great pleasure to be here today to meet
such young people and talk to them about
things that really matter you’d have met
very few people in on earth who tell you
that they get paid to have fun I’m one
of them this is a journey which has
lasted 40 years and I have not had a
single boring day this is to tell you
that journalism is a great profession
being a writer is even more because you
see various perspectives of life you see
various colors you travel a lot I have
traveled to every state in India
other than Sikkim some time back the
shipping Ministry came to me with the
proposal saying that they wanted a
coffee table book on lighthouses of
India and the first thing they told me
is we don’t have any money but we can
pay for your travel and that’s it and it
took me five seconds to say yes because
I told myself how many Indians would you
meet who had travelled the entire coast
of India so I traveled all the way from
Gujarat down and up to Bengal it took me
one and a half years to do that but that
travel taught me so much travel is a
great educator and I would say it’s
compulsory for all of you to travel
because that will teach you much more
than what any education or any degree
can teach you let me take you through a
few of my experiences as I’ve told you
about journalism this is so varied and
the experience is so rich that every day
you start learning something new I would
start with one experience where I was
researching on children who were forced
into sex work in India that took me to a
place called Sunna gachi in Calcutta
which is one of the biggest red-light
areas in Asia I met a girl who is about
13 years old called Sapna I don’t have a
picture
and I don’t want to have one these are
new pictures of children in Sona gachi
and it was such a heart changing
experience for me to be with her for
about two and a half hours when I told
her that I’ve just come to talk to you
she was very happy and she was more than
willing to talk though I have never met
her before she was talking to a complete
stranger her dream in life was to study
at the Shantiniketan
and she kept talking about it so one of
her uncle’s told her that look I know a
lot of professors at Shantiniketan I can
take you there and it took her to
Calcutta and from the railway station
you took her straight to Sona gachi and
sold her for ten thousand rupees that is
the value of human life one of the great
benefits of being a journalist is that
you see sociology you see history you
sees geography and you see all the
changes that you can document down the
years when I got up to go after taking a
lot of copious notes after my
conversations with her which was really
heart wrenching because I saw that she
had no faith in men and that she hated
religion she hated God she had no faith
in natural justice and when I got up to
go she asked me how did you come here I
said in a car which car Maruti 800 it’s
the private taxi which colour is it red
then I asked her why are you asking me
all these questions and she said I have
not sat in a car for ages so I asked her
would you like to sit in one and she
said that would be wonderful so I spoke
to the brothel owner she said you had
got to pay me a thousand bucks to do
that but you cannot take her out alone
I’ll send you with an escort so out we
went with an escort and the moment we
got out of the bylines
of Sona gachi by the way brothels don’t
look the way they look in Hindi films
they are dirty they are stinky it was
like patches on the wall and you know it
was a terrible experience those two and
a half hours there but the moment you
hit the road she was so excited
because she could see the roads she
could see the payments she could see the
people the shoppers the mannequins and
there are trams and the life in Calcutta
and I told myself look how we take life
for granted and look what this means for
her so I wanted to erase the experience
a little more so I told her let’s go out
for that let’s go out and look at the
Victoria Memorial now she had never seen
that and the moment I had took her to
the Victoria Memorial she stood there
transfixed as if it is the most
beautiful monument ever built by man for
us I would drive past the Victoria
Memorial without even looking at it but
for her it was an event so I wanted to
raise her experience a little more so I
said let’s go out for dinner and I took
her to a restaurant and it was so
exciting for her to sit at a table and
to be served by waiters after we
finished dinner I told her it’s time to
go and that that’s when she stopped
talking to me because all through there
was so much of chitter chatter going
along as if we were two great friends we
had met after many years but when I said
it’s time to go there was complete
silence and there was silence all the
way to the brothel when we reached the
brothel she looked at me and with tears
swimming in her eyes she said today has
been the most beautiful day of my life
thank you
and when she said this there were tears
in my eyes to what I mean to say is we
need to be empathetic and if you are
empathetic we can look at other people’s
lives from a very different standpoint
as I said travel teaches you a lot this
is a picture from Nagaland and I knew
nothing about Nagaland and I asked my
editor to transfer me to the North East
a place which I did not know the reason
why I did that is and it’s important to
take risks in life I wanted to be in a
place where no one recognizes me and I
do not know anything about that place
because familiarity breeds contempt so
off I went to the Northeast I did not
even know the name of the chief minister
of the Nagaland at that point of time
nor did I know the politics of the place
but when I went to the Northeast
all the different states seemed like
different countries to me as it is India
is such a rich sociology every state is
like a different country you cannot
compare Tamilnadu with Missouri for
example what I’m trying to say here is
until you go out and meet people you do
not know what that reality is in life is
like I understood why Nagaland is a
different kind of state by people in
Nagaland hate India why do they want
independence
the reason being when I went a travel
through all the districts of nagaland to
write a diary on and I called it the
Nagaland a reporter’s diary or Naga
Nagaland I came to know harrowing
stories of what people told me or what
had happened when insurgency started and
the security forces moved into Nagaland
and their sisters and wives were raped
in front of them these were memories
that they could not forget and that had
built the hatred for India the security
forces for them signified that this was
what India was all about I want to once
again take you to another hair-raising
experience of mine while covering the
war in Sri Lanka we were travelling
through the war zones and believe me
there was no fear because the adrenaline
was so high I was so excited about the
fact that I was there watching history I
was there watching war as it happened in
front of me
we went off to jaffna and the
hotels would not give us a room because
they said that you need LTT permission
to get a room here so off we went to an
