Kumar Bahukhandi
There is pain in journalism, but there is pleasure too. The only difference is that people generally see the pleasure, while the journalist gets to keep the pain.
If a journalist gets a front-row seat at a function, is photographed shaking hands with an important person, or happens to enjoy a good meal after a press conference at a five-star hotel, people looking from outside are likely to think: What a wonderful profession!
The journalist puts his hand into his pocket and thinks: If only my pocket felt the same way.
I discovered the real pain of journalism when my family started looking for a suitable match for me.
One prospective bride’s father asked my mother:
“What does the boy do?”
My mother replied proudly:
“He is a journalist.”
The response came almost immediately:
“We are not asking about his hobby. Tell us how much he earns. After all, our daughter should also be able to live comfortably.”
For my mother, it was nothing short of an attack. For me, it was an education.
That day I discovered that the profession to which I was devoting my days and nights had already been placed by a section of society in the category of my hobbies.
Journalism has never been an eight-hour job. Other people finish their working hours and return home. A journalist may return home, but journalism returns home with him.
An incident takes place, somebody telephones, a press conference is suddenly called, a politician makes a statement, or something happens somewhere that cannot wait until tomorrow—and your evening is no longer yours.
Yet, as far as the prospective bride’s family was concerned, all this was apparently a hobby.
Gradually, even my mother began to have doubts about my choice of profession. Her objection was neither ideological nor philosophical. Her questions were painfully practical:
How will you run a household?
And, more importantly at that particular stage of my life, how will you get married?
She had a point.
Ideas do not buy groceries, and showing a press card to a prospective father-in-law is unlikely to persuade him to hand over his daughter’s future.
Eventually, with the help of an acquaintance, I decided that perhaps I should look for a “proper job”—the sort of occupation which, when mentioned, would not immediately invite the question:
“Yes, but what do you actually do?”
My search took me to the office of a company dealing with customer care.
I went for an interview.
Being a journalist, I was not short of confidence. I was accustomed to asking people questions, listening to their answers and, when they avoided answering, asking them again.
How difficult could customer care possibly be?
The interview began.
The first principle explained to me was:
“Customer satisfaction is our highest priority.”
That sounded perfectly reasonable.
In journalism, the reader mattered; here, the customer mattered. There did not appear to be much difference.
Then came the explanation.
The customer had to be kept satisfied under all circumstances. If necessary, one could bend things a little, turn the conversation this way or that, or say whatever was required to ensure that the customer remained happy.
At this point, the journalist inside me became slightly uncomfortable.
Journalism had taught me that whether the person before you was pleased or annoyed, you were supposed to try to find out the truth.
Here, apparently, keeping the customer happy could sometimes be more important than being painfully truthful.
Still, I told myself, this was a job.
Every profession has its rules.
Then I was introduced to the company’s rules.
The first was wonderfully simple:
“The boss is always right.”
I accepted it immediately.
After all, I needed a job and the boss was sitting in front of me. Under such circumstances, the possibility of a boss being wrong becomes remarkably small.
Then came the question of leave.
I was informed:
“You may take leave only when you are going to die.”
I was a little surprised.
But the real condition was yet to come.
Even if I intended to die, I was expected to inform the company sufficiently in advance so that it could appoint somebody in my place.
And there was another responsibility.
Before dying, I was expected to train my replacement properly.
That way the company would neither have to spend time training the new employee nor waste money on the exercise.
Until that moment, I had gone there for a job interview.
Suddenly, I found myself planning my death.
Dying itself did not seem to be the biggest problem. The difficulty was how I was supposed to inform the company of the date in advance.
Then another thought troubled me.
How many days would I need to train my replacement?
That would obviously depend upon how many days I had left before dying.
And what if death arrived unexpectedly?
Suppose I died before completing the new man’s training?
Would the company regard that as irresponsible behaviour?
I was still trying to work out a reasonable arrangement between death and training when another rule appeared.
What should an employee do if he ever felt that the boss was wrong?
The answer was reassuringly simple.
Read the rule again:
“The boss is always right.”
Problem solved.
The boss is right.
If you think the boss is wrong, you are wrong.
And if you are still confused, read the first rule again.
By now, journalism had begun to look considerably more attractive.
The profession that the prospective bride’s father had dismissed as my “hobby” at least allowed me the freedom to believe that something wrong was actually wrong.
The interview continued, but another interview had begun inside me.
The company was asking me questions, while I was questioning myself.
Was a better salary enough reason to do something in which keeping somebody happy might become more important than saying what I believed to be true?
Could I spend my working life accepting that the boss was always right simply because a rule said so?
And was a good job merely one that paid better?
I remembered my mother’s worries.
I also remembered the prospective bride’s father’s question.
Neither was entirely wrong.
Every father wants his daughter to live comfortably. Every mother wants her son to have a settled life.
But perhaps life cannot be calculated entirely from a salary slip.
The stomach has its demands. So does the soul.
Sitting in that office, I realised that journalism might not have made my pocket particularly prosperous, but it had given me one troublesome habit:
It had taught me to ask questions.
And a man who has acquired the habit of asking questions may remain silent for a while after reading “The boss is always right”.
Believing it for the rest of his life is another matter.
By then, it was no longer merely a question of salary. It had reached my conscience.
I wanted a better income.
I wanted to get married.
I wanted my mother to stop worrying about me.
But I wasn’t prepared to achieve all that by dismissing the journalist living inside me.
I had gone for the interview hoping to leave journalism and find a “proper job”.
When I walked out of that office, journalism suddenly seemed a remarkably proper job.
Whether I found a bride or not, whether some prospective father-in-law regarded me as unemployed or merely pursuing an expensive hobby, at least one question had finally been settled.
I knew what I did.
I was a journalist.
As for leave—
I still haven’t decided whom I am supposed to train before I die.
So, for the time being, I have no plans to die either.
This article was originally written in 1996 for a Hindi magazine published from Mumbai. Three decades later, I am presenting it again, drawing on the surviving old copy and my own memories. I have tried to preserve, as far as possible, the original incidents, humour and the flavour of journalism of that era.
