I am a journalist at heart with a little bit of algorithmic juggaad

Sep 2 | 03 min read

I was that curious kid who would always have a question about anything and everything, ‘Yeh kya hai?’ Being my go-to question about everything, even people!

I was born into a family of all engineers wanting me to be an engineer as well. I had no idea what I wanted to do, and that was all about to change.

Cut to November 26, 2008. Mumbai was struck by the deadliest terror attacks. The siege of the city continued for about 3 days. Every eye in the city was glued to news channels to get an update on the status of the attackers, schools shut, offices shut. The city that never sleeps came to a standstill. The NSG was called for a clear-out operation, and one of the sites where the terrorists were keeping people captive happened to be near my house.

As a 15 year old, that clear out operation by India’s NSG became my first ever news story. I went there and shot bit of the clear out operation on my phone camera, I knew from that day on that I wanted to be a journalist.

I was just 15 and still a school going kid, so like everything, this idea also faded but remained somewhere in my subconscious. As I was born into a family of engineers, my parents got me to opt for science in the 11th grade. I was an okay student, so I survived through it for a year. I realised science is not my calling at all. I went for a re-admission to my junior college in 12th grade, and without informing my parents, I enrolled in commerce, only on a hunch that I really liked how accounting textbooks looked like. I was told to pursue Chartered Accountancy after I went against my family tradition of becoming an engineer. I did go ahead with the idea, but later I realised Excel sheets are not my thing either.

Now that I had a degree, I had to decide what I wanted to do. The only thing consistent all through life was storytelling and curiosity to learn something new. This love for something new every day took me towards the news.

As a financial and international journalist, I had the chance to tell captivating stories about a lot of significant events in the country. My stint with covering markets and business sectors started with CNBC-TV18 in 2015. I learned about how each industry works, what the key indicators are for each industry’s performance, how to crunch data, and how to read market moves.

Video storytelling was my favourite device to bring out the story behind the industrial jargon and the numbers; this was that Eureka moment. I continued on as a journalist for another 8 years.

Bringing stories from different parts of the world, countries, and industries became a way of life for me. Running through bustling streets, filled newsrooms, and barren villages took me through experiences no other profession possibly would have. I explored the drug dens of Punjab, a village with no electricity, while also producing interviews with people that mattered.

One day Akshay D’Souza, who I used to know as a FMCG guest on my show, called and said, “Hey, why don’t you come and tell stories for us instead of using our data to tell your stories?” With a little hesitation and doubt in my mind, I thought to myself, let me just give it a shot. It would be fun to tell stories from the point of view of the people who run the FMCG landscape and get me my morning chai every day.

The journey of building content for Bizom started from there.

This role has opened my horizon to new forms of storytelling, using new ways, new techniques, new content and a deeper understanding of FMCG data. When I had just joined, I used to always wonder will a journalist ever be able to break into a corporate mould and learn their ways. Well, then I understood that you can be whatever you want to be here, as long as your idea makes sense for the larger mission of the organisation. I guess when you love what you do, you find ways to inculcate it in every role you take on.

From being a full-time journalist, now I am a journalist at heart with a little bit of algorithmic juggaad!

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