Story of an Intern – Part Six

AJE photo

By

Ratnesh Dwivedi

Demise of a Monk and the Media glare in Ayodhya

My next visit to Ayodhya was only next year, in July 2003, when the media started broadcasting the news of Ramchandra Das Paramhans‘ poor health. I had not been able to find a regular job after I was rejected by Rajdeep, but stuck to the habit of writing reports and sending these e-mail dispatches to almost two dozen top media people and organizations across the globe. Somehow it was satisfying my journalistic instincts. In this timespan of a year and a half, between March 2002 to July 2003, I stayed with my brother’s family in Noida and occupied myself by hunting for a job and dispatching said e-mails to all these places and individuals.

So, when I got the news of Ramchandra Paramhans’ illness, I readily boarded a train to Ayodhya, my birthplace. Most of the news men who were gathered in Ayodhya were from local newspapers and TV channels, as they were frequently shuffling between Ayodhya and PGI Lucknow, where Ramchandra Paramhans was getting treatment. A couple of times he had been admitted and then discharged after initially getting treatment. This was around the last week of July when both national and international media had started beaming in on the pilgrim town. But this time the media was not going to get any breaking news or exclusives on the Ram temple/Babri mosque issue, as the man behind the movement was ill.

I visited Ramchandra Paramhhans and met his PRO Vimlendra Mishra, who also happened to be my friend. He told me that the monk was in poor health and that his blood pressure was shooting to abnormal levels. I requested if I could speak to the monk, but he was unable to due to his illness and was confined to an AC room on the first floor of the Digamabar Akhara. Many top leaders from the BJP and VHP were visiting him, and soon national and international media persons started arriving again in Ayodhya and occupying all the hotels and lodges in the twin towns.

I was expecting the media gathering to be almost double in comparison to the previous year’s ‘Ram Shila Poojan’ event, in case something unfortunate happened to Paramhans. TV media was already there broadcasting speculation about his health and what would happen next if Pramhans died. One such TV crew was from NDTV. They had stationed themselves on the banks of the Saryu on the Ghats of ‘Ram Ki Paudi’. The correspondent with this team was Shikha Trivedi, a renowned journalist renowned on social issues. Just to brief you about her – Shikha Trivedi is one of those journalists in India who talks about rural problems, drought, gender equality issues and women empowerment. She is a sharp political journalist who carries out a lot of research for her reports. She was married to the late Mr Surendra Pratap Singh, the man who conceptualized Aaj Tak. This time she was in Ayodhya.

Knowing she was part of Rajdeep Sardesai’s team, I thought of going to meet her on the banks of the Saryu from where she was doing live broadcasts each evening. I went there and immediately asked if I could assist her for a few days. I told her how I knew her political editor Rajdeep Sardesai. She agreed that I could stand there and watch whatever she was doing and reporting. That evening she planned to interview leaders of both sections who were involved in the Ram Temple/Babri mosque dispute. It was late in the evening when Vinay Katiyar, the leader from the Hindu extremist party ‘Bajrang Dal’, and the BJP member of parliament from Faizabad and Hasim Ansari of the Babari Masjid action committee came to the venue on the Ghats of ‘Ram ki Paudi’, where the OB van and NDTV team were stationed.

I observed that Shikha Trivedi had a diary with her in which she probably had written down all her the contacts in the twin towns, as well as her plans for each day. She categorically asked both leaders how they were going to react if something unfortunate happened to Paramhans, and how they planned to maintain communal harmony in both communities. Both leaders, Vinay Katiyar and Hasim Ansari were firebrand leaders of their respective communities, and both showed their association to the cause for which they had been fighting. However, they were both reluctant to discuss the issue if it came to ensuring peace and harmony and avoided the question. When the live interview was over and Shikha Trivedi had to depart for the hotel where she was staying she gave me a ride to the centre of town, from where I took a rickshaw to my village.

The next morning, and as I had promised to Shikha Trivedi, I reached the same spot around 10:00am where the crew was waiting for me. We talked about the plan for the day and she suggested I go to cover some shots of akharas, along with the camera team, while she chalked out some more interviews. It was a great learning experience for me to work with such an eminent journalist. The next day when she departed for Delhi as she had forgot some urgent assignment there, subsequent events were supposed to be covered by another NDTV correspondent and I found that I was quite emotional.