Ltd camp and we wanted to stay there
because I thought this is a great
experience to be with the LTTE but the
LTTE said you can’t stay with us because
we might get bombed at night and if we
get bombed and you two guys get killed
me and my photographer the international
press would go to town saying that we
killed two journalists so off they took
us 40 minutes away to a very far off
place and put us in a small little house
and I was guarded by a little boy who
had a cyanide capsule around his neck
and he had a machine gun with him he was
guarding me so I said we don’t need to
be guarded he said no you could be
attacked so it is our job to secure you
the next day they took us back into the
town and they left us in Jaffna to do
our job and like a good journalist I did
everything I did a lot of interviews I
met the police commissioner I met the
LTTE I paint the Sinhalese
and all the kind of people that you need
to meet to put a good cover story for
India today together but there is a
element of greed always you know you
want to do something little more because
you think you will get something more so
I kept pushing my luck and suddenly I
found our car was stopped by a guy who
is drying riding a motorcycle and he
beckoned us out and he said who are you
so I said we are Indian journalist so he
said oh you’re Indian dogs and I didn’t
fight with him my photograph I wanted to
fight with him but I said relax take it
easy and I put him back in the car
negotiated with him and I asked him who
are you so he took out his wallet and
showed me a picture the picture was of a
skull he said this is my identity I put
it back in his pocket and he said get
out of my country and he pushed off a
few minutes later I heard police sirens
behind me and they were three police
cars which came the police pulled us out
of the our taxi threw us into the police
Jeeps
took us to a police station
and dropped us there and they pushed off
and they took up a sports away the cop
at the police station after some time I
went back to the cop I told him please
give us a passports back because we have
work to do so he looked at me and he
smiled and he said you won’t need your
passports again so I asked him why so he
smiled again and he said have you heard
of garland a garland is a term in sri
lanka at the time of the war where the
LTTE would capture sonali’s soldiers and
the sonali’s would capture LTT soldiers
and they would put a tower around them
so your hands are locked and your hands
can’t move and they light the tire and
they leave you there so you can’t even
move you burn slowly burnt to death and
all along our route from Colombo to
Jaffna we saw numerous bodies on the
street where bodies were charred and all
you had was a metal wire which of the
type which could not burn that is the
only moment in my life in 40 years that
have got scared and suddenly I thought
of my wife I thought of my son I thought
of my dad mom my relatives my friends
and this is not the way I wanted to go
but there was nothing to do he said go
and sit in that corner so off I went i
sat on a bench for one hour
it seemed like years to me I did not
know what to do and I kept thinking of
what is the way to get out and to get my
passport back suddenly I saw a taller
guy walking in the compound he was
wearing bathroom slippers he had shorts
and he was wearing a vest
and he had a handlebar mustache and I
said oh this must be the top cop here so
I ran to him and I said look sir you are
in trouble you have taken our passports
and do you know what the defense
minister of Sri Lanka said on television
he said I invite international
journalists to come to Sri Lanka to
report the war so that they know the
truth and you hear you are stopping us
from doing a duty so he said why are you
here I said I don’t know the police of
just land thrown us here and you have
taken our passports so
he rushed into the police station he
asked for the passports took the
passports checked it give it back to us
and said please continue your job and do
not talk about this and that’s why I’m
here telling you the story but the
lesson to learn here is it’s very
important to take risks as I told you
but it’s important not to take foolish
risks another story I want to talk to
you about which one means that I’m not
going to award for excellence in
journalism is pesticide in food we have
you just had some of it now we have
pesticide in in a breakfast in a lunch
and dinner and India has become the
largest producer of pesticides in the
world it has also become the last
largest user one of the reasons is
because we use pesticides in a very very
careless way I would quickly want to
tell you that the most dangerous
vegetables to eat is cauliflower cabbage
brinjals ladyfingers tomatoes this
contain large amounts of pesticides
including palak which is spinach one way
to do that is when you go to the market
and buy vegetables do not encourage your
moms to buy cauliflower which are white
in color they are white because they are
dipped in a bucket of pesticides before
they are sent to the market so that they
bleach natural cauliflower looks a bit
dirty yellow always by the dirty yellow
one because that is safer grapes is
again a very very dangerous fruit to
have if you’re who you want to eat
grapes please put it in water for at
least one hour and wash it rinse it well
the only good thing I have to tell you
about pesticides is that pesticides are
water soluble but the pesticide which
has gone inside the fruit or the
vegetable cannot be removed and we all
have to fight for organic farming to
come back into this country hundreds of
years ago there was nothing called
pesticide farming it was all organic
farming but today boy our land has been
poisoned with pesticides Punjab is a so
example of how our land has been
poisoned communion rights have been
another thing that has exercised me a
lot because I’ve covered a hell of a lot
of communion rights in this country I
lived in Gujarat for nine years so you
know I’ve covered almost all the
communion rights there I’ve even written
a book on communion rights my last book
was on Ramadi
it’s called Modi demystified the making
of a prime minister and when I go and
talk to journalism students I always
tell them you are not Hindus or Muslims
or Christians or Sikhs
y’all are journalist that is your
religion and we should never forget that
communion riots you know nobody is
communal in this country but it is the
politics of this country which has made
people communal and we need to
understand that don’t believe everything
that you read today because the media
today does not get you the truth always
understand this truth is what someone
somewhere wants to hide the rest is all
advertising what you guys are seeing on
television today what you’re reading in
print today is all advertising and that
is why young people like you need to
develop something called critical
thinking always start thinking on your
own read between the lines it’s very
important to get to the truth I think we
must tell the truth even if it hurts and
I want to end by saying this it does not
matter how big your audience is but it’s
very important to continue doing the good work thank you