The most awaited interview is here. I wasn’t so sure that I’d interview Webbie so soon, only because I thought that my Blog isn’t worth him. But you guys wanted, I too wanted is. I randomly messaged him asking will he gimme his Interview, and wow! He agreed. We had a nice long chat on Yahoo! And whatever I got to know about this person is truly amazing!
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Anoop and Pranav helped a lot. I can’t thank you guys enough. :) Especially you Pranav.
Here we go guys!
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Pavi: First of all, there is inquisitiveness about the name MTV Webmaster. When and how did you get this name?
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Webbie: Actually, I had called myself MTV Guru initially. But it sounded very cheesy and Zee TV. Toyed with a few other names including MTV Mentor, MTV Rep, MTV Playa and MTVMan, but they either sounded corny or wannabe (Q. So what does the MTVMan do when he has to save the world? A. He goes inside a telephone booth and sings songs. Yuck.). Honestly, I was not too convinced about MTV Webmaster either because of the obvious technical ease attached to the word "Webmaster". But it still had a digital sound to it, and I knew when shortened to "Webbie", it would sound casual and cool. Tried. It worked. Kind of.
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Pavi: Kind of? No it totally worked :) Okay, tell us Webbie how do you feel when people call you ‘Chief’, ’Sir’ and respect you so much?
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Webbie: I guess I have, as MTV Webmaster, done enough over a considerable period of time - at the cost of my personal and professional lives, if I may confess - to win the trust, and earn the love, affection and warmth of the people I interact with. So it is a happy feeling. Plus, they are aware that the man on the other side is older than most of them and therefore some bits of the "chief" and "sir" comes naturally to them. If I may go a wee bit esoteric and philosophical, it is good to realize that our values are still alive and intact.
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Pavi: How old is this man? Grins
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Webbie: VERY! This old man is as old as Raghu is but he is far better looking than him and he has his hair intact. :D
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Pavi: LOL, That’s good. Okay Webbie, Recently, you were away from the community for 3-4 days. Everyone in the community wanted their Webbie to come back. People made threads, scrapped you, and mailed you. What was the over all feeling?
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Webbie: I was overwhelmed. But then again, I had some very strong reasons to do what I did. And while I had not left and had decided to just take it easy as far as the community affairs were concerned - remember, the chair was still around! - This was an extremely humbling experience, witnessing the love and the affection of so many people. Just WHO is MTV Webmaster? People do not have any reasons to love and respect him. They are not to gain anything out of that. So the affection that emerges has to be genuine. Think about it. I was never gone, Pavi. I was around. Just that I had decided to take it easy since not everybody could appreciate what I was doing in there. Having said that, when so many of those scraps/ posts/ threads began to happen, I was left with no choice than to make a formal announcement underlining that I was back! :)
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Pavi: Webbie, people love you, adore you. Tell us, what’s the best compliment you have received?
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Webbie: Well, I cannot single out any one compliment, but I do feel the bestest when any of my hidden jokes, the slightly intelligent ones, get picked up from my posts. I secretly fall in love with whoever deciphers them!
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Pavi: But still, anyone who made you really feel glad that you are MTV Webmaster?
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Webbie: Well, there are lots of people who make me feel glad that I am MTV Webmaster.But there are a few examples where I have had personal satisfaction that I was MTV Webmaster When this anti-Mohit Kochar crap was happening, I figured out who the person was through my friends at Google and confronted him He was an old timer in the community. And a popular person at that. The community would have been shocked to know the name But you know what, MTV Webmaster forgave him. The person behind the Webbie's profile may just be a rigid character in real life, but Webbie is an entirely different person... And I felt glad I was playing MTV Webmaster. Because what he ended up achieving by forgiving the guy, punishing him would not have had the same impact. The guy is now a bhakta of
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Webbie. And a loyal soldier of the community.
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Pavi: Well, that's something really shocking. After reading this members will go on a spree of searching that guy. I hope he reads this interview :)
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Webbie: I would hate that. If they love me, they would not. Coming back to "There are lots of people who make me feel glad that I am MTV Webmaster", I guess Webbie has helped lots of them come out of their shells. Making them more confident in their real lives.