Dominique Deluze was a cynical French documentary filmmaker, who had somehow dropped into my uncle’s place, which was how I got to know he was making a documentary for a French TV channel. Not knowing that he was a cynical kind of person I joined his company for the next two days. I took him to the place where he took some shots of the stones getting reshaped for the temple construction. Then we went to meet the Raja of Ayodhya, Vimlendra Mohan Pratap Mishra and his son Yatindra Mohan Mishra. Dominique Deluze is a man who would drink cold water and hot tea together. He had his two front teeth replaced by two metal teeth. He was cynically trying to find out the reason and bias of the Hindu mass movement. He was in Ayodhya predicting there would be hundreds of thousands of people in the streets in case something wrong happened to the chairman of the Ram Janamabhoomi Nyas, Pramhans Ramchandra Das. We together we went to interview the Raja of Ayodhya and his son on what they thought of communal harmony.

Soon I found that it was very difficult to deal with Dominque Deluze and bear his routine, and soon parted ways with him. By this time Ramchandra Paramhans was again critical and was shifted to PGI in Lucknow.

July 31, 2003: The media, political leaders (to remind you that Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s NDA government was in power at that time) and people across India were keeping a close watch on each development related to the monk’s deteriorating health, as well as the subsequent consequences in case of his death. And as expected, the date of July 31, 2003 had something hidden for the expectations of the Hindus who believed in the idea that the Ram Temple must be constructed in Ayodhya.

Early in the morning the monk’s condition worsened beyond the control of the doctors and he took his last breath in the PGI, Lucknow around 9:00am. The news of his death soon spread in all quarter, television channels jumping on the story, along with detailed coverage on his association with the Ram Temple movement. It was something that was expected. The monk was 90 years old and had devoted 70 years of his life to the Ram Temple movement. Born as Chandreshwar Tiwari in 1913 into a prosperous Brahmin family in the eastern state of Bihar, Ramchandra Das Paramhans had studied Sanskrit, the Vedas and other Indian scriptures at Kashi. When his parents pressed him to get married, he rebelled and moved to Ayodhya, where he became a holy man, or sadhu, claiming that he had been destined from before birth to build a temple on the site of the Babri Mosque.

As the head of the Ramjanmabhoomi Nyas (the Rama Birthplace Temple Trust), a powerful Hindu group, Paramhans led the battle for a Rama temple for more than 70 years. With his flowing white beard, matted hair, a a piece of cloth tied around his waist and beads hung round his chest, he looked the archetypal Hindu holy man. Rather less typical was his reputation for tantrums and rejection of the Hindu teaching philosophy that there are many ways leading to God. His dedication to the cause was fanatical: “Even if god Rama comes and says he was not born here, I will not believe him,” he once said.

In 1934, he played a prominent role in the violent attempts by Hindu activists to take over the mosque, which left the structure damaged and also ended in the imposition of a collective fine on the people of Ayodhya. After independence, in 1949, he was instrumental in 1949 in installing a statue of Rama under the mosque dome, and the following year launched a court case staking a claim to the land in the name of the deity. He fought the case for years before withdrawing it in the early 1980s.

Soon obituaries and condolences started beaming in on TV channels. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was among the several leaders who paid glowing tributes to Mahant Ramchandra Paramhans.

“His death has shocked me profoundly. He was extremely benevolent towards me. When I was going on a foreign visit, he had specially sent his blessings,” he said in his message. “Paramhans was firm like a mountain and affectionate like River Sarayu. His contribution towards the Ramjanambhoomi movement will be etched in golden letters. I offer my humble tributes at his feet,” the Prime Minister said.

Then Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani said, “The death of Mahant Ramchandra Paramhans has deeply shocked me. Paramhans was very firm on whatever he said, and was kind and affectionate to all. Even at the age of ninety years, he was active till he breathed his last.”

“His contribution to the Shri Ramjanambhoomi movement cannot be assessed easily and it will be written in history in golden letters. While paying my humble tribute to Paramhans, I feel we have lost a great saint who sacrificed his life for the movement,” Advani said.

Bharatiya Janata Party General Secretary Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said, “He was not only a religious leader, but also very patriotic. A moderate, he was a crucial link towards finding an amicable solution to the vexed (Ayodhya) issue.”

Describing Paramhans as the ‘leading pillar’ of the Ram Janambhoomi movement, Vishwa Hindu Parishad joint general secretary Onkar Bhave said it would work with full strength towards the realisation of his dream of a grand Ram temple at Ayodhya.

