Saturday, November 15, 2014

My Say :: Off the Record: Untold Stories from a Reporter's Diary

 Off the Record: Untold Stories from a Reporter's Diary

Stories of journalist recording of events.
Book is About:
Mr. Ajith Pillar, author lists out the important (if not all) turn of events he encountered during his more than two decade long journalism carrier. This is not an auto-biography or any personal take on history from 1980 onwards. This book is strictly about the situation that Ajith Pillai landed upon, tiring times he went through, process of looking for story, threats he encountered, principles he wanted to carry forward and lots more a journalist goes through in his professional duty.

Inside details:
As told above, book is a journalistic take on events unfolded in front of Ajith Pillai line of duty. But when you are in medium of recording events profession, as a byproduct you become a historian, writing down the years with facts. That's what exactly happened in this book. It sort of ends as history telling with ground details on events such as Kargil war, Underground world of Mumbai, manipulation of media by government and now corporate world, murky world of Indian Defence sector and scams, exposes/scandals, Slum that sold Kidney like flower in Chennai, 1996 J&K first election, first regime of NDA and last but not the least, interview with Dr.Varghese Kurien is the cherry on top of the cake.

My Take: 
Ajith Pillai wrote from what he saw. Its not a biased or loathing or boasting about one's carrier book. He rarely took side but when he did, he did with absolute trust that journalist must have on their story.

That's what I liked most. I would suggest anyone who is interested to know details (unpublished also) but facts on major issues happened during 90s and early 2000s to read this book.

If you want to be journalist, like to know about journalism and journalist life, this is a must read book for you.

Rewards:
You get from what you seek. This is the beauty of stories/books. I was interested about journalism and I was more than excited to know how would be the life of journalist and hardships they go through in collecting, narrating and publishing their story to world.

Actually I stumbled upon this book on amazon when I was searching for some other topics. I remember reading articles/features in Outlook produced by Ajith Pillai. So, I recognized the author and re-collected liking what he narrated in those few writings.That's how I decided to buy the book.

I liked the good. In the end, I gained more knowledge and felt enriched by the information's in the book.




Note: Purpose of this post is to make aware of such good and give outline about the readers like me who want their money spent to be worth.

No comments:

Post a Comment