MEDIA WATCH | New Delhi, May 6, 2011 16:20
Namassssskar,
main hoon Aaaaashutosh”. This familiar refrain, first heard on Aaj Tak
and now echoing at the IBN 7, is the signature tune of the man who is
now at the helm of affairs at one of the biggest channels in India.
The
name itself is an introduction for Ashutosh, the Managing Editor of IBN
7. A small town boy born to an Income Tax Official, Ashutosh says he
never dreamt of being a journalist. “The first time I ever contemplated
penning my thoughts was in 1989 when in China, Tiananmen Square was
making news and in India, the Ayodhya issue was on the boil. I wanted to
write and got an opportunity at Saptahik Hindustan to write occasional
columns.” And this small step of giving words to ideas on paper led him
to the towering heights.
‘
Ashu’ to his friends and colleagues, he
says he did have a wish to be able to make a positive intervention in
society, to be able to say what he felt at the top of his voice and from
the bottom of his heart. The man who never hesitates to call a spade a
spade on TV, says the more he got attached to the medium, the better was
his career progression, blossoming day by day.
Did he ever think he
would be the Editor of a leading media organisation? The answer is a
resounding ‘No’. Ask him about his ambitions and he tells you that all
he ever wanted was to be able to earn Rs 10,000 a month, own a Maruti
and a two-bedroom flat that he could call his own. Delhi gave him that
and much more. But the capital itself happened to Ashutosh by chance.
His father wanted him to be a doctor. He even appeared for the CPMT but
failed. And that helped shape the scheme of things to come.
A
science graduate from Allahabad University, Ashutosh applied for Masters
in Philosophy from the same varsity. At this point someone suggested
UPSC as a brilliant career option and his father became excited at the
prospect. Ashutosh was told that Delhi is the place to prepare and
arriving in the national capital he chanced upon a JNU advertisement
offering admissions in various courses. Confesses Ashu, “I had not heard
about JNU till my graduation. And here was a marvellous place in the
heart of Delhi which offered hostel facilities as well. What more could I
have asked for? I applied for MA in International Relations as well as
in Political Science and got through both.” Ashutosh took up
International Relations as it was the only place in India where
International Politics is taught as a subject. Since the session in
Allahabad was running two years late, Ashutosh could afford to obtain a
double MA degree – Philosophy and International Relations.
Meanwhile,
he tried for the UPSC exams but could not go beyond the prelims in his
first attempt. In his second attempt, he cleared the prelims but did not
sit for the main examination.
Probably destiny had chalked out a
different path for Ashutosh. He got an opportunity to write for
Saptahik Hindustan, thanks to a reference from his JNU teacher Pushpesh
Pant to Editor Mrinal Pande and UPSC soon became a thing of the past.
Ashutosh
vividly remembers the headline of his first article that came out in
1990 as a cover story and fetched him a handsome sum of Rs 300 –
Aatankvad: kab kyun aur kaise. Soon he was offered a position with the
magazine and his first article was on Nelson Mandela.
If there is
one person he shall always remain indebted to, it is Pushpesh Pant, who
took him under his wings during his early days in Delhi; later the role
of mentor was taken up by his Editor Mrinal Pande. After spending
around three-and-a-half years with Saptahik Hindustan, Ashutosh got the
urge to move on. Mrinal Pande suggested him to try his luck at BiTV. And
TV happened to Ashutosh by compulsion. Ashutosh did not stay at BiTV
for very long and senior journalist Shailesh told him that celebrated
late anchor SP Singh, the man at Aaj Tak, was looking for him.
A
year before that S P Singh had rejected Ashutosh’s request for a job,
and here he was seeking to meet him! Ashutosh went to see the man whose
‘Eklavya’ he calls himself; and Aaj Tak opened its door to him. “At Aaj
Tak, I was never SP’s Pandava. It was me who took him as a guru. From
him I learnt how excited you should get with news. I learnt how news
should be covered, and spread,” says Ashutosh.
And it was during
the coverage of government formation in Uttar Pradesh that Ashutosh
became famous; he was slapped by late BSP leader Kanshi Ram, which also
catapulted him to the centrestage of news makers. Ashutosh was on his
way to becoming what he is now. He says modestly, “I was at the right
place at the right time.’’
Ashutosh’s reaction to news is akin to a
drug addict getting a high after his fix. He quips, “If news does not
excite you then you are not a journalist and cannot do justice to your
job. Journalists are trespassers in the corridors of history. On the
way, they contribute their own in the making of a nation itself.”
As
Managing Editor, his routine is gruelling but disciplined. He gets up
at 6.15 am, goes for a 45-minute walk, comes back to read 10 to 12
newspapers and leaves for office by 9.10 am. At office by 9.30, he
begins his hour-long edit meet at 10.00 am sharp. After that, he “flows
with the flow of news where the agenda is-news, news and news”. In
between he finds time to read and be with his friends, where during
gatherings, fish fry is his favourite and green chillies a must.
The
boy from Mirzapur, who made it big in Delhi was born in Benaras. He had
not seen electricity till he was in class four, lived in Lucknow in a
one-room accommodation with a family of six, used a public toilet as a
child, the verandah in his house served as a kitchen and he studied
under the lantern. Quite overwhelming actually.
Ashutosh’s
memories of his childhood are of Mirzapur, where he spent his formative
years. He studied in a government school from class five onwards and
completed his graduation, no mean achievement for a boy whose ancestral
village Badhaulipur, 40-50 kms from Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh had its
first graduate in the form of his father. Today, Ashutosh’s family
includes his wife and his boys – two lovely canines who live with him
and two others who are adopted and live outside the house. Needless to
add, they remain his greatest stress busters.
