash-strapped times, but the long term implications may be adverse. News is associated with credibility and when the credibility starts to wash off, so does the bottom line.
Or is it so? There are newspapers that don't give much of a damn to credibility and still sit atop the readership figures. There are news channels that have ceased to be news channels but draw the highest TRPs. We all thought that it was just a passing fad and Indians will tire of such content and see the light. But the light doesn't seem to be coming anytime soon.
Even though being in the media (not the mainstream media, but a wing that'll be the mainstream soon), I have started to rely more on the opinions of individuals who are unassociated with the media: the bloggers, the twitterers, the forums. I think I can still trust them. For me, professionally, it isn't a good signal.
It's been a crazy, busy month. First went on a short vacation home, followed by crazy work schedules and then a lot of activity on the personal front, leaving me totally exhausted at the end of the day (or the start of the morning, depending on my shift at work) with no energy left to fire up Blogger and post something.
Today, after a long while, I have a part of my Sunday to myself and while the clothes wash themselves in the washing machine, I thought of putting to rest the concerns of readers and friends who seem have the inkling that I've abandoned this blog.
The last post on this blog was a month back. And it was about Blip.tv deleting my videos, the update is that I've (thanks to Blip.tv) managed to download all the videos and now have to upload them elsehwere (this is going to take some time given the number of videos that I had posted).
Far from giving up on this blog, I have some grandoise (by my standards) plans on my mind and am slowly working towards it. That, again, will take some time.
For starters, let me introduce you to a new experimental (not that new since it is online since August) website/blog - DOBMW.com. Essentially an abbreviation for the Directory of Official Bollywood Movie Websites.
You can know more about it in the About Us and FAQs sections.
This is still in a development stage, with me doing all the work (with a little lot of help from Google search). While I intend to keep it simple, will add some elements to make the indexing and search better.
And even before a formal announcement people have started to take notice.
Or DOBMW for short, is a blog dedicated to achieving just one goal - being the one-stop source to all the official movie websites for upcoming Bollywood releases. Though it seems the site only began archiving in August this year, we feel it's still not too late to start; considering having official websites for marketing purposes came into practice in India only recently. It's quite a useful website if you love looking up Bollywood releases, wallpapers, filmi downloads and are just too lazy to search for them on the web.
You want another reason to bookmark this blog? They don't like Himesh Reshammiya either. (They say so in their FAQs!)
And on Cutting the Chai:
Run by Soumyadip, a New Delhi-based media professional, soumyadipc.blogspot.com is a blog centered around the world of Indian advertising - the good and the bad. From print ads to video commercials, special categories dedicated to condom ads (he calls it "Rubbers of India"), Soumyadip highlights the creative talent (and sometimes the lack of it that) that exist in Indian advertising. From time to time, he posts his thoughts on other media and even gives away Indian railway announcements as ringtones.
India's desi blog awards - The Indibloggies - are back after a year's hiatus. This blog - Cutting the Chai - had somehow made it to the final nominations for Best Topical Indiblog category, the last time around.
The last time I didn't file my own nomination (was a bit shy). Thanks to Amit who noticed this li'l blog. A couple of years after and with some of the hesitation lost, I didn't waste time and nominated myself.
Do send in your nominations here. And don't nominate Cutting the Chai, as I've already done that myself and the rules seem to imply that multiple (though no figure is mentioned) nominations may be interpreted as spam and could result in disqualification (you could if you desperately want this blog out of the race).
These awards are a great way to discover some great blogs. May the best blogger win. Hope CTC makes it to the nominations, multiple ones would be better. A win or two could make me a Rahman. Or some lobbying could atleast make me an Aamir (I'll then only post once every year).
But my biggest problem was that the nature of this blog doesn't exactly fit into any of the pre-defined categories. How would you classify Cutting the Chai? I settled for Personal Blog.
With the general elections drawing closer and politicians slowly becoming aware of the increasing power of the internet to sway public opinion (though still limited in India, but not inconsequential) BJP's prime ministerial candidate Lal Krishna Advani is attempting to reach out to the electorate via his newly set up blog on his website.
