An Encounter with a Reporter

I am not really having a very nice picture about reporters, after having watched various news channels asking weird and rubbish questions to people and doing stupid polls which does not have any relation to what journalism is all about. It does not mean that I know everything about them but whatever I know makes me hate them.

Oh sorry I forgot to introduce myself. If you are guessing me as a critic or some big shot then you are definitely in for some surprise. I am an engineering grad. working in a reputed firm. 5’11” in height and decent looking. (I know that engineer and decent don’t go well together) but you can say that I am an exception. By now you must have guessed me as an egocentric person, but this story is not about me. Let’s move on with the story…..

I was fighting with my boss for my release from the office as I along with my colleagues and juniors was organizing the annual fest for the schools & college going people. So after half an hour of discussion I finally managed to escape from Alcatraz.

We were busy finalizing for the event for which we only had few days left but I think I will not bore you with the planning details but will take you straight to the opening ceremony of the event.

I gave the welcome speech and called on the chief guest who declared the fest open. Since the event was to start from the next day, the whole night went off in the final arrangements for the program.

Day 1:

We all reached the venue at 7:00 am as the event was to start from 8:00 am. We made all the arrangements and went to the control room for final check. As for the whole night I was not able to sleep properly I thought that it was a right time to take a nap, as there was still some time left.

Now comes the interesting part of the whole story…

I was half way in my sleep (half way I am saying coz there is no other way of measuring my extent of sleep.) when one of my junior (Jeet) came in the room and shouted “Sir, could you please come out of the room, some reporter wants to meet the organizers of the event”.

Initially I thought that what does a reporter wants to know from me as everything including the press release had already been sent to them but then Jeet said that she was waiting outside. Honestly, the figure that came into my mind was of a lady of the age of 30-35 with over excessive makeup (coz I have seen them on TV, no previous meetings to be precise) trying to show that she was not less than a teen. I don’t know why but this was the feeling that came to me.

I tried to push Jeet to tackle her but as he was busy with some work I had to go with a fake smile on my face.

I came out of the control room and tried to search for this lady or should I say aunty whom I was not able to locate, when I saw Jeet talking to a girl/lady (as I was not able to see her because she was not facing me). I shouted on Jeet to inquire about that reporter when this lady turned and came up to me and said, “Hi, I am Preeti from HT”. I looked at her and was paused for a moment (not because she was same as I had expected earlier but coz I had seen a beautiful reporter first time in my life and not to mention without make-up.)

Let me give you her description: She was like 5’3” as I estimated, round face with a glint of eye liner in the eyes, her hair were flying in the air and she was carrying a red bag which often fell off her shoulders. She had a Bengali touch in her face and her voice was like a call center girl: (I think call center people have a good voice).

Some thought processing was going in my mind when she interrupted me “Excuse me, can I take some of your time” I said, “of course, come have a seat”. Some casual hi hello and then bombardment of questions started (so reporter like). She asked me “Tell me the other side of a GET (Graduate Engineer Trainee) or if I say the humane side” and I was like ‘What the hell’ again a weird question from a reporter, not so uncommon of them. But my misconception was soon overcome when she started elaborating that what exactly she wanted.

I was wondering that it was for the first time that a reporter or for that matter anyone had ever asked me about my (GETs) personal life. It took me some time to realize what my life is. Actually it was a very heavy question. I told her about my hobbies and interests but as I didn’t had much to tell or you can say I was not interested in telling how boring a life of an engineer is, I diverted the topic to her interests which she was reluctant to tell as if she was feeling ‘Office mein boss aur yahan pe ye chatna shuru ho gaya”. I read her face but still insisted on to know about her.

Her face was like she had a bad time in office, which she told me later on. So I told her that Boss Effect is everywhere and that ‘Boss is always right’ is the punch line to follow if she needs to succeed.

Finding me in the same boat as she was, she opened up and told me that his boss is like a political party leader who can change from time to time (Bossy whenever his girlfriend is around and flirtatious crack when alone). She told that due to her boss’s girlfriend many a times articles that she wrote were not printed coz that lady did not like it and her Boss was like a puppet agreeing to what she said.

She told me that she had her interests in defense reporting, news reading and acting. I thought what a varied range of interests she had: A perfect all rounder. For the acting thing till now I had not noticed any such act which could prove her acting skills but definitely she could be a news reader because of her voice and that she did not need any make up to present herself, just an eye liner could do the trick to increase the TRP of that particular channel. As she had to leave early coz she had to finish the write up and send it for editing and printing, she took leave but with a promise that the write up about GETs would be good.

Day 2:

I woke up in the morning and the first thing I did was to look at the newspaper only to be disappointed, as the article was not there. First thing that came to my mind was that if I see her I would give her a doze of lecture.

