The Unexpected Benefits of Leading a Life of Kindness
when i started as a journalist
a woman walk correspondent was an
oxymoron
a contradiction in terms if you’re a
woman
you can’t be a war correspondent and if
you’re a war correspondent
you can’t be a woman my gender
was my biggest obstacle even if we got a
job as a reporter we were sent to cover
events like
inauguration of a toy train in a city
park
which actually was my first assignment
yet within a few years i managed to
sneak into work
on java in sri lanka how did this
happen success is
all about overcoming obstacles
it’s not a hundred meter run or even a
marathon
overcoming obstacles is a lifelong
hurdle race it ends only
when you retire or when you die
so never give up you fail only because
you give up
there is no magic mantra or steroid
build
overcome obstacles but i’d like to share
with you a few
simple qualities and strategies that
worked for me
so how did i get into warzone jaffna
become a war correspondent
despite being a woman my strategy
was to convert my gender liability into
an
asset sounds simple but it can be hard
the good news is that there are
solutions
and these solutions can be simple so to
enter the war zone in jaffna
i dressed like a local woman in a saree
the soldiers didn’t bother to check my
papers they just waved me through
remember women cannot be war
correspondents
all the male reporters were checked and
turned away
remember men can be more correspondents
i was the only one to get in and it was
because
i was a woman instead of giving up
because of my gender my strategy was
flipping the attitude switch in my head
flipping the attitude switch
find a way to convert the obstacle into
an asset
the only tool i required was a sari
which i borrowed from a local villager
of course i don’t travel into conflict
zones with sarees in my
rook sack when you flip the attitude
switch something extraordinary happens
instead of being paralyzed by gloom you
are energized you get
hope you get new ideas you get momentum
you seek and therefore find solutions
you are motivated to keep going ahead
thanks to the frontline work done by my
generation of
uh women reporters gender is no longer
an obstacle for today’s women reporters
but they face new obstacles just as men
must deal with their
share of obstacles we all have a quota
of challenges in life cultural
generational
personal flip the attitude switch
instead of allowing obstacles to crush
you
squeeze opportunities out of them
be determined be patient just
don’t give up people say
success is the right person at the right
time
that’s true but how do you become the
right person
how did time become right this magic
does not happen
suddenly it’s the result of
preparation not for weeks not for months
but for
years i’m known for my interview with
prabhakaran the tamil tiger chief
it was the first interview given by this
lethal
reclusive guerrilla leader but it took
years
of hard work and running into walls
before that interview even happened it
all began
with a one paragraph item i saw in the
hindu newspaper
the jaffna public library had been
burned down
no more details burning a factory
or a house or even a police station is
normal
especially those days but burning
a public library that’s like what
happened to alexandria public library
it seemed a deliberate act of cultural
destruction what was going on i had no
idea
and remember this was long before uncle
google was born
so i started digging the old-fashioned
way
going to libraries in chennai where i
lived
interviewing tamil scholars locating sri
lankan tamils who were living in tamil
nadu to get their
take of the situation
preparation is the best strategy
and strategy by definition is long term
gradually the picture became clear this
was
vendetta on the tamil minority by the
sri lankan state
the pandora box of a brewing
ethnic conflict blew open in my face
none of this was in the mainstream news
but my research revealed a tragedy was
unfolding so with three
years later remember three years later
the brutal anti-tamil sri lankan riots
broke out
i was fully prepared armed with
knowledge and information
that i could do the right kind of
analysis could understand what was going
on
i was ready i became the right person at
the right
time it took three years
to get with zero success
along the way my reports and the
photographs i took of a burning uh
colombo
were displayed in parliament by angry
parliamentarians
who wanted india to intervene to protect
the families
india did benefit
of all this attention and action was
that i
became a natural and neutral choice for
prabhakaran to give his
first interview but remember it came
after nearly four years
of research hard work and reporting