In the very first (and till posting this the only) post the Advani describes the internet as
There are celebrity bloggers and then there are celebrity bloggers. The first kind are those who have gained name and fame via blogging and the other includes the ones who are famous and are now therefore reaching out to their fans via the medium of the weblog.
This post makes an attempt at listing the Indian celebrities (mostly Bollywood people) who have taken on to blogging.
There are a number of lists listing celeb blogs in India, but I didn't find any to be comprehensive enough, therefore spent many many hours looking for them and putting them together in one place (and also adding some frills).
The opinions expressed against each blog is at the time of posting and if the nature of the blog changes later, it might not hold true.
Indian Celebrity Blog Directory (in alphabetical order)
Aamir Khan Who: Actor, director, producer [More] Where: His own website Feed: No Worth following: Yes Aamir keeps his blog regularly updated. Writes about a lot of things but many tend to revolve around his films. Good blog to follow if you want to know what The Perfectionist has to say. But the blog in itself is far away from being perfect. It even lacks many features that we non-celebrity bloggers expect as default in our blogs.
Abhay Deol Who: Actor [More] Where: Celebrity Angst blog at PassionForCinema Feed: Yes Worth following: No Abhay's blog at PassionForCinema has a single post related to his film Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye and nothing else.
Abhinav Bindra Who: Shooter [More] Where: Beijing and Beyond blog on Blogger Feed: Yes Worth following: Maybe The Olympic gold medallist isn't no longer an active blogger. Though he hid post a number of posts in August 2008.
Ajay Devgan Who: Actor, producer, director [More] Where: His own website Feed: No Worth following: Maybe Ajay Devgan makes very infrequent entries on his online diary and it is more of an one-sided affair as users cannot comment there.
Ajit Pal Mangat Who: Director, producer, writer [More] Where: Blog at BollywoodHungama Feed: No Worth following: Maybe Ajit is the producer-director of Victory and this blog is related the movie.
Amitabh Bachchan Who: Actor [More] Where: Big Blog at Bigadda Feed: Yes Worth following: Yes The Big B is a prolific blogger and Bigadda.com has provided him with a comparatively decent platform to blog on. His and Aamir's blog are the two most discussed celebrity blogs in the country.
Amrita Rao Who: Actress, model [More] Where: Blog at BollywoodHungama Feed: No Worth following: No She's good looking but doesn't write much. Only two little posts.
Anant Mahadeven Who: Actor, director [More] Where: Blog at BollywoodHungama Feed: No Worth following: Maybe Anant hasn't been writing much recently. Maybe there'll be more updates when his next film would be lined for a release.
Anupam Kher Who: Actor, director, producer [More] Where: Blog at IntentBlog Feed: Yes Worth following: No This blog is long dead.
Anurag Kashyap Who: Director, writer [More] Where: My Diary blog at PassionForCinema Feed: Yes Worth following: Yes Anurag's thoughts are interesting to read even when he is spewing fire at his detractors.
Bipasha Basu Who: Actress, model [More] Where: On her own website and an old blog at RediffBlogs Feed: No Worth following: No No diary entries since March 2008. Miss Basu doesn't seem to find this blog thing interesting enough. 15 posts in all. The RediffBlogs blog is practically defunct.
Celina Jaitley Who: Actress, model [More] Where: Blog at BollywoodHungama Feed: No Worth following: Maybe Though she hasn't yet blogged much, Celina does love to quote other people in her posts.
Cyrus Broacha Who: Television host [More] Where: Blog at IBNLive Feed: Yes Worth following: No The funny man writes funny posts but the last one was dated February 26, 2007. That's ages ago.
Dibakar Banerjee Who: Director, writer [More] Where: Oye Cinema! blog at PassionForCinema Feed: Yes Worth following: Maybe He made a couple of nice movies and his blog too has only a couple of nice posts.
Dino Morea Who: Actor, model [More] Where: Blog at BollywoodHungama Feed: No Worth following: No Dino's blog seems to be as short-lived as his acting career.