By evening Ayodhya was converted into a fortress, and almost two dozen TV channels from national and international media agencies had occupied every hotel, lodge and dharamshala across the twin towns. Name a TV channel and it was there. Ayodhya had turned into a media and political hub within twelve hours. The reason for this was that the Atal Bihari led BJP–NDA government was in power, which supported the Ram Temple movement. All were predicting a big political gathering during the last ritual ceremony for the monk. We all waited for his body to arrive at Digambar Akhara, which all of sudden had become a central place where the media and political leaders had started to arrive. All his followers and people from across the twin towns had already gathered there, and more were arriving from different parts of the country. By the next morning Ayodhya was a place where people in general, political leaders from the state and central government and religious leaders from different temples, math and akharas had arrived.

But, above all, there was a media glare in Ayodhya, the first of its kind after the 1992 Babri demolition.

The Sadhu Samaj (Society of Sadhus) have a tradition of carrying the dead body of their guru in a state of meditation (Samadhi Awastha), rather than in a lying down state, to the place where the last rites are performed. The next day when the procession for the last rites started from Digambar Akhara, Paramhans Ramchandra Das’s body was kept in ‘Samdhi Awastha’. He looked like a monk sitting on his chariot, and proceeding to visit his disciples and maths.

I joined the procession along with the monk’s PRO, Vimlendra Mishra, and as was my habit, I dispatched e-mails and made calls to different media organizations and individuals, keeping them informed on whatever was going on in Ayodhya. I did not know they were already there in the gathering of more than two dozen media organizations. We were all informed that the leaders from the center would be paying their tributes and were coming to Ayodhya within the next couple of hours. This meant that the media had to focus more on the speeches of these leaders and less on the monk’s ritual ceremony.

The security was at its best, keeping in mind that any spark, any fiery speech could have triggered violence. The security forces had been deployed at each corner of the twin towns of Ayodhya and Faizabad, and across whole state of Uttar Pradesh.

The procession, along with the dead body of the monk, reached the banks of the Saryu at a designated spot where his pyre was to be lit. And during this two and half hour journey from the Digamabar Akhara to the banks of the Saryu, I dispatched all that I saw to dozens of individuals and organizations in media circles.

When the procession reached the banks of the Saryu, I saw the impact of the charismatic monk on the public and the leaders. Some 50,000 people had gathered from all across the state. Media persons were given a proper building and along with its rooftop to cover the last rites, with a stage made from where the Prime Minister of India, Deputy Prime Minister and other political leaders from the state and center, religious leaders and monks could stand and speak.

Somehow I managed to get into a place from where I could see the monk’s body laid down on a pyre and all were waiting for the PM and Deputy PM to arrive. They and other political leaders were coming by road from Lucknow. What I could easily observe was more than two dozen TV cameras stationed on the rooftop of the designated building and almost the same number who were in search of a place on the ground.

Soon a big convoy with almost 30-40 vehicles arrived at the place of the last rites and all top political leaders of the NDA government (including the PM and Deputy PM), VHP leaders, RSS leaders and leaders from extremist Hindu outfits groups emerged and gathered on the stage erected for them.

As they gave their condolences and tributes to the monk and showed their commitment to build a magnificent Ram Temple, I was amazed to see that a democratic government was wholeheartedly standing behind and supporting them.

The pyre was lit and the fumes emerging from the monk’s soul were synchronizing with the supreme power and, as the sun dropped, I saw Hindu masses were also dropping one of the prominent hopes in the Ram Temple movement.

The sun had set in the western sky and all the top leaders of center and state, along with the media, had left the venue. There were just the remains of the monk who had seen the fame and glory in his lifetime, built on the foundation of emotional extremism, which had changed the political destiny of a country, and which had forced a Prime Minister and other top leaders of cabinet to come to his burning pyre and pay homage, keeping their democratic dilemmas aside.

The Second Phase of Joblessness and Relocating to Bangalore

Two weeks later, when Ayodhya returned to normalcy, I too packed up my bags and returned to my hub in Noida – my elder brother’s residence. I appreciate that all of my family members including my parents and my brother were not questioning my cynicism to go to places and dispatch reports without being linked with any organization, without a valid ID card and without being an employee of any media house. It all was due to my craze and my cynicism that I wanted to work as a journalist, and I stayed firm to my inner calling.

Soon, after returning from Ayodhya, I found that the big black question was still there – to find a regular job. The media contacts that I had developed in Ayodhya were not working anymore, and each knock on the doors of media companies had remained unattended. I struggled, fought and kept asking for a job from whomsoever I met for the next year.

