The Making of a Journalist

[Music]

hi

my name is sonal mirotra kapoor i’m a

reporter and anchor in

india i’ve been in the mad world of

television journalism for over 10 years

now

and i’m here in front of you today to

tell you

what goes into the making of a

journalist here

in the country and mostly what happens

behind the scenes now to understand that

let’s take you back in time

let’s take you to the december of 2012.

it was that time in the country when the

streets of the national capital were

flooded with people

angry people men and women young and

old seething with anger with the brutal

gang rape

of a young girl in the national capital

there were protests breaking out

everywhere outside rashtrapati bhavan

outside india gate i was at that time

as a city reporter reporting from sapta

jung hospital

reporting on her medical updates and

talking to her family

i remember the doctors

telling me that they were shocked at

how she was still alive because not an

inch of interstein was left inside of

her

i remember talking to her brother who

later on became a good friend of mine

and at that time just throwing words in

middle of his sobs

just venting out to me saying how did

this happen

didi had just gone to watch a movie with

a friend

how did this happen how did she land up

here

now the reporter in me wanted all the

whereabouts all the details

where did she go what movie did she

watch whom did she go with

and the details they stunned

me she had gone to watch

life of pie at a multiplex in south

delhi with a male friend of hers

why that was shocking is because i was

watching life of pie

at the same theater the same night the

same

show with a male friend of mine

the only difference perhaps was that my

male friend happened to have a car he

could drop me back home in

else i would have taken a public

transport as well

in that minute i realized how close i

was

to becoming the story i was reporting

upon

she was my age she was

just like me perhaps not wanting to

conform

to the ways of the society or limit

herself to a home just wanting to live

in the weeks that followed the gang rape

and the unfortunate incident i covered

various aspects of the story

i remember being at india gate when

i can still hear as if it’s happening

right in front of me right now on how

people were screaming when lottie charge

was taking place

i remember recording a piece with my

camera person when a tear gas shelling

fell right in between us

there was commotion there were screams

people were falling on top of each other

i lost contact with my camera person

somebody stole my phone

i was vomiting i had fiery eyes

typical reactions by the way of a tear

gas shelling

my shoe was broken and in that

moment i don’t remember for how long i

walked to just get some help

and to give you an idea it was not just

that one day this was happening

every day in delhi one day it was tear

gas shelling the other day it was water

cannons

cold water cannons being fired at

protesters

at media as well in the

diliki sadly you know how cold it gets

in delhi in december

but most of all from that december

i remember being at singapore at the

mount elizabeth hospital

just her family and i at that point when

the doctors walked in and said that

she didn’t have much long to live

i had the opportunity to

meet her to see her 15 minutes

before she died and

that’s an image that has stayed with me

till this day

that is an image when i saw her

where everything around me just stood

still for a minute

and i had no thought nothing in my mind

it was just her and i

in many ways i think it was my epiphany

it was that moment where time stood

still and i met my purpose

unfortunately for me it was when another

girl was losing her life but when these

moments of

epiphany happens it’s not like your life

changes

completely well let me put it this way

when i came back i was the same person

i was still reporting my work was still

quite hard

i as a city reporter you’re on call 24 7

the mental and the physical toil of

things really gets to you you

hardly paid anything it was all the same

life was the same but something had

changed something had altered inside me

i had a new perspective perhaps a new

calling

perhaps a new way of looking at things

fun fact that night

before everything started the night when

i was watching life of pi

unknowingly with nirvya in the same

theater

i had told myself i’m gonna quit and i’m

gonna go

and put in my papers and go back home

take that walk of shame go back to my

parents

to a small city in up and tell them i

couldn’t make it could make it as a

reporter the city life was just too hard

guess what happened right after guess

where we are right now that one reddit

call that i got the next morning

5 30 a.m from the newsroom assignment

desk

for those of you who don’t understand

they’re like these newsroom warriors who

keep a hawks eye on every alert and

every

development that takes place they gave

me a call at 5 30 in the morning and the

only detail i had at that point was that

there had been a

rape that had taken place in south delhi

that they needed a reporter to go on

that rape is now the story of

a lot of people’s life story of a lot of

transformed lives as well

and over the years i’ve had lots of

these calls actually

from the same newsroom assignment desk i

remember one call

where i was asked to rush to a

village in haryana where the cops had

decided

that women would no longer be allowed to

wear jeans

this mostly included young girls as well

i got a call i had to rush

i did that immediately somewhere halfway

in my travel trying to coordinate

details

i realized that i was going to

go to a village which had banned jeans

for women

talk to them about it spend a day with

them

wearing exactly that

frankly in 11 years of journalism i’ve

had several

such encounters as a woman journalist

i’ve had several stories where i’ve

reported on women not being allowed to

wear what they want say what they feel

love who they love at times

women who’ve not even had a chance at

life