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Pavi: Including me. :)
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Webbie: It is all Webbie. Nothing to do with the guy managing his profile, trust me.
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Pavi: Whoever he is, we love him. Okay Webbie now tell us do you have any favourite girl in the community?
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Webbie: I love flirting with the community girls every now and then and it is fun doing it, but no, I have no favourites.
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Pavi: So you love flirting? :O
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Webbie: Webbie is a regular guy. He believes in flirting, not fraannshipping. See, it is not as if I flirt everyday with every second girl of the community. I do it just to have fun, just to add spice to an existing thread. That’s about it. Otherwise, kidhar time hai re!
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Pavi: I agree that you are a regular guy and you flirt, but we have noticed only one girl you flirt with.
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Webbie: Naah... I flirt with loads of them! Not just her. Actually, come to think of it, now that you are probing, I dig girls with brains.
Henna, Toni, Niki (Before that operation of hers!), Surbhi... and there is Stuti who calls me Sire, then there is Kiran who calls me Poochie, Roop, Twinkle and all the RBG chicks there also is Sehran but he just behaves girlie.
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Pavi: Okay so you have so many favourites! Cool. Girls out there are triple happy reading it now. :D
Okay, So moving on, The new MTV goes beyond television. Can you let us know more about this transition?
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Webbie: The transition has just begun, Pavi. It would take us a long time to finally leave the tube and be everywhere wherever our audiences are. Let us just say that this Orkut community has been one of the key steps ing going towards the Beyond Music, Beyond Television space. We would hopefully be coming up with exclusive content specifically for our digital audiences in the near future and we are gonna have quite a few properties like Roadies Battleground taking off very soon.
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Pavi: Okay, so do you plan to expand beyond Orkut, Twitter and Facebook? If yes, what do you have in mind?
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Webbie: As of now, we want to have smarter presence in these spaces. Pahle yeh sambhaal len, phir dekhte hain aage aur kya karna hai.
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Pavi: Okay Webbie. I’m sure this is the most interesting Question I have for you J we’d like to know more about the person behind Webbie. About his traits, likes, dislikes, ideologies. Would you like to share some?
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Webbie: The person behind Webbie is your average Joe, leading an average life in the city of Mumbai with upper middle class aspirations and lower middle class fears. He loves his job, he loves his life, he loves the people around him. Some day, he would want to break free of it all, and write that book or make that movie or open that restaurant or create those dishes or paint those pictures or fight that election. These aspirations are so latent that perhaps he has not even told himself about them, but he tells me that some day, he would. Till that happens, he remains happy and satisfied with the way things have turned for him. He likes the good things of life, but just having the comforts/ luxuries are not enough. At the end of the day, the cool and conditioned air inside the house is good, but it is just so much better if it is accompanied by the whiff of freshly made popcorns and the latest episode of The Office on the big screen television while piling on a La-Z-Boy! Get the drift?
The man dislikes unintelligence. He cannot suffer fools. But his role as the MTV Webmaster has made him more patient than he had ever imagined himself to be. Or so does he believe, though I have often heard him mutter unmentionable things about certain irritants of the community. I like the guy behind Webbie. He is sweet, actually. Ladies, please note.
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Pavi: Okay, So Mr. SweetMTVWebmaster! When did you join MTV? :)
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Webbie: Indeed! This is my 10th year with the company! I am furniture. As they say, SO-FA, SO GOOD!
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Pavi: Whoa! 10 years? Awesome! So here’s a commonly asked question, any person you greatly admire/idolize?
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Webbie: I used to love Chacha Chaudhary once upon a time.
Kyonki unnka dimaag computer se bhi tez chalta hai. And obviously, the Webmaster must try becoming him!
Ek baar kya hota hai na, Chacha Chaudhary aur Sabu ek restarurant mein khana khaane jaate hain. Kha kar dono restroom mein jaate hain, lekin wahan se baahar sirf Chacha Chaudhary nikalte hain. Kyon?