This was the second phase of my joblessness.

My elder brother, his wife and my parents were the ones who were consoling me all through these days. But there is something called luck which had a personal enmity with me. I kept calling the media houses and individuals each day and knocking on the doors of each opportunity, but somehow my voice was not being heard.

And during such depressing days the only hopes were my brother and my parents. One day I got the news that my brother had got promoted and was set to join another software giant, Intel, in Bangalore. He was insisting that our parents should also accompany him while he left it to my will whether I would also go along or keep struggling in the big bad media world, as I felt all my hopes had died.

We were joined by a new entrant in my family. My elder brother’s wife had delivered a cute prince to whom we all had named ‘Sagun,’ as he was the first baby boy to for the next generation of my family.

My elder brother has been my inspiration since childhood. We are more like friends and less like brothers. A very hardworking person, he was the one whom my father trusted a lot. I have seen him grow mature at a very early stage of his life, and he was the hope and inspiration for my entire village.

He had been taking care of his own academic expenditure from when he was still in graduation college. He finised his schooling from the Government Intermediate College in Faizabad, and I remember when I joined the same school in class 9th standard, he had taken me on his bicycle to and from school which was about six to seven kilometers from our village. However whenever the situation became worse in my village and we were sheltered by one of our relatives in Faizabad, he would often shout at me for getting late for school, but never forgot to take me on his bicycle.

Later, he completed his graduation from a college in Faizabad and an M.Sc in Electronics from a University which I have mentioned in a later chapter in this story. His love for academic books and the desire to work hard had got him into one of the best Universities in India – Banaras Hindu University. Here he did his Ph D on micro sensors. I remember we all were very emotional when he departed for IT-BHU Banaras to pursue his dream from IT-BHU. Soon I followed at regular intervals to see him and soon got a place in the Journalism program of BHU, but which I later changed to Lucknow University. BHU possesses a strong backbone of academic excellence and was founded by the renowned freedom fighter Pt. Mahaman Madan Mohan Malviya. It is one of the premier institutions imparting higher education in humanities, social sciences, sciences, engineering and medical sciences. My elder brother had a nose for scientific research. He had presented many research papers and filed several patents during his Ph.D studies. Whenever I visited him I found him absorbed in his studies, preparing for his examinations and busy with the laboratory researches for his doctorate. He finished his Ph.D in record time and was offered a lectureship in the Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences(BITS)-Pilani. He later joined an MNCs keeping in mind the responsibilities he had held towards his family.

His wife and my Bhabhi, had also been good in academics. She finished her M.Sc. from the same university in Faizabad, where we had all studied, before marrying my brother. She finally joined him in the same software firm. A very lovable lady and caring as well, she never questioned my joblessness when I was rejected by almost all the individuals and media organizations. They together make a lovable, adorable and responsible family and to date are the financial backbone for all of us. They have also given us two adorable children – Sagun and Ishani (Ishani was born in Bangalore).

One night we were all sitting together at our rented Noida house discussing our relocation to Bangalore, when Sagun, who was by now one and half years old, asked me in his innocent way to come to Bangalore with them. I had no hope left in Delhi that I would get a foothold in the media industry. Maybe something would bring about a change for me in Bangalore, perhaps my luck would give me a chance that I finally decided to accompany my parents and brother’s family to Bangalore. This is how I planned to leave the city for which I had a dream – a beautiful dream.

My brother, his wife, Sagun and my mother left for Bangalore a month ahead of us and stayed in the Leela Place before finding a beautiful ground floor house for all of us in Indira Nagar near the BTM layout. My father and I stayed in Noida for our belongings and new Maruti Zen car had reached Bangalore. And then finally the day came when I had to say goodbye to the city where I had nurtured a failed dream to get into the media industry. What I had with me were a few phone numbers, some contacts, some addresses and some sweet and sour memories of individuals who had helped me and of some of those who had shattered my dream to make it a success in the big bad media world. This was around May 2004 when my destiny was carrying me to another dream city, the southern plateau part of India, carrying a man with broken wings who had finally found hope for his life. When I was packing my luggage I could feel sadness for this city, for its people and also for the failure which was destined for a longer time period. I cried that night.

