The year was 2001.
I was assigned to profile a young nightingale in the making. A student whose poetry was chosen by an American website dedicated to poetry. She was up for a $20,000 prize, but her trip to Washington DC, where the winner will be named, would not happen. This 21-year-old arts graduate needed Rs 1.25 lakh to cover her travel, food and living expenses in the US.
Another problem was that she didn’t want public sympathy. And she said it in so many words. My editor wouldn’t take no for an answer. And I carried on pursuing her.
I called a number of times at home, but she wasn’t in. My deadline was closing in on me and I was yet to get a photo to go with the story.
I called her again in the evening. A nephew of hers picked up the phone and said, she was at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan on Race Course Road for some class. Within minutes, I landed up with my photographer at the institute and sent a note to the teacher who obliged. In under a minute, she was out of the class and in the staff room.
She was very cagey about getting any form of publicity. I convinced her that if she was intent on chasing her ambition all the way to the US, this was the only route to take. She finally obliged and was willing to give us three frames (my fidgety photographer had underexposed the first two frames and the third one was passable. And this I realised only later).
Back in the office, I get a phone call from her angry father.
“How dare do you barge into the classroom and click a photo of my girl?” he asked, livid.
Borrowing inspiration from my editor who keeps his cool in the harshest of situations, I asked matter-of-factly: “I don’t see any problem here. So why should I even anger you?”
“Inspite of us saying no, you’ve gone ahead with your story,” he quipped, his tone a lot lower than before.
“But then, we are only encouraging your girl here and we don’t think we have done any wrong,” I insisted.
“I understand that, but you should have atleast asked for my permission,” said the concerned father, a lot calmer now.
“I did, but despite several phone calls, I was just not able to reach you, so I thought of going straight to the school would help,” I said, without a quiver in my voice.
“Ok, I have no problems with you carrying the story, but please don’t use her photograph,” the father requested.
“That’s not possible because we are putting her photo on the cover of our tabloid, and no cover story is printed without a photo,” I reasoned.
The father agreed and I scored a victory of sorts.
The story was out and my managing editor loved it, though some of the readers called me up to say the girl was being taken for a ride by the American website.
“Even I have received a letter from the website to be present at the prize giving ceremony,” said one concerned reader. “If you could give me her phone number, maybe I could caution her against going to the US.”
We got letters sharing much the same sentiment.
I just gave up the whole thing, and concentrated on the stories ahead of me.
Just when I had shrugged off the whole incident as one of those tiring assignments, this girl visits me in the office with a shield of honour. And that’s when the story fell in place.
After my article made it to print, several individuals had signed up to sponsor her entire tour and stay in the US. And she had been to the US at their expense, and interacted with poetry heavyweights who had assembled from across the world.
It was a liberating experience for her. And a humbling one for me. Thank you, Bangalore.
(First published in City Reporter, 2003)