Perfect 10: Thank you all!

September 1, 2009 · by sudhishkamath

Thank you Ma, for cutting out and keeping a record of every single one of the 2000 plus stories I have written in all these ten years.

I am such a lazy bum and I wish I can someday do for my kids at least 10 per cent of all that you’ve done for me. And Appa, for secretly being proud of me enough to tell everyone (when I’m not listening, of course) about even the smallest of my achievements since I passed out of college. I know you’ll never read this blog and that’s the only reason I am able to say this – I love you and thank you for being a pillar of support all these years.

Thank you Prof. A.R. Ramesh. Sir, You will always live in my heart. “We can argue as much as you want as long as we don’t come to blows,” you told your students, encouraging them to disagree with you. How many teachers do that? Thanks to you, I know that truth has many sides to it. I can’t thank you enough for guiding me in the right direction when I was confused about what I should do with my life.

Thank you Rocky Saab Prof. Rakesh Katarey for the continued support and education even a decade after college. You continue to inspire me.

Thank you Mr. N.Murali and Mr. N. Ravi. I am not sure if you would remember me meeting you during my MIC days and later, during my job interview. But for your judgement, I would have left India to pursue Integrated Marketing Communications and ended up hating it. I am grateful that you could accommodate me in this reputed institution. All that I know about life, I learnt on the job.

So, ten years ago this day, I joined a newspaper I grew up with. I walked into a hall of reporters who I knew only through bylines. In complete awe. I didn’t have a beat back then and within three months, just when I was wondering where I would fit into the scheme of things at The Hindu, the newspaper went from Black and White to Colour and introduced a section called Chennai-Life on Page 2. A section that would focus on the positive side of life in Chennai. I found my area of interest.

Thank you Mr. G. Ananthakrishnan for being a terrific boss. You were the silent driving force of the team and were able to extract the best from each of us in Reporting Dept. I cherish all the one-on-one meetings that gave this newcomer the much needed perspective. I finished my first 1000 stories within three years at The Hindu, only because of the guidance and encouragement from you.

Ms. Malini Parthasarathy, though we never got to interact with you much then, I must tell you that we celebrated by distributing sweets in the department when we got to hear that you liked any of our stories. 🙂 Thank you for letting me make my first film. It was a learning experience and taught me more about cinema than I ever knew.

Thank you Ramya Kannan for taking me with you on assignments and making sure I felt at home as a newcomer to The Hindu. I’m pretty sure Prof. Ramesh would be proud of us both today.

Thank you K Ramachandran for being the epitome of cool. Thank you Suresh Nambath, RK Radhakrishnan, S. Shivakumar, N. Ravikumar, P. Oppili, Saptarshi Bhattacharya, K. Manikandan, Swahilya, Karthik Subramanian, M Dinesh Varma, Lakshmi, Sujatha and Meera Srinivasan for those endless hours of fun, laughter and debates. I miss those days.

Thanks are also due to Mr. V. Jayanth and Mr. N. Sridharan for all the fond attention and support I’ve received from you over the years.

Thank you Mr. T.Ramakrishnan for pushing my boundaries and introducing me areas that were not in my comfort zone.

Thanks Shonali Muthalaly for co-authoring Campus Jottings and He Says, She Says with me. People still remember us by those columns and that wouldn’t have been possible without you. 🙂

And, thank you Prince, Paitandy, Divya and the rest of you at Metro for all the Saturday TT afternoons and for giving Round and Abouts. Hope you’ve posted tweets for Metro Tweets for the week.

Thank you Kritika Reddy for being so understanding and for putting up with me even when I have been a pain to deal with. I truly respect and admire your work ethic. Thank you all at the Metro Desk. I promise to watch the Word Count.

Thank you Mukund Padmanabhan for being the best boss I could’ve ever asked for. Without the space and freedom you have given me, I may have burnt out at least three years ago. I have learned the importance of restraint from you. I can’t thank you enough for watching my back.

From the bottom of my heart, I would like to thank Mr. N. Ram who has looked after me like his own Godson. I thank you Sir for making me one of the youngest Special Correspondents in the history of the newspaper in 2005 and for giving me the courage to speak my mind. Thank you also for your kind support in my pursuit of developing experimental, independent English cinema. You have been one of the most accessible bosses and I admire your zest for keeping up with the latest in technology and trends. You often make us feel old-fashioned.

My job’s taken me places. Singapore, South Korea, Phillipines, Australia and America. I’ve got to meet people I’ve always admired and have got to ask them everything I’ve always wanted to ask them. I’ve got to watch movies and so many of them that continue to educate and enrich my life, even the bad ones. I’ve got a job that lets me do my bit to bring about the change we have always wanted and promote quality cinema.

Thanks to my reputation of being a journalist, I’ve found new friends and soul mates for life. Shilpa Rathnam, you rock my world. Abhishek Shah, we wouldn’t have met either.

Thank you, everyone from my first fan Sandhya Ramachandran to all of you on my Facebook, Orkut, Twitter list and regular readers of this blog. And those of you who’ve formed Suderman fan clubs on Orkut, one day I hope to truly deserve them.

Finally, I would like to thank two of my peers, two absolutely fantastic film critics – Baradwaj Rangan of Indian Express and Raja Sen or Rediff. Guys, I may not agree with your reviews every time but I enjoy reading them nonetheless. I have a lot of respect for your integrity, courage and attitude – three things a critic cannot live without.

If I have missed out thanking any of you who have stood by me over the last decade, it’s only because it’s over four in the morning. So that’s it for now. See you all soon.

Never thought a bum like me would survive 10 years in a paper like this and be taken so seriously. Never thought I would be famous. Ha ha! Okay, almost famous.