Chasing dreams for the love of writing
In 2010, when I took a plunge and took to journalism from pursuing chartered accountancy, my father stood by me and said that if I chose this profession, make sure that I put myself in the shoes of your reader/consumer first before penning down the first line or pressing the shutter of your camera. Those words stick with me deep down.
I had enrolled at a journalism school to learn about presenting content through visual and written mediums, but it had never occurred to me that it also involved a sense of belonging. It was not until I became a reporter with a wire news agency that I realised this.
Being a cub reporter back then, I was handed a beat to cover the Delhi Zoo. I remember taking a stroll at the zoo on a sunny September afternoon when I stopped beside the rhino enclosure to spot a tiny creature trotting behind a huge female rhino. It was inquisitive but was aware of its security. A rhino calf was born at the zoo, perhaps for the first time in its history. There was my first independent story which not only involved breaking the news of its birth but also putting forth the feeling the zoo authorities were going through. It was ecstatic for them while a sense of excitement to break my first story took me over.
Later on, I shifted to reporting about crime, internal security and terrorism for the largest English newspaper in India and penned down stories of success, failures, despair and happiness which required me to see the world through the eyes of the subject. The days would begin with sifting through police files to look for interesting stories of the most gruesome crimes that might have taken place. Initially, visiting crime scenes would bring in a sense of excitement that somehow became a part and parcel of my daily routine. Bylines blurred out at times when it came to digging out new facts about a breaking story.
As a reporter, I spent almost a decade travelling across different cities, villages and towns of the country, meeting people and capturing their achievements and falls and it soon dawned upon me that the art of writing involves seeing the world through their eyes and sharing the same with my readers.
I remember meeting a woman, who was married to a man in a neighbouring country and being abandoned there without a passport or a legal document. She carried her newborn daughter and managed to return home where she lived as a refugee in the very room she was born, hiding from her people. Yet, she had a gleam of hope about a bright future for her daughter. Stories like these not only moved me as a writer but helped me raise my bar in developing new ways of story-telling. Unfortunately, she had passed away before the story was published.
Despite being at the top of every breaking news that hit the headlines for a nearly decade, I realised that I was slowing down deep within as a reporter, the fast-paced newsroom was gradually becoming difficult for me to keep up with as I grew older, a career shift was somehow destined to happen by then.
The pandemic-induced lockdown had hit the world and gave me the space to introspect about what I enjoyed the most.
There was a Devil’s tree outside my balcony where a pair of treepies took refuge along with a family of chipmunks who made my balcony a park for their daily strolls given the usual bustle that they dealt with was gone. I used to leave a bowl of water and occasionally some nuts early in the morning before their day began to somewhat surprise them. They would eat some portions of the nuts and leave some for a pair of house sparrows or the crows that drop in. The biodiversity around us intrigued me into my next career choice and I took up the role of a wildlife conservation communicator with WWF-India. Though it was not a natural career progression, I realised that I have been quite fond of drastic jumps to unrelated professions if that suited me.
I travelled through the foothills of the Terai and the forests of central India carrying doing what I was wired to do — writing narratives about India’s wilderness, conservation efforts and the role of its people combined with thousands of years of culture, history and beliefs surrounding wildlife. I learnt to use a camera from a colleague and soon found myself carrying one of my Nikons.
It was a learning experience for me every time I stepped into a wildlife sanctuary or a tiger reserve. Interactions with researchers and conservationists along with their addictive passion for protecting our wild turned me around from being a ruthless crime reporter to a compassionate wildlife.
I took up birding and wildlife photography as a hobby initially and later as a part of the profession where I often found myself planning field trips keeping a wildlife tour in mind. Discovering unknown parts of the country was not only exciting but at times overwhelming which I captured in blogs and field notes.
I remember my first encounter with a tiger in a forest in Uttar Pradesh while I was trying to click photos of a herd of Barasinghas that had gathered in a swamp. The curious big cat seemed to be amazed by my audacity and kept staring at me till I turned to look at her.
The stories that I narrate will keep you hooked on the diversity of our country, and the landscapes where you meet new people, learn new facts and immerse yourself into a never-before journey.
If you are looking forward to reaching out to your audience on your website, blog or social media post – I can help you with unique content on various platforms and fields.
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Happy reading