Author: Ranjan

Ah, The Hindu—one of India’s most respected newspapers, where the ink smells of integrity, and the interns (like me) do all the sweatshop, bottom-rung stuff. My four-week stint at this journalistic institution taught me two invaluable lessons:

1. There was no money in journalism(back then, at least).
2. A Press Club card gave you access to subsidized food (and booze).

In those humid Chennai days, I toiled away, editing subs—which, contrary to popular belief, is not a lofty editorial position but rather the journalistic equivalent of mincing onions. Subs were tiny stories, mere footnotes in the grand narrative, and my job was to massage them into something print-worthy. If journalism was a pyramid, I was somewhere below the foundation.

When I wasn’t rewriting someone else’s brilliance, I was tagging along with real journalists, covering groundbreaking (hahahaha) news that was often neither groundbreaking nor news. But hey, it got me out of the office.

Then there was the canteen food—possibly the best perk of the job. A hearty meal for 2 rupees and endless cups of tea at 50 paise. If journalism didn’t pay, at least it kept you lubricated and well-fed.

Let’s not forget the human interest stories—the real ones. There was the one hot woman on the floor (who, incidentally, was M. Karunanidhi’s daughter, Kanimozhi). But as a nervous young lad in a new city, I was so far out of her league that she was only my testosterone-fuelled fantasy for wank spanks.

A Glimpse of the Future (But From Afar)
Tech exposure? Limited, but fascinating. The Hindu was in the middle of a major shift—moving from cut-and-paste printed layouts to digital page design on these giant Sun Microsystems monitors the size of actual broadsheets. As a lowly intern, I couldn’t get near them, but I watched from a distance, mesmerized. The future was coming, and it had pixels.

Why I Didn’t Stick With Journalism
Four weeks in, I realized that unless I was willing to spend a decade as a sub-editor (while brown-nosing my way to an actual editor role), this wasn’t the career for me. The Press Club card was tempting, but not tempting enough.

And so, my journalism career ended where most journalism careers do—at the canteen, over a cheap meal and a cup of chai, contemplating the next big move.

Ah, the final year project—the grand academic finale, where students either prove their brilliance or, more realistically, just try to survive. And once again, Rocky to the rescue.

This time, our battleground was my Dad’s company’s EDP (Electronic Data Processing) department, a place filled with green-screen monitors, dot matrix printers, and the unmistakable hum of machines plotting our demise. Our weapon of choice? Aldus PageMaker, the desktop publishing software that was both revolutionary and infuriating—like trying to format a document in a world where margins had minds of their own.

We worked nights, fueled by caffeine, desperation, and the occasional existential crisis. Rocky, ever the tech whisperer, guided me through the labyrinth of text boxes and alignment tools. After what felt like an eternity (but was probably just a few weeks of sheer agony), I managed to create a semi-decent report.

Can I remember the topic? Absolutely not. It was probably something as forgettable as an early-’90s sitcom. But what I do remember is this: the countless hours, the trial and error, and the realization that knowing the right software could turn academic chaos into something resembling order.

Lesson learned? Mastering software might get you through college, mastering teamwork gets you through life. Also, Rocky deserves a medal. 😆