I had a bath and reached the venue for events, as I had to host the Quiz show that day. When the quiz was over I was going to have a cup of coffee when I heard a familiar voice from behind…the same call center one. I turned only to find her in a disturbed mood. I went up to her and instead of giving her a lot of blab I forgot why I was there for and listened to her. She said that she was sorry for the article being not printed.

I thought that now she would start giving excuses about the report and the same happened. She said that his boss had asked her to stop that report because of the earlier reason….the Lady Effect, the way in which she was telling me the whole story made me believe that the politics in office is not a new thing, it is there right from the beginning. She told me about the rivalries in the office which often grow to a level of Mahabharata.

Then suddenly I don’t know what happened to me that I asked her out for a cup of coffee the next day, which to my surprise she agreed to. (Surprised not because it was the first time that some girl had agreed for a date outside but it has been a long time when I did go out with a girl, maybe in my faintest of memory it was in college sometime). After covering that day’s event she came to me and we exchanged our phone numbers so that we could decide on the time and venue for the meeting or should I say a date (I am not sure, because people may misinterpret and I want to make it clear that I didn’t had any bad intensions).

Day 3:

I called her up in the morning to confirm whether 4:00 in the evening would be OK or not to which she said a ‘Yes’. So after finishing off my work on the last day of the fest I rushed back to the hostel to get ready …… oh sorry I forgot to tell you the venue where we were supposed to meet. It was Café Coffee Day or as we popularly call it CCD.

I reached the place 10 minutes before the said time. Not to mention that I am a very punctual person and the thing that turns me off is when a person keeps me waiting for a long time. This was one such lucky day and I had to wait for a very short time you can say 30 minutes or so. I had my temper at the top level when she arrived with a smile on her face trying to show that she was very sorry, typical of a girl.

My other weakness is that I cannot remain angry for a long time especially with a girl. (I know people will try to take advantage of me after reading this story but I have to write a fair story and I cannot hide anything).

She came with an excuse as every time and said that she was late due to her Dance Class. So another quality came out ‘a dancer cum reporter’ not bad.

Instead of wasting much time in any argument I took her inside the café and took the seat on the left. A classic number of George Michael’s Careless Whispers was being played there, which tempted me to ask her to dance, not to mention I am also very good at dancing especially salsa and ball dance (forgive me if there are any spelling mistakes) and have won many appreciations in school and college, if I am allowed to boast a little about myself. Then I stopped myself as many people were there in the café and it would have not looked nice.

I ordered a ‘Café Frappe’ and she ordered a ‘lemon n ice tea’ not to mention women are so health conscious and prefer fatless diet.

I started to ask her about her dance classes as I was till now very much bored by those journalism talks that we had earlier. Many common interest were coming out and I wanted to explore some more so I asked her about her other interests, other than that I have already mentioned in the beginning. She said “I am learning to deceive people” and I was stumped for a moment and then when she completed her sentence ‘Journalists ko dhoka dena aana chahiye” then I thought ok again she brought back the topic to her comfort area which I was completely fed up of (as I have mentioned earlier).

I too had this feeling about journalists and she strengthened it further.

Then she started telling about incidents in her college days, which were kind of not so funny if I say but I pretended as if I was enjoying them, a lot (I know that she will kill me after reading this but I cannot help mentioning it).

After an hour or so our stock of topics was empty and at that time I thought of playing her part and I started interviewing her on her life. This was interesting as I had never ever interviewed any one and believe me it was fun, I thought I could be a reporter too but as the grass is always green on the other side I came to a conclusion that this can be mirage too. I was happy where I was and as momma says ‘don’t interfere in others life’ I left that thought at its place.

At that point of time I thought why not write a story on my experience of these three days along with her part in it. I always had an inner crave towards writing a story or a poem or anything but had successfully failed many a times. After taking a lot of points from her for the story that at first instance seemed to be an impossible task, I promised her to write it in a form of story and so here it is. I think now that I have written it quiet decently and hope that it is without any grammatical errors but any such errors are deeply regretted.

In the end I would like to mention a very important point. I don’t know whether I can understand the people involved in media (esp. reporters) very well but one thing that I would definitely like to mention is whether they are good or bad is the perception of an individual but for me I can say that one of them has become a very good friend of mine. *

* Story cut short, as I have to give it to her tomorrow. May be I’ll complete it later to give it a better shape.

---------THE END---------

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the people who helped me in writing this story.

First and for most I would like to thank my reporter friend who provided me with an idea of writing this story.

I would also like to thank Bill Gates for providing me with excellent software MS WORD where I could pen down my thoughts and alsocheck the grammatical errors.

I would like to thank my junior Jeet for providing me with the opportunity of meeting her.

I would also like to thank all of them who supported me in any way in completing the story.