My workplace is a prison. My client is the prisoner. Who am I?
There are many kinds of social workers, but the kind that works in prisons is often asked, “Why would anyone work for prisoners?” “Is my son doing okay? Ask him to come meet me next week.” “Madam, there is no vacancy in the shelter home, especially for a mentally disabled woman. Now what to do?”
In the finale episode of Season 1 of the F-Rated Interview, Suneeta takes us through her childhood in the mining town of Mahoba where she went from reading whatever scraps of newspaper she could find to becoming an award-winning journalist with Khabar Lahariya. For Suneeta, crime reporting is a source of great pleasure as she gets to look powerful people in the eye, and ask them questions.
We send people to jail so we don’t have to think about them. What happens in jail, we’d rather not know. Or if we do, it’s through beefy heroes who beat the ‘criminal’ to pulp, preferably in slow motion.
In this episode, Safina narrates bitter-sweet experiences of reporting within one’s own community and listening to women who are so rarely heard by anyone, let alone the mainstream media. Having found her feet in freelance journalism without giving in to the temptations of sensational breaking news, she states how free she feels when she is not bound by the editorial processes and policies of the newsroom.
The fourth episode features Neha Dixit who claims that journalists need their legs more than their brains. As she narrates experiences from sting operations and press releases, she demystifies investigative journalism and reveals how it’s not one mysterious tip but rather mundane legwork that breaks the biggest stories.
The third episode features Nidhi Suresh who takes us to Lakhimpur and Hathras, and makes visible the violence that takes place on the scene post the crime. She negotiates quid pro quo with local reporters and highlights the importance of slow and quiet questions even (and especially) when hordes of reporters are covering one story.
The second episode features Neetu Singh, who built her career with Gaon Connection, and by consistently challenging the notion that a journalist’s job stops at the report. With tremendous insight into how to work with local structures to get a job done, Neetu Singh reminds us that it all begins – and ends with – details, details, details.
The first episode features Priyanka Dubey, who talks to us about her journey of documenting violence and crime, her inner life and mental landscape after doing this job for the last 14 years, and how she carries grit and poetry to every scene of crime.
Nirantar Radio introduces a new show featuring F-Rated conversations aka, Feminist Rated Conversations. In Season 1 of F Rated Interviews, meet India’s intrepid women crime reporters, on journalism, ethics, gender, conflicts and some thrilling night rides under the sky.
A teacher walks the aisle of the classroom with a stick in his hand, waiting to use it on anyone who falters in their dictation test. Bhisham Sahni opens this scene of a classroom in his story ‘Imla’ where the same teacher when positioned outside the classroom changes his walk and talk. How do the structures of power change around the same teacher?