My father and I boarded the train bound for Bangalore from New Delhi railway station. I could feel the pain of failure in my eyes. My father, who was now growing old, but still had the imprints on his face of the battles he fought for in life, for all so that he could provide us to nurture all my siblings and make us into good human beings. An iron man, I would say he gave me company, mentored me and shared all of my sufferings by keeping himself in front to avoid any problems for any of us. This remarkable man was my partner in the almost two day long journey through the changing landscape and from the north to the west and finally to the south of India. The train had caught its speed. I looked towards my father. He was busy arranging his sheets and asked me to do the same as well.

My father was a second son to his parents in a family of four brothers and one sister. He is an articulate person, a very religious man who is passionate about his work. He is honest, simple and has always been pushing all of us for higher studies and teaching us to be good human beings. He hardly ever missed a visit to the Hanuman Garhi in Ayodhya every Tuesday. He was born and brought up in the village where we all were later born. His father, and my grandfather, were Gram Pradhan. My father had grown up under strict religious guidelines and in a typical Brahmin cultural environment, which he still followed. He had witnessed many unwanted and unpleasant moments in his life while in his struggle to educate all his sons and daughters and make them good human beings.

He has seen his children’s deaths, he has battled with limited resources, but has successfully overcome all the obstacles which came his way during the tough turns of his life. His primary focus was to give the best education to his children, and to give him them a better life and finally to see all of them develop into good human beings, which I believe he has successfully managed with all of us. When situations became adverse in my village (due to caste violence), he sent me and my brother to one of our relative’s house to make us feel secure. I remember that he never shouted at any of us, nor had he ever raised his hands to any of us. We lived in a joint family with two of his younger brothers and their families to whom he often supported with all his capacity. In our village his advice in still holds value, and his simplicity is always adored. He did all he could within his financial limits as a school teacher and then as Sub Divisional Inspector of Schools (SDI) to make all of us feel good, educated and proud.

He was married to my mother who had supported him step by step, in odd and even times, through tough and critical phases of life. I never saw her fighting with or complaining to my father when we were facing difficulties. My mother belongs to another reputed Brahmin family from the same area and she had seen some unpleasant turns in her life with her parental family. Her only brother, and my Mamaji, had served in a directorial position in the IGFRI (Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute) in Jhansi. Both my parents had thrown away their desires many times in order to give us the best of in life, and thank god they both succeeded. My father often claimed that he could not give anything to my mother just because he had to raise his children, and in return my mother would say that all my father’s ‘Poojas’ (prayers) were meant for their children.

My father, accompanying me in the train, looked towards me and asked me to arrange the sheets provided by the railway staff. I followed his advice. He then asked if I wanted something to eat. We ordered dinner and waited for it to arrive. While my father went to freshen himself, I kept thinking about what had gone wrong with me that I had not been able to penetrate the media industry, why people had refused me, and why I could not convince the people with whom I had met.

We ate our dinner and soon my father was asleep. I took out a book from my bag and tried to focus on reading, but found that I was unable to concentrate. The denials, the refusals and the departure from my dream city – of Delhi were haunting me. A few faces which kept occupying my brain were those of Rajdeep Sardesai, the AP lady and Ami. Soon I too fell asleep.

My father woke me up at 7:00am and asked to have my tea. He had already woken up and, as was his habit, had freshened up. Very gently he looked at me and reminded me that we had reached Nagpur. All of sudden I woke up, looked out the window and found that the train had stopped at Nagpur. Coolies, vendors, railway book stalls and shops selling fresh oranges were what I saw on the platform. I was thinking about how Nagpur had stayed sheltered and was now a hub of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hinduist organization which was said to be behind the demolitions of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya.

I sipped the tea offered by my father, while he kept telling me how my elder brother had performed well and how he took care of all of us. I agreed and told him that I would try to do something new in Bangalore, not knowing what was the best thing I could do in an unknown city. We talked on different issues ranging from politics to family, and from life in Delhi to our new destination – Bangalore.

The train had started moving and as I observed that the soil had changed color from a darkish brown to blackish, in this part of Mahrashtara, I thought that something would also change the colors in my life.

We took our lunch served by the Indian Railways and rested for a couple of hours. I woke up to have evening tea when I noticed that the train had reached Anant in Andhra Pradesh. The change in attire and language was evident and was telling us that we had reached a different shade of India. Bada Sambhar, Idley Sambhar and Aaloo Bonda were the key items being sold at on the railway platform. My father and I had a couple of plates of these items, and I then tried to concentrate on my book which was talking about how versatile Indian culture and its people were.