in life-threatening riot situations of
mayhem and madness and murder
i mean people remember you know the
result
the interview i remember the process
all that i had to go through for four
years before that interview happened
so it’s never easy and it takes a lot of
time
a lot of preparation i want to touch
upon
just two qualities just two
that i feel helps to overcome obstacles
qualities you have if you are simply a
nice
person i mentioned this because
across the world you see a terrible
erosion of ethics
values decency the first quality i want
to touch upon is
treating people with respect
ahmed was a small time party worker
in devi gowda’s office in bangalore this
was long before devi gowda became the
prime minister of india devi gowda was
a minister in karnataka government and
ahmed
a low-level janta party worker who hung
around in his office
no one gave ahem at the time of day i
was with
the india trade those days i always
asked ahmed how he was
how was his family once he looked a bit
ill so i asked him if he was
heading for a flow and suggested he’d
take vitamin c which is my answer to all
health problems
it was a trivial incident and i forgot
all about it
but not emmett about ten
years later i’m in delhi with cnn and
devi gowda becomes the prime minister of
india news reporters and tv networks
were waiting for uh for devi gowda to
come down
and make his inaugural statements the
new prime minister always gave his first
interview to durdash in those days
followed by a press conference baby
gaura comes down the stairs and who do i
see
beside him ahmed he was beaming
the reporters mobbed devay gowda
ahmed came to me and whispered he will
arrange an exclusive interview for me
i began beaming when devi gowda started
moving to the right uh to the room where
durdashan had
set up their interview ahmed tugged devi
gowda’s
uh sleeve and pulled him to the left
and led him where our the cnn camera was
set up
we got the first interview and you know
cnn went to
town with their promos new indian prime
minister gives first interview to cnn
all thanks to humble ahmed all because i
was nice to him
10 years ago a kind of mirror
incident happened in pakistan which
illustrates the second
simple tactic i want to highlight
always appeal to people’s better
instincts
or as i said the higher angel
that exists in all of us during an
election
campaign i followed both the candidates
benazir bhutto and nawaz sharif and
benazir was the hot favorite to win
all the western media reporters were
following her
i did too but i did not ignore nawaz
sharif
he saw me at several of his campaign
meetings and i discovered
that benazir bhutto was the darling of
the west
but nawaz sharif was becoming the
darling of pakistan
if only because people were fed up with
benazir’s
husband’s corruption i saw a navajri
wave on the last day of the election
campaign when we were on the plane back
to islamabad
i told nawaz sharif he would win he was
thrilled
and then i was quick to strike a deal if
you become the prime minister will you
give me your first interview
he agreed immediately he really didn’t
expect
to win like in india the
custom in pakistan is that the prime
minister gives his first interview
to state television pakistan tv ptv
despite my so-called deal i didn’t
really expect nawaz sharif to keep his
side of the bar again
there will be hell to pay um
cnn is an american channel i’m an indian
journalist why take that
uh risk absolute no no
but i decided to appeal to navashari’s
better instincts after all he had
promised
so when nawaz sharif was being miked by
the ptv
crew i went up to him and reminding
candy
you promised you would give me your
first interview
he stopped in his strengths he told the
ptv
chief i’m sorry meaning i had promised
he took off his microphone and came to
our set
uh in the next room where cnn had set up
and that’s how i got my first interview
with nawaz sharif as the new prime
minister
and then well you know cnn
and by the way this also proves i have
interviewed more people than prabhakar
i have so many stories of people i was
nice to who came to my help
10 20 years later at critical moments
helping me to break stories even saving
my life i’m not exaggerating
attitude gives the lift to overcome
obstacles determination keeps you going
not to give up thomas edison said
many of life’s failures are people who
did not
realize how close they were to success
when they gave up just think about that
they did not realize how close they were
to success
when they gave up and safe
and successful landing is attributed to
luck
i say it’s karma or grace
it’s good to be good it pays off
in moments you least expect
in ways you can never imagine
thank you
you