When I read my blog, back again, I’m not reflected in that. That’s what even some of my buddies say. I look like a sober columnist writing for a mediocre magazine which is awaiting attention and of course circulation. Lacks originality of my personality.
That’s been my dream. A journalist. That’s what I wanted to do even as a small boy. When others of my age wanted to become pilots, cops and doctors, I had this blind love for being a journalist. Airplanes and high speeding cars never fascinated me. Especially an investigative journalist was what I aimed to persue. Every summer vacation I used to buy more than 100 books and more than 50 were spy stories. Maybe they influenced me too much.
One day when I expressed my wish to my mom that I wanted to become a journalist and expose the scams and crimes(I was probably thinking myself as a robin hood); she was scared that something was really wrong with my psyche. She was trying to make me scared by saying that wouldn’t fit our life style and we should only study and build our careers. She said if I became an investigative journalist, I would be attacked and mobbed by dons and politicians. Well, that’s a middleclass mindset. Many of our Indian moms and Dads aren’t different, leave out the exceptions. Finally I had that dream dropped out slowly.
I am still behind journalism. Not sure if I have what it takes to be a journalist but I love journalism. Still. Except that I have moved towards television journalism. I feel these NDTV and CNN journalists are lucky enough to make it. I watch CNN more than 3 hours a day and it is never boring for me while I wonder how some of my friends can like without it. Some thing is still wrong with my psyche, my mom would say.
Barkha Dutt is my Star News favorite and Larry King tops my CNN list. There is a whole list of other print and television media journalists and columnists who attracts me. Every one is worth the mention.
Cho Ramaswamy –
The founder of Thuglak, a leading unbiased political fortnightly from chennai. The kingmaker of south and sometimes even in the central. A very restless and a spontaneous speaker. Always against the ruling party just to be a check to them. A great comedy actor during the golden time of tamil comedy along with nagesh. Never once has eaten his words. Once when Prannoy Roy tried to do make him do it, he still managed to get out of it elegantly.
N.Ram –
From the founder family of The Hindu. Currently the Editor of the arguably the best fortnightly Frontline. One of the greatest and unrecognized countrywide journalist till he brought out the bofors scam. His editorials are the milestones in publishing history. My greatest inspiration for journalism.
Madhan –
A cartoonist of Anandha Vikatan, the best of tamil weekly magazines which is celebrating 75 years in publishing. He is currently a freelancer. His love for historic writings can be seen in his Tamil book called Vanthargal Vendrargal (They came, They conquered). The best recommended book for easy understanding of Mughal Empire in India. Recommended for first time Delhi goers. Read this book and search for the mentioned places in Delhi. You would be amazed by the history of Delhi.
Prannoy Roy –
The World This Week. I was a teenager when I first saw Prannoy Roy uttering these words on friday nights in DD Television. The time of election was a joy for people. Thats because DD screened movies 24 hours during those days when election results were announced. Prannoy Roy was there all over conversing and analysing the election results. And hence he is very popular face among indians. His sharp pronunciation was his strength and he was the one who branded the TV journalists. He does a great job in Star News by creating a strong team, which includes Sreenivasan Jain, Barkha Dutt and others.
It seems like this list increase to more than 10 people as I keep thinking. But it would look like a doctorate paper on journalism and to cut the long story short, here is the list of them.
Christiane Amanpour – CNN
Wolf Blitzer – CNN
Sreenivasan Jain – NDTV Star News
Saeed Naqvi – Indian Express
Shobha De – Columnist and famous novelist & And last but never the least…
Lazy Geek – Wannabe Journalist of a to-be-started weekly magazine 😉
kirukkal.com 