Emraan Hashmi Who: Actor [More] Where: Blog at BollywoodHungama Feed: No Worth following: No Nothing there beyond May 2008. Maybe something would crop up when Raaz 2 releases.
Farhan Akhtar Who: Director, writer, producer, singer, actor, television host [More] Where: His TV show's website Feed: No Worth following: Yes Farhan is a wonderful director and a so-so singer-actor-host. This blog is more about his show on NDTV Imagine, but he also does write about other things too. But there are only four posts, therefore can't say more.
Gul Panag Who: Actress, model [More] Where: On her own website Feed: Yes Worth following: Maybe The lovely Gul isn't seen much besides the Tata Sky ad with Aamir Khan and even her blogging is erratic, but it seems to have picked up pace of late.
John Abraham Who: Actor, model [More] Where: On his own website Feed: No Worth following: Perhaps The functionality of John's blog is a bit strange and moreover there isn't much in there too. Only a solitary post. But he might get on to writing soon.
Karan Johar Who: Director, producer, TV host [More] Where: His own website Feed: Yes Worth following: Yes When KJo writes, he writes a lot. But of late there isn't much happening on his blog.
Khalid Mohamed Who: Journalist, writer, director [More] Where: Cinema Ray at PassionforCinema Feed: Yes Worth following: No All that the acerbic film critic wrote on the blog was a couple of posts related to Satyajit Ray.
Kiran Bedi Who: Ex-cop, social activist [More] Where: Crane Bedi blog on Blogger Feed: Yes Worth following: No Nothing in there since November 2006.
Koena Mitra Who: Actress, model [More] Where: Blog at BollywoodHungama Feed: No Worth following: No Three posts, nothing worth the while.
Krishnamachari Srikkanth Who: Former cricketer, cricket commentator [More] Where: Blog at IBNLive Feed: Yes Worth following: No Last post is dated March 18, 2007.
Kunal Kohli Who: Director [More] Where: Blog at BollywoodHungama Feed: No Worth following: Maybe Kunal tends to be repetitive in his writing.
Kundan Shah Who: Director, writer [More] Where: Simply Kundan blog at PassionforCinema Feed: Yes Worth following: Maybe Kundan writes about his area of expertise, comedies, even if his later ventures were nowhere close to Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro.
Lalu Prasad Yadav Who: Politician [More] Where: Blog at MyPopcorn Feed: No Worth following: No Lalu's blog had generated quite a lot of interest, but the idea seemed unsustainable right from the start and also proved to be so. Just another attempt by a website to generate pageviews.
Lisa Ray Who: Actress, Model [More] Where: Blog on Wordpress.com Feed: Yes Worth following: Yes Lisa started to blog on September 2009, "to give people an insight into" her life after she was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma.
Nandita Das Who: Actress, director [More] Where: Nandita Writes section on her own website Feed: No Worth following: Maybe Known to be a thinking actress, her writing also reflects that thought. But she doesn't seem to write too often.
Madhavan Who: Actor [More] Where: Blog at Galatta Feed: No Worth following: No Maddy's writes short and irregular posts. There doesn't seem to be much interest in his blog either, assuming from the few comments it received.
Mammootty Who: Actor [More] Where: Mammootty With Love blog on Blogger Feed: Yes Worth following: Yes Mammotty just started his blog, the first post was on January 1, 2009 and he already has hundreds of followers on his blog. The only problem being that it is in Malayalam and therefore I can't understand a thing. Moreover Google lists Mammootty's official website (not the blog) as a Reported Attack Site.
Manoj Bajpayee Who: Actor [More] Where: Two blogs at ItzMyBlog (powered by Blogger) in Hindi and English Feed: Yes - Hindi | English Worth following: Yes The two blogs are just translations and the content is essentially the same. There are atleast a couple of posts every month.
Milind Deora Who: Politician [More] Where: Blog at IntentBlog Feed: Yes Worth following: Perhaps Most of Milind's blogging seem to be concentrated to a few months in 2005. There's not much here beyond that.
Mohan Agashe Who: Actor, psychiatrist [More] Where: Blog at RediffBlogs Feed: No Worth following: No This blog was primarily for the promotion of the movie Apaharan.
