The Iron Lady

I have found it very easy to get inside news about anchors/newscasters and reporters. The journalist community is so jealous of other's success that they are willing to talk and bitch about their friends very candidly. This time I was totally stumped when I started to gather information about the sports desk of NDTV . It has been really tough to penetrate the fortress of the department run by a woman who is called as the Iron Lady. For one, though people were willing to talk it was mostly idle gossip and those sort of information which was difficult to substantiate.

Another thing which took me totally by surprise was the amount of praise heaped upon Sonali Chander by the people working under her. Sonali is no doubt one of the very few woman sports journalists who really know what they are talking about. She does possess a very intelligent brain and also her knowledge about sports especially cricket is immense. There are other competent woman sports journos like Kadambari Murali and Mayanthi but we wont talk about them here since this is primarily a post on NDTV Sports desk. The main problem in the sports desk is the lack of second rung leadership. If tomorrow Sonali leaves (I don't see it happening in near future) I reckon the sports desk will become a rudderless boat. Apart from not building a second rung , Sonali is also guilty of throwing Sujata Padamanabhan out. Not many people are aware about the fracas between Sonali and Sujata. Sujata did have issues about the working style of her boss and found others in her department very mediocre. To her credit, Sujata is far better than the likes of Anasuya or Gaurika but she also was supposed to have an ego the size of a football stadium. It seems one day there was a major major argument between Sonali and Sujata which resulted in the latter walking out the same day. Anyway, let us go one by one the other people who work there and see how they fare in respect to their knowledge and presentation skills.

1. Anasuya Mathur - She is the droopy eyed waif like woman who thinks smiling costs money. When she joined she was so raw that she was totally at sea most of the times. Her knowledge was pretty average and her presentation skills were poor that she used to look petrified in front of camera. She has come a long way from there but still she is just about average overall. Whenever I see her, I get reminded of Himesh Reshamaiyya.

2. Nikhil Naz - He comes on in Hindi and English but is very poor in all aspects. He does not have the personality and the few times he has been asked to ask questions to some guest he tends to ask childish questions. He is said to be a total flirt and was supposedly interested in modeling at one point of time in his life. I am not sure he has the looks of a model but he sure is a total waste and a liability for the organisation.

3. Jaydeep Bhandarkar - I think he has a problem in his neck. The ways he moves his head is something amazing and I don't think any normal person can duplicate it. As for his skills are concerned he is better than the above two.

4. Rohan - Some one has to be taken to task for making this guy present sports news. He is an insult to journalists and totally useless in terms of anchoring or reporting. He is expressionless and I have not seen him finish one sentence without fumbling. The country's topmost detectives should be called to find one good thing about him. I am not sure if they will be able to unravel anything .

5. Gaurika Chopra - She is a protege of Sonali and tries to ape her in every single way. Be it hair style. Hair parting, mannerisms, Where to hit high pitch and low pitch, facial expressions and everything else. She is the perfect example of a sycophant and supreme example of a bad copy.

6. Afsha Anjum - She is the typical girly girl types who likes candy floss, pink color and Karan Johar movies. She needs an excuse to giggle and looks completely lost when she hosts the hindi version of Cricket controversies. She lets Sidhu go on and on and the only time she interrupts is to announce a break. May be Sonali should give her some lessons on how to handle Sidhu. Her sports knowledge is as much as any other layman.

There are others too but they are not worth mentioning here. If you guys have any more inside news on the sports desk , feel free to mail me.

Next post on the Horse with a flat nose.