which brings me to a story in rajasthan

i went to one of the remotest village in

rajasthan

a village which had the worst female

feticide ratio in the country

when i reached there my instinct was to

talk to other women right they would

understand what’s going on they’ll have

an insight

maybe i can highlight their voice

to my horror i sat there

in the middle of the village on a chart

by with women young and old

and they

had no inhibitions in telling me that

according to them

women were a burden a girl child was a

burden

one of them turned around and said kura

meaning they’re just garbage

a lot of them even then went to great

details to even

explicitly tell me how they handled the

girl child

problem in the village

i’m not gonna give you the details to

spare you on that one but

they basically if a girl child was born

they had their

own ways of getting rid of it they would

simply go to the mother

and say the child was still born the

mother knew the reality the villagers

knew the reality

and the mother also knew that she would

have to continue to do this till the

time she bore a boy

at moments like these i’ve reflected

upon my own life

i am after all a only child only girl

child of a

small conservative family back in up but

at least

i had a chance to live at least i had

free will to make my own decisions

something which a lot of women even till

date do not have

something which i especially know two

girls two teenage girls

born about 250 kilometers from my birth

place in up

a place called badayou certainly did not

have

this is the story of two girls who were

allegedly

raped murdered then hung to a tree in

full public spectacle

in the village

and this case had followed

a lot of anger on the ground

when i reached there there were riot

police

all over the place the angry the family

was very angry the

highway was blocked they were sitting

with the bodies over there saying we’re

not going to cremate till the time

justice is met

there was a lot of international press

on this because they had gone to relieve

themselves because there were no toilets

in that village and that’s when the

incident had taken place

well it was so complicated and when i

got there there were so many

views and counter views that to get to

the

heart of the issue i decided to go back

to reporting rules 101

you first speak to the family of the

bereaved

identified them i went there i saw their

humble home

i saw the father

but i couldn’t take my first step i

remember just standing there thinking

how do you how do you ask a daughter

or how do you ask a father in fact

how their two daughters died in such a

public way

how do you enter the house in moaning

with a camera and mic in your hand how

do you even start a conversation like

that

i remember being stuck there not being

able to take

that one step but over the years i’ve

taken such hard steps a lot of times

but mostly been

thankful about the fact that i get to

tell their story

all these stories have changed me living

their lives

living the lives i’m in fact reporting

upon has transformed me

for several assignments we’ve had

no proper food or lodging to depend upon

in the case of badayou no toilets for 15

days

but at least we were able to bring out

the story

take the tough decision knowing that it

was for the larger good

i think upon these stories all these

years down the line and i think that

i thought my life was tough i thought

i wanted to throw all this away and go

back

home thinking it was too much to take

and to be frank with you over the years

i’ve had several such opportunities i’ve

had several such moments i’ve met some

fantastic people as well

i’ve met a lot of people from

prime ministers to chief ministers

to homeless people to drug addicts to

criminals i’ve had

lunch with the most powerful woman in

the country

and the same day skip dinner to hear the

story of a girl who was thrown into

trafficking at the age of 13.

i still remember how she showed me her

scars

the scratch in her voice when she told

me

how she was used and abused

sold and resold

forced into marriage with a guy much

older to her

she beared the children never got

control of them

and there she was still telling me her

story

stuff like that changes you i was also a

young girl she was

the girl sitting in front of me going

having gone through abuse was just about

my age

but anyways so is life these things

happen especially

when you are a

reporter and frankly

looking back at it i know you all have

churnings in your stomach right now but

i at least had the freedom to talk

the freedom to tell that story the

freedom to reflect upon it

a voice and if you’re watching this

trust me so do you what are you doing

with that voice

in these moments of ffme or in these

moments

when i have been broken as well

and i’ll not lie to you i’ve had my

moments i’ve had my moments when i’ve

been numb

i’ve had my moments when i’ve had silent

cries

two panic attacks all hidden behind

the makeup and the smiles when i sit on

primetime television and i greet

the nation

but i still get sleep at night i still

get sleep

thinking that that spot at prime time

television

has its impact thinking

that we’ve managed to change if not all

some lives

at least start a conversation with the

reporting that we did

we changed the life of that girl

that girl who was thrown into

trafficking today has a respectable job

she has hired lawyers to bring back the

custody and to win back the custody of

her two kids

governments have been forced to build

toilets in villages which have never had

one for generations

ngos are now working in the most remote

corners of the countries

building up and bettering the sex ratio

in the country

and most of all we have a new sexual

harassment law in the country

one of the best in the world and i have

not been a silent spectator i’ve been an

agent of change

sometimes a loud one so my message to

you is this

when that moment of epiphany hits you

live it embrace it enjoy it

because your life is about to change and

with you

the life of so many others thank you