Muzaffar Ali Who: Director, fashion designer, painter [More] Where: Blog at IntentBlog Feed: Yes Worth following: No Only two posts. The last is from 2005.
Nana Patekar Who: Actor, director [More] Where: Blog at RediffBlogs Feed: No Worth following: No This blog was primarily for the promotion of the movie Apaharan.
Onir Who: Director, producer, writer, editor [More] Where: Dream Seller blog on PassionForCinema and another one on BollywoodHungama Feed: Yes (PassionForCinema) Worth following: Perhaps Onir's blogs posts are usually related to his films and therefore are more frequent only when something is happening on that scene.
Payal Rohatagi Who: Actress, model [More] Where: Her blog on Blogger Feed: Yes Worth following: Yes Payal keeps her blog updated and has plastered the blog with images. Her brother Gaurav is the co-author.
Pooja Bedi Who: Actress, TV host [More] Where: I Am Who I Am blog on Blogger Feed: Yes Worth following: Perhaps Pooja Bedi takes to blogging made quite a bit of news. But then it seems to have fizzled away. She has managed only two posts since August 2008.
Prakash Jha Who: Director, producer, writer [More] Where: Blog at RediffBlogs Feed: No Worth following: No This blog was primarily for the promotion of the film Apaharan.
Rahul Bose Who: Actor, director [More] Where: Blog at IntentBlog Feed: Yes Worth following: No Most of Rahul's blogging activity is from 2005-06, with only a solitary post in 2008.
Rahul Khanna Who: Actor, TV host [More] Where: Blog at IntentBlog Feed: Yes Worth following: No He is a likeable actor and his writing is the same too. Pity he doesn't keep his blog updated.
Ram Gopal Varma Who: Director, producer, writer [More] Where: Blog on Windows Live Spaces Feed: Yes Worth following: Yes Ramu might have lost his touch in movies but he is still an interesting read.
Ravi Shastri Who: Former cricketer, cricket commentator [More] Where: Blog at IbiboBlogs Feed: Yes Worth following: No This blog was only for the Commonwealth Bank Triseries in 2008. Nothing more happening there since.
Remo Fernandes Who: Musician [More] Where: On his own website Feed: No Worth following: No Only a solitary post there, that too a copy of a letter he had sent to the editors of some dailies.
Rohit Roy Who: Actor [More] Where: Blog on his own website Feed: Yes Worth following: No Just three random posts in there.
Saira Mohan Who: Model, actress [More] Where: Blog at IntentBlog Feed: Yes Worth following: Yes Though there are no recent posts, the archives show that the girl is able to post a lot when she wants to, even if they are only links.
Salman Khan Who: Actor [More] Where: 10 Ka Dum blog on Blogger Feed: Yes Worth following: No The blog died along with the TV show it was meant to promote.
Samar Khan Who: Director, writer [More] Where: Blog at BollywoodHungama Feed: No Worth following: No Just one Shaurya specific post.
Samit Basu Who: Author [More] Where: On his own website Feed: Yes Worth following: Yes Though he hasn't been posting of late, Samit used to be an active blogger and I expect him to continue being so.
Sanjay Suri Who: Actor, model, porducer [More] Where: On his own website Feed: - Worth following: - You need to be registered as a member of the Sanjay Suri Fan Club (online registration) to be able to access the blog. I didn't, so have no idea of the contents.
Santosh Sivan Who: Director, cinematographer [More] Where: Lil Bit of Sin, Lil Bit of Zen blog on PassionForCinema and also on his own website Feed: Yes Worth following: No In the PassionForCinema blog there has been no updates in the last one year and his website doesn't exactly have a blog but does provide some of his views on different things (and they have a datestamp).
Shahrukh Khan Who: Actor, producer [More] Where: Blog at IntentBlog and at Milan of the Villains website Feed: Yes (IntentBlog) Worth following: Perhaps There might be some activity on SRK's blog during the next IPL season. The IntentBlog blog has only a single old post on Paheli.
