My experience at IANS...

Oct 1, 2011

As I have spent last eight months in the Indo-Asian News Service, the initial experience,which was highly traumatic and nerve-shaking, has been overwhelmed by the joy of learning at this stage.

Irrespective of the initial experience at this media organisation, I feel I am enjoying this part which has pushed me to study and learn to get rid of my uninformed self. I believe this exercise should be a must for every aspiring journalist and even graduate.

One feels compelled to learn here is because "people here know", "people here question", but "people here can fuck you too anytime". One has to remain a student here and keep pushing the limit of knowledge to an unknown limit as a routine. There are many people here who have spent their lifetime or a big part of their professional life in journalism and hence can point out even the minutest mistake easily. It is not that these people don't commit blunder. They do so like any other human being but the way the keep themselves involved in and around useful subjects and sharing and improving silly mistakes, is actually worth experiencing at least once in one's journalistic life.

The best thing the environment here pushes you or inspire you for is to ENJOY LEARNING and TAKE WRITING and YOUR KNOWLEDGE SERIOUSLY.

Learning about one's country, neighbours, and the rest of the world is always beneficial and a great entertainment for any knowledge-seeker like me. My habit of collecting or knowing at least something by the end of the day is thoroughly satisfied here. I realised the value of learning here. I hope this is going to benefit me the rest of my life. What I avoided or failed to learn as 'basics' at school or college gets exposed and thus being taken care of hurriedly by myself.

Why and how knowledge is power can rightly be understood only after facing and realising consequences of not having it. I feel far more informed in actual way today than I used to when I joined IANS.

Among many other things, the organisation has made me learn a variety of things and its utilisation in everyday life of IANS and outside has boosted my confidence as a journalist and writer.

From taking home print-outs of specific and important subjects to studying and memorising them to ensure my respectful survival at IANS and after it, has been a great satisfaction so far.

I hope to make this style of living or learning integral part of my life. Thanks for MR Narayanswamy for all this.