Writing to reveal lives, change lives

In 1979, a month after I finished college in Delhi University, I spent three days on the streets of a Delhi with a gang of shoeshine boys, and wrote about their hardships. Over the years, I did other such stories — working as a clown in a circus, a page boy in a hotel, an Arab in Mumbai to study how people reacted to perceived wealth, a ‘blind’ person with a cane, and even a deaf person with an HIV positive certificate. These stories won me the Rajika Kripalani Young Journalist of the Year award in 1976 (above).

SOL FEATURES: From 1980, I ran my own agency of committed freelance writers, encouraging high quality journalism and research. We pioneered several innovative approaches to using the media to foster real change in society. The most notable of these was in the Indian Express newspaper, and it was called —

CAUSES AND CONCERNS: ‘The work begins when you put your pen down’ was the dictum behind this approach, which was driven by identifying people who could make change happen, and then provoking, advising, applauding, and instigating them to make required change happen. The method was called Creating Champions, and it succeeded in bringing change to several issues in Mumbai’s society — including domestic violence, civic access for the blind, and roads.

1969-1972

Junior-most reporter with Dateline Delhi, a neighborhood tabloid in New Delhi run by a journalists’ cooperative.

1972-1977

Roving Reporter with JS, India’s first youth magazine, based in Calcutta. Wrote on wildlife, social issues, personalities, and events. Won a national award for Young Journalist of the Year Under 30 in 1972, for my writing based on living incognito with marginal and poverty-stricken communities.

1977-1978

Sub-editor with Reader’s Digest, Mumbai.

1979-2000

Set up and ran Sol Features, an energetic, and enterprising agency of activist journalists that broke new ground in writing for social change. Created a talent pool of journalists writing to make a difference in health, marginalization, and violence in the lives of women and children.

1986-1992

Creative Director of Lowe-Lintas, India’s largest advertising agency. Developed communication strategy and TV, radio, print, and other campaigns. Developed tools and processes for fostering and managing ideas in a high-pressure, high-demand environment.

1969-1972

Junior-most reporter with Dateline Delhi, a neighborhood tabloid in New Delhi run by a journalists’ cooperative

MICKEY is a Minimally Invasive Curriculum for HIV driven by self-learning through translation.

As a Macarthur Population Fellow in India, I developed a non-verbal, sign-language independent reproductive health curriculum for deaf Indian youth.

I wrote a monograph on how people’s questions change as their perception of HIV risk deepens

Magnet Theatre uses half-told stories and dialogue with the audience to deepen the understanding of HIV risk, and improve the quality of community’s questions.