Derek O’Brien had the tables turned on him at YFLO’s Power to Empower session titled ‘Deciphering the Metamorphosis of a Brilliant Mind’ at The Park on September 4, with chairperson Shradha Agarwaal and other ladies quizzing the quizmaster and politician. Excerpts from the chat which broke convention as the speaker chose to be right in the midst of the audience and not on the dais. “In Parliament, I am not used to sitting and speaking. Even for quiz shows, I am not used to sitting,” said the Trinamul Rajya Sabha MP.
Quiz vs politics
Derek O’Brien & Associates, the company, still does 2,000 shows a year. I enjoyed quizzing and my colleagues still enjoy doing quizzes. I have been in politics for 12 years and it is a different ball game. The stage is big, the risk is big, the gaali is more, and the skin has to be thicker.... I have grown out of quizzing, to be very frank. Maybe if there is something very big I will do it but my company is doing very well and they don’t need me. I still enjoy going to a school and interacting with young people....
What is more challenging
Politics, of course. When you do stuff that touches people’s lives, if you do something right you get rewarded. It’s great fun. The risks in politics are high. In the Central Hall of Parliament we have coffee and biscuits with everybody, whether you are BJP or Congress or CPM, at least ‘good morning’ ‘good afternoon’ toh bolna hai. We are political rivals, but we are not enemies.
The negative image of politics
There are very talented lawyers, doctors, businessmen in Parliament, but what happens? Ten-12 guys make a bad statement and you say politicians are bakwaas. I think there is a lot of quality, whether it is BJP, whether it is the Congress, whether it is the Trinamul. There is a lot of talent in all these parties.
The importance of voting
How many of you voted in the municipal elections? (Show of hands) That’s 20 per cent. So you at least have a say never mind who you voted for, the rest 80 per cent just shut up, you did not even vote! I appeal to all of you to register yourself and go out and vote. There is power in the vote. Who could believe that after the Emergency someone like Indira Gandhi could be thrown out? That’s the power of that one vote.
Success and failure
When you look at someone and chat with them don’t only discuss their successes. Be frank enough and open enough to talk about their failures.... I was married for 13 years to an absolutely lovely lady, a friend of mine, who is still a very good friend and we got divorced after 13 years. So at some point I look at myself as a failed husband or a failed spouse. As close as I am to my daughter, who is 20, who is bright and thankfully her mother and I still have a brilliant relationship but at some level when I look back at my life I say ‘you could have done better, so you are a failed father’ in that sense.... So you need to focus on the failures and from those failures comes a lot of success.
I completely believe that you need to fail big three times in your life. Sometimes we don’t allow our sons and daughters to fail. When they fail, we get paranoid. When I failed in Class VIII my mom and dad took the family out to Waldorf for lunch.... The reason I’m telling you this is when you go home and you encounter your sons and daughter and they fail, celebrate their failure that will lead to some success. It teaches you to take the positive out of failure. All the politicians, all the sportsmen... they have all failed at some time.
What: A Date with Madhur Bhandarkar
When: September 10, 4pm onwards
Where: The Park
About: As the film-maker comes to town with the cast and crew of his latest film Calendar Girls, expect a session that has him speaking to the YFLO ladies not only about his film and filmography but also about his life and times, both within and away from the film industry.
Organiser speak: “The event promises to be glamorous and extremely hard-hitting at the same time — just like his films. We are a women’s organisation and I thought no one knows a woman better than him,” said Shradha Agarwaal, chairperson, YFLO
Shirsha Guha, businesswoman: People are always criticising Calcutta. We tend to bad-mouth Calcutta ourselves. How do you or the government see that?
I think it has to start from within ourselves. This Calcutta bashing, and this is my own theory, happens with those guys who leave and then relive their nostalgia in Calcutta. I have no time for them and I am not interested in communicating with them.
Kanupriya Khaitan, businesswoman: So many surveys happen on what children want to do when they grow up and politics just drops off the list. Is that a worrying thing for politicians now?
I think it should be a worrying factor. You want good people to join politics.... There are only two kinds of people who join politics. There are of course some people who’ve done social work for a long time, from their student life and you have to hand it to them. Apart from that there are two kinds of people who join politics. One, who have made decent money in what they’ve been doing, had some success and they say okay we are done here, now let’s do politics. The other lot are those who have nothing to do so chalo politics kartey hain.
“It was a remarkably thrilling evening. Derek wowed the audience with his wit and charm. The audience burst into fits of laughter and got seriously contemplative as well” — Shradha Agarwaal, YFLO chairperson.
Pictures: Rashbehari Das
