I graduated from Columbia Journalism School almost exactly six years ago but I still maintain that I am an accidental journalist, i.e., I never meant to become one. But it was the love for travelling, exploring, and understanding India that took me down this path and which made me set up Rasa Journal, a first of its kind narrative journalism magazine exclusively focused on culture in India.
Because we often talk about Idea of India, as if there could only ever be one, I started with precisely that point. Ruchir Sharma and Anurag Shukla helped dissect that at length here. From there on, I wanted to understand why V.S Naipaul wrote about India the way he did and for that, I turned to Vinay Harrichan and Ryan Rajendra Singh to explore more about the writer and their native Indo-Caribbean culture here. But if identity, especially the Indian one, can be so fluid then how many ways can there be to understand it as a society? For that, Anusha Yadav, Vijay Kumar Sundaresan, and Hindu Aesthetics helped me understand their work and look at how it helps in shaping the larger historical narratives here. By now, we can see how complicated the issues of Indian identity can be but nowhere do they get reduced to false stereotypes as with photojournalism and for that, Jyothy Karat and Ayan Ghosh shared their thoughts here.
Now if the larger political identity can be so challenging to understand and articulate, what of Indian arts and their contribution in shaping the larger culture? Amruta Patil and Giampaolo Tomassetti shared their artistic processes of painting one of the greatest epics ever written, Mahabharata, here. After the poetry of the epic, can the epic poetry of Kalidasa be left behind? Absolutely not! Mani Rao and Abhay K. helped me understand the timelessness of his poetry and why we must continue to read it and for ages to come here. Now where you might listen to Indian classical music every now and then, did you know of its changes and challenges in modern times? Aditya Dipankar and Suresh chipped in with their observations for this one here. But are arts only limited to pleasure? No, not when you have Kalaripayattu. For this, I sought out insights from Vinod Kandangal, Justyna Rodzinska-Nair, Anjali Shukla, Shinto Mathew, and Bibin Kavumpurathu here.
Finally, if our politics and arts can have so much context to offer, does it not bear investigation to refine our understanding of what different regional identities of India really are all about? I started with Punjab, where Punjabis Aanchal Malhotra, Vikram Jain, Gokul Sahni, and a Pakistani Punjabi who did not wish to be named, shared their experiences and thoughts here. But just like this region, another region went through a separation in 1947 and years after that— Bengal. For that, I spoke to Dr. Nira Rahman, Swaroopa Lahiri, Kanakasabapathy Pandyan, Shyamal Chakravarty, Jayanta Sengupta, Devasis Gupta, T. R Sankaranarayanan, and Adila Noor about what it means to be an Indian Bengali or a Bangladeshi here. Now while we talk a great deal about India, why do we not talk about the North-East beyond limited stereotypes about it? Thanks to Kham Khan Suan Hausing, Hoihnu Hauzel, and Karma Paljor, I was able to understand a great deal more about the region here. Talking of stereotypes, do you want to party in Goa? I bet. But did you know there’s a lot more to it than that? Read what Sandesh Prabhudesai, Vivek Menezes, Frederick Norohna, Urvashi Aneja, and Nihar Manwatkar had to say about it here.
That was a total of 40 interviews and 24, 962 words to be exact for twelve stories. I’m very happy to have undertaken this journalistic project, especially in times of click-bait journalism which seeks to pander to raging socio-political controversies of the day. It is my personal belief (one that many journalists may not share) that the best journalism comes from beyond ideology, partisanship, and news-cycles. Because if a story does not expand your understanding of a topic or if it does not make you reconsider your preconceived notions, then what is its value to the society at large? Stories are our humblest attempt at exploring our world and while they may only have a negligible influence, it’s worth our while to tell them in a way that helps rather than harms.
It is for this reason that I opted for a slow journalism model, where I published a story only once in two weeks. I also wanted to avoid writing “content” because in case you have not noticed, there is already an ocean of content out there and we are all drowning in it. However, such an undertaking becomes difficult to manage when it’s carried out as a labor of love. While I intended to go commercial with this magazine initially, I now think it’s best to keep it free so that anyone who wishes to read can do so at any time and from anywhere.
This was the first issue of Rasa Journal and I’m calling a wrap on it for now. But I will return with it in a few months down the line, with a new vision about exploring culture in India. In the meantime, please feel free to read and share the stories published so far. If you’d like to get in touch, I’d love to hear from you at [rasajournal@gmail.com] or on Twitter here. Last but not the least, thanks for reading!
Thank you very much Garima for coming up with wonderful stories in the last couple of months. In the era of content over-load, you are bringing meaningful content that is interesting and informative. All the best for future endeavors and hope to see you back with more stories in the future.
All the stories are interesting and enjoyable. All the best for future endevours!