LIVING A FOUR-PAGE DREAM EVERY FORTNIGHT

LIVING A FOUR-PAGE DREAM EVERY FORTNIGHT( Source: The Times of India )October6,1998 By Mohuya Chatterjee NEW DELHI: At 31, Purusottam Singh Thakur has achieved what most people only yearn for - living his dream. His visiting card describes him as a journalist. Well, he is, and a very rounded one at that - editor,reporter,photographer and publisher of Janmadhyam, a four page Oriya fortnightly started three years ago and published from Khariar in Nuapada district of Orissa. Thakur received the Sanskriti award for journalsim this year. And with reason. He has fought courageously and singlehandedly. Always different from the rest, he spent all his spare time as young boy listening to the radio, not AIR but BBC. And that too in backward Nuapada. He was fond of reading, " but BBC attracted me more," says the son of a government health worker in Orissa. His mother was illiterate, but Thakur was sure he wanted to become a journalist. After completing a correspondence course in journalism from Mysore University, he went to Raipur and got a job with Deshbandhu, a Hindi daily. When the paper started an edition in Sambalpur, he went there as bureau chief, but found to his dismay that the job had more to do with circulation and advertisements than reporting. " It was not my kind of job and I failed to deliver, so I was forced to leave without three months salary and expenses being paid for." While in Raipur, Thakur came across P Sainath's articles in the Times of India. " This was the turning point in my career, I realised that news is not made only in Delhi and Bhubaneswar. Ordinary people and everyday life also make news. I knew what I wanted to do - rural reporting, Write about the people of Kalahandi. And I had to do it from Khariar. If people could come from outside to write about them I felt I would be able to do this better because I am one of them," says Thakur in his soft, unassuming but determined manner. And so, when he lost his job with Deshbandhu, he returned to Khariar. " Janmadhyam started on credit at a treadle press. Khariar is small place, everything works at personal level," says Thakur. " I paid the printer when I received money for writting in other papers and helping foreign newsagencies who came to cover the drought-hit Kalahandi. Money also came in from the fellowships I got over this period." Small advertisements ( worth Rs.100, 200 or 300 ) also came in. More often than not, the ads came but the promised money didn't. And many national dailies carried Thakur's reports and photographs but received no payments." But Thakur did not give up. Janmadhyam carried news about local incidents. " In villages, the Prime minister and the President don't matter. The local police officer is more important." He recalls he had to cross a river on a boat. He found the government boat had holes. When he questioned the boatman, he was told that a compalint had been made but no action was taken. Janmadhyam carried a report and the boat was replaced a week after its publication. Such incidents encouraged him to go on. On the flip side, when Janmadhyam carried a report against the then district magistrate of Nuapada, he orderd the publication to be stopped on the ground that it was not registered with the office of Registrar for Newspapers in India in Delhi. This, despite the fact that the title was approved by the RNI. Thakur went to the Press Council of India and a year-and-a-half later, the PCI revoked the DM's order. Thakur started again and this time on the offset press that Khariar had by then. The price was raised to Rs 2 from Rs 1. " I do get frustrated when i see my friends well established while I don't even contribute to the household. My father is the sole breadwinner, " he says " I should be doing much more for the family but all my money and energy goes in to the paper. I don't know how long I can go on," says Thakur, but this is the force that drives me."