Interviews, Lies and Name Plates Two years of column writing surely deserves a shawl and memento By Cecil Pinto
To commemorate two years of writing this column every Thursday without a break I decided to do another round of Sign Spotting in my favourite city – Panjim. At the Souza Towers building, near the church, I was at the Hotel Manvin's entrance when I spied a most interesting signboard listing the owners of the offices and apartments in the building. In bold black on a bright yellow background one can't help notice that F-8/7 on the First Floor is owned by "Padmashri L. Remo Fds". I kid you not. Unlike an ordinary "Dr." or an "Adv." or "Eng.", here is a Goan willing to truncate his surname to accommodate an award. Kudos to Remo for broadcasting his awardee status with such amour-propre. He does do Goa proud, in every sense of the word. Has any organization given Shri Cecil Pinto an award? Nope. None! Zero! Zilch! This is the fate of a humour columnist. No such luck. Come to think of it they've never even bothered to feature me in that "My Favourite Things' box that appears in Weekender. The one where they ask you your favourite Author, Dish, Movie, Hangout etc etc. Anyone who is anybody, and even some nobodies, in Goa has been featured there; two-bit DJs, travel agents, book vendors, wedding planners, pastry makers what-have-you. But humour column writers obviously don't qualify. Bah! Some months back I thought I was finally getting into the celebrity circuit. This sexy young journalism student I know phoned me up. "Cecil, I would like to interview you." "Uh! Sure, what's this for?" "We've been asked to interview one well known person and hand in a 600 word assignment in by tomorrow." "Assignment? You mean it won't actually be appearing in a printed publication, not even a website?" "Unfortunately not, Cecil. Just for my professor's internal assessment. But it will be a proper interview." "Ok I guess. When you coming over? Let's meet at that sunset point near the Kala Academy jetty and..." "Uh… Cecil can't we just do this over e-mail? I'm a bit rushed for time." "Ok. Though I must say this is pretty disappointing. So you will be sending me a question and when I reply you will be sending me the next one?" "Actually I planned that you answer a whole bunch of questions at one shot." "But in a normal interview the response to one question leads to the next. No?" "Yes, but I am running short of time so could you handle the questions too?" "Meaning?" "Just ask yourself some relevant sounding pretend questions and then respond to them. Keep the answers short and crisp. Type it out in Word and use Times Roman 10 point, italics for the questions, and send it in to me before 9 pm today. Thanks Cecil, you're the best!" So that's how I got conned into interviewing myself. I give myself fake awards, I review my own non-existent books, I refer to Cecil Pinto in the third person often. So this is the obvious next step. Let's see how much more pathetic I can get next year. CP: And who do you really write for? Cecil: Actually the list keeps growing. Anybody who ever gives me feedback I take as a fan, though some of them may resent that description. So I write for my fans – Adolf, Agnel, Aires, Alan, Alan's wife and kids, Allain, Alisha, Alishas's family, Alisha C, Alister, Alito, Allwyn, Allwyn's brother, Amanda, Amanda C, Amitav, Anahita, Anahita's husband, Anna Maria, Anibel, Anita, Anita's ex-boyfriend, Anjali, Anjali's father, Anthony Francis, Apurva, Asavari's husband, Ashok, Assumption, Augusto, Avelino, Avinash, Ayesha… hey this could take forever! What I mean is that when I write there's a whole lot of people in mind as audience, and I respond to every feedback that has ever come my way. Without feedback I would die. Not that I actually have a rocking life now. CP: Do you define yourself as a humour writer, humourist or a columnist? Cecil: All of those. And I've also been called a satirist, parodist and lampoonist. The last one I think refers to my lack of academic or intellectual engagement. I don't bother too much about labels. I just like to make people laugh. Actually the supreme compliment people give me is when they compare me to Mario Miranda or the late Jacint Vaz. But that is rare. More often I'm compared with Johnny Lever, which can be quite demeaning. CP: Does it pay well? Humour writing I mean. Cecil: Not really. My family would probably starve to death if I had to subsist on only my humour writing. Having said that though, there is this immense satisfaction I get from reader feedback. A phone call, an e-mail, a SMS from someone, saying that something I wrote made them laugh, is so very fulfilling. In fact that is why soon after my column appears in print I send it out into Cyberspace. The feedback I get from readers worldwide really makes me feel I have done something worthwhile. Some people have good looks, some people have very rich parents, some people have fancy nameplates. I have neither, but the ability to see humour in situations is also a gift from God. I don't plan to change the world or end corruption or stop pollution or scrap the Regional Plan or whatever. I just want to make people laugh - preferably at themselves. They can then go and change the world, with a smile on their face! CP: Ever thought of writing a book? Cecil: There's my book of memoirs which will be a best seller and scandalize everyone. But that's like my pension plan. CP: Any last words for our readers? Cecil: I'm hardly qualified to give advice, considering I'm not even a Padma Vibushan, but I think we should all take ourselves a little less seriously. Keep the feedback coming folks and thanks for the ride. --------- The column above appeared in Gomantak Times dated 8th November 2007 =====