Shekhar Kapur Who: Director, producer [More] Where: On his own website and a blog at IntentBlog Feed: Yes - ShekharKapur.com | Intentblog Worth following: Yes Shekhar Kapoor is one celebrity who has really take on to blogging. Even the now inactive blog on IntentBlog has 110 posts and he keeps the blog on his official website very updated. His blog is a recommended read and has insightful posts on a variety of topics. Shekhar is definitely the best amongst the Indian celebrity bloggers.
Sherlyn Chopra Who: Actress, model, singer [More] Where: Blog at BollywoodHungama Worth following: No Feed: No Sherlyn Chopra, earlier known as Mona Chopra, always wants to make news and is a tabloid journalist's delight. She promised a blog on her official website - SherlynChopra.com - but that didn't happen yet.
Shilpa Shetty Who: Actress, model [More] Where: On her own website Feed: Yes Worth following: Yes Shilpa's career has risen from the ashes post Big Brother and she wants to make the best of this opportunity. Her recently started blog has some long posts.
Shobaa De Who: Novelist, columnist [More] Where: Blog on Blogger Feed: Yes Worth following: Yes After so many years writing should come naturally to Mrs De and she also lets it flow in her blog.
Suchitra Krishnamoorthi Who: Actress, singer, painter [More] Where: On her own website Feed: Yes Worth following: Yes Suchitra is quite active on her blog nowadays, maybe some Shekhar Kapur effect.
Vikram Bhatt Who: Director, writer [More] Where: Blog at MyPopcorn Feed: No Worth following: No Only three dated posts there. Same fate as Lalu's blog.
Vishal Dadlani Who: Music director [More] Where: Blog at BollywoodHungama Feed: No Worth following: No Not much in his blog, only a couple of old posts.
Vivek Agnihotri Who: Director, writer [More] Where: Blog at BollywoodHungama Feed: No Worth following: No Nothing much in there.
To make things easier for all the celebrity blog lovers out there I've accumulated all the feeds of the blogs categorised as worth following (including the ones in the maybe category) into one single feed. You can subscribe to the consolidated Indian Celebrity Blogs Feed here.
[The regularly updated ones have three posts featured while the others have only a post each]
Do help expand this list. Leave your suggestions in the comments.
As an additional frill I've created a Indian Celeb Blogs widget, that you can put up at a lot of nifty places. The widget features the 10 most active Indian celeb bloggers and displays the latest posts from their blogs. You can choose your option from the Share button.
Now you can embed your customised Cutting the Chai widget at (almost) any place online - blog, Twitter, Facebook, iGoogle, iPhone, Netvibes, Pageflakes, Windows Live...
In case you also need this blog on your fridge door - print this page and use a magnet to stick it there.
Powered by Grazr, I found it to be a worthwhile enhancement for this blog.
Click on the 'Share' link on the widget to do whatever you want to do with it. You can also customise the look and feel.
Or if you have a weakness for blocks of code, here it is:
Adjust the dimensions (and other stuff) if you need to.
The above widget displays only the consolidated feed for all the latest posts on Cutting the Chai. But many of you might have a preference for only a/some specific flavours. You can get a widget to display only those posts filed under a particular label/category of your choice. Pick your pick from the dropdown list below.
And I hope that some people might yet just prefer the good old way of physically visiting webpages.
There is nothing new about the news of news being paid for. I first became aware of this practice as a mass communication student in the early 2000s. To me, then, it seemed that it was not just news but the soul that is being bartered. The feeling still holds true.
For starters, let me introduce you to a new experimental (not that new since it is online since August) website/blog - 
India's desi blog awards - 
With the general elections drawing closer and politicians slowly becoming aware of the increasing power of the internet to sway public opinion (though still limited in India, but not inconsequential) BJP's prime ministerial candidate Lal Krishna Advani is attempting to reach out to the electorate via his newly set up 
There are celebrity bloggers and then there are celebrity bloggers. The first kind are those who have gained name and fame via blogging and the other includes the ones who are famous and are now therefore reaching out to their fans via the medium of the weblog. 
Now you can embed your customised Cutting the 
In addition to the existing RSS/Atom feeds and Email alerts you can now subscribe to Cutting the 