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Pavi: No idea :-/
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Webbie: : Kyonki wahan par soap nahin hota hai, issliye Chacha Chaudhary sabu se hi haath dho lete hain!
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Pavi: LOL!
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Webbie: Honestly speaking, my idols keep varying. I find that silly, actually.
The age of idols is over. We look at the newspapers and the season's favourite becomes the idol.
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Pavi: True. Like as of now, You are my Idol :D Okay Webbie had MTV not happened to you, where do you suppose you would've been?
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Webbie: MTV had to happen to me. I was made for MTV. MTV was made for me! :)
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Pavi: : But still, you didn't know it from the start did you? Like when you were in 9th Grade?
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Webbie: When I was in the 9th grade, I just wanted to marry Urmila Matondkar. Yeah, then I moved Hollywood... Drew Barrymore it was. I just wanted to do what I wanted to do in class 9th.Which is ogle at the girls and the lady teachers. No other thoughts entered my mind. I was always a focussed guy! B-)
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Pavi: LOL, Webbie! Everyone loves your humour. Where do you get it form?
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Webbie: When you do not have the looks, the charm or the riches, you rely on your humour. But the catch is that the funny guys get the laughs and not the women! Ask Chandler. I wish I had robbed a bank instead of figuring where my funny bone was. (Answer: Still figuring).
Pavi: Haha, You get very irritated when people don’t get you joke, don’t you?
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Webbie: Nahin nahin.Bilkul nahin. I laugh that is enough.
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Pavi: Ah! Okay. Webbie, Now I have some Questions from community members for you.
Here is Rohan’s :
Q: - Here is Rohan's We're sure you're happy with your job at MTV (who wouldn't be ). But was this your original aim? Or did MTV happen by chance?
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Webbie: The lady up there watches and fixes our appointments in life. She made me reach MTV.
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Pavi: J Okay next is from Raghav.
Q: - How do you manage between Official, Social and Personal life?
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Webbie: I do not. I am a recluse. So I am not too social a person anyways!
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Pavi: You don’t go to parties late Saturday nights and dance like crazy?
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Webbie: Hate partying - have done that for a living, hate going out - five days in a week are enough, hate eating out - prefer cooking myself as it is therapeutic. And I do have a social life, but it is more pristine than what one would expect from an MTV person!
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My office life - including this community - has taken over the some major portions of my life, if I may be honest. Trying to sort this, now.
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Pavi: I can predict that. The way you are, we know somehow that you aren't a Party Animal for sure. :)
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Webbie: If being a party animal means getting drunk and yelling and puking and drinking some more and yelling and puking, I was not a party animal even when I was 20!
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Pavi: Okay Webbie so moving on, the next Question is from Mazhar Allan.
Q: - Any hilarious/memorably incidents from college or school life that you'd like to share?
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Webbie: I would be too embarrassed to talk about the incidents from my college life. Let's just say they revolved around women and I was plain lucky not to get beaten up ever.
Pavi: Very lucky. You have been lucky throughout your life. I guess!
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Webbie: Not lucky. I have worked my ass off to be where I am. And I still work 28 hours in a day. Fortune favours the Brave. And you need to be brave enough to believe in yourself. That comes through hard work. Coming from a Hindi medium background, I remember how I just used to wash my eyes and run to the common room with this little book of mine. I would read the Times of India from the first page to the last and write all the tough words. And then I would sit with a dictionary and thesaurus to understand the meanings of the words and their usage. Only then would I start getting ready for college. Now some people may just dismiss this as nerdish. But I am glad what I did, for it has taught me a language that never was mine :)
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Pavi: Webbie, I’m getting so much to learn from you, glad that I got this chance. Okay so here is the last question what is your Philosophy of life?
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Webbie: Your last question is the easiest one, actually. All what you need to do is to believe in the maxim that "Good things happen to good people" And things would go perfect in your life.
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Pavi: That’s so simple and so true!:) Thanks a lot Webbie. It was really nice talking to you.
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Webbie: I hope it was worth your time.
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Pavi: No no, It’s the other way round. :) Thanks Webbie!
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The End!
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Hope you guys liked it :)
-PAVI