Around 7:30 am we reached Seccuenderabad, the twin town of Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh. My father told me that within the next 10 to 12 hours we would reach Bangalore. This part of India was new for me and I found that the specialty with train travel is that you get plenty of opportunities to meet new people and see all the places which fell en-route. My father ordered dinner for this night as well and as we waited, kept ourselves busy talking about the new people and places we were visiting on this journey. Listening to my father, I found words of encouragement, advice and appreciation for my elder brother. He kept reminding me that I must follow my brother’s footsteps.

We had our dinner together and as we were to reach Bangalore the next morning we went to sleep in eagerness to meet everybody in the family. I found that the worries and pains of Delhi were slipping from my mind, while the eagerness to see this new place and meet everyone else in the family was somehow trying to console me. The next morning he woke me up, asked me to get freshened up and have my tea as we were about to reach our destination.

The train reached Bangalore City station at 9:30am. As the train was slowing down I saw my brother waving at us and as the train stopped he rushed towards our bogie we were boarding. He had come alone to receive us as his wife had gone to the office. Soon we came out of the station where a hired taxi was waiting for us. I had reached Bangalore, the city where I hoped for a new life and new wings for my desires. Everything was appearing to be in good shape and form, the weather, the people. But my worries were still with me hoping to vanish to give an avenue to hope and success.

My elder brother had got a beautiful ground floor house in Indira Nagar near the BTM layout. We had plenty of space for all of us and for Sagun to play around, but my brother had a very busy schedule. Both my brother and his wife were still working with Intel corp, and I had the whole day for planning new avenues in a new city. On the first floor of this double story house was an aging couple and the owners of the house were staying were Tamils. The landlady was a doctor and quite often came down to meet all of us. I chalked out my daily routine and that included searching the newspapers, as well as roaming around the city looking for a job. Unlike Delhi, Bangalore had little to offer in terms of the media industry and its expansion. There were state bureaus which were located in Bangalore but they had limited space, requirements and staff. Bangalore as a city is a beautifully crafted one. Vast gardens, wide roads, disciplined traffic, great pieces of architecture and design of buildings, and moreover it was a hub of India’s IT revolution’ one finds a different mood in this city. Gentle people from all corners of India, workaholics but patient.

I liked roaming around the city and enjoyed a lot in the different atmosphere. Early in the morning each day I would come out of the house, run a kilometer in the healthy weather, and then after having breakfast would go out looking how to explore. Initially, I visited media houses like the Times of India, NDTV and a couple of other news organizations. I mentioned before these people, what little I had done in Delhi, but as I said they required a limited staff and so it was quite difficult to get a foothold.

This everyday was becoming impossible for me. I started smoking quite frequently, but without bringing it to the notice of my family. I felt I was going through a phase of restlessness. Cyber cafes in the Thipsandra market became my next destination to search for whatever seemed news to me. All of sudden I started realizing that I had lots of information on current affairs and had a lot of contacts in the form of e-mails and phone numbers. But what to do with this information and these global contacts when they were accepting all my e-mails as spam.

One fine day when I was in the cyber cafe I thought of the unorganized information and contacts and that I must utilize the art of e-mailing, which I had learnt from Anita Pratap, into a channelized form. And after a week of brainstorming I finalized an e-mail based program which was sent to almost two dozen individuals including Rajdeep Sardesai, the AP lady, Nik Gowing, and the 43rd President of USA ,- George W Bush at his official e-mail and organizations across the globe. I named it “The Nose of the News”, and I carried it on till the end of 2010.

Read the next instalment of Story of an Intern in Tuck Magazine

Ratnesh Dwivedi

Ratnesh Dwivedi is a seasoned Academician, Author, Journalist, NASA Certified Educator and Consultant with 15 plus years in teaching and corporate. He has seen the changing face of global politics and has written extensively on International Affairs.

He serves on board of a dozen global firms ranging from Mining, Oil & Gas, Electricity, Energy, Cyber Security, Intelligence, Defence and Counter Terrorism having the finest people from the corporate world and Goverment onboard.

He holds memberships with global organizations such as ECREA-Brussels, Mission Essential-Virginia, Global Ethics Network-Washington, American Astronomical Society-Washington, Internet Society-Virginia, CSIS-PONI-Washington, RTDNA-Washington, NSTA-Virginia, EIN News Desk, Bush Presidential Center, Texas, etc.

He has authored five books. The Story of an Intern is a Reportage, The Cosmic Mask is a Space Fiction, Third and fourth are awarded academic books. His fifth book, US Intelligence and Cost of War talks about USA Military engagements in the Middle East.