Wagle Street Journal

I woke up at 1:30 PM today. I am surprised. Not because I raised from the bed so late but because I got so early. I had planned to sleep for straight 24 hours. I was that much tired because of the workload in the past two days. I am not complaining about the workload. I am proud to do what I did in the past two days. I always wanted to work like that. I wanted to work to the end where I am unable to move myself. And that nearly happened yesterday night. I was barely moving when my brother Email opened the gate for me at 1:30 AM yesterday and asked jokingly: “Well, are there any raids in other FMs?” He was referring to my late coming the night before when I was busy covering the police raid in Sagarmatha FM. I arrived home 2 AM that day and went to bed at 3:15.

That meant I should have slept until at least 12 AM. No, I could not because of my commitments made a week ago. I had to go to Maharajgung to see a woman in action with her beautiful and command obeying dogs. That was part of my reporting to be published in Kantipur in the next few days. I arrived in office at 1 PM. Stories and other duties were waiting for me. There was a rally organized by the Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) and how could I miss that? I hade to do a follow up story on the Radio Sagarmatha raid. Along with Deepak Raj Pandey, the man who was arrested on the Sunday raid along with four others, was there in Maitighar. I went to Radio Sagarmatha’s office along with Deepak Raj Pandey and my colleague at Nepal Magazine Deepak Adhikari. We talked with RS guys including Acting Station Manager Ghamaraj Luitel till 6 PM. Walking up to Thapathali from Bakhundole was Deepak’s choice and that was strongly supported by the unavailability of three-wheelers.

“This driver must be a great listeners of songs,” commented Deepak after the driver played some beautiful numbers in the bus. That was a good trip from Thapathali to Tinkune. But the stressful routine started once we arrived in Kantipur complex. I had to write the RS story, hunt down sources, and collect info for the other one: The BBC story in Kathmandu. Thank god, Devendra helped me to find the appropriate Radio Nepal guy (Rabin Sharma, the acting executive director of Radio Nepal) to have quote for the story. Khagendra Nepali, the head of BBC

Nepali Service, responded my call to London favorably. When sources give quotable quotes, you can make a good story. I think same applied with my story here. As I was writing the story, Post Bahadur Basnet (Vishnu) translated the BBC story for the Kathmandu Post. After finishing my reporting commitments/assignments, I give some time to UWB. That is my passion.

One thing that I have been repeatedly saying in these pages about my profession: Journalism. It demands time at odd hours and yes you don’t necessarily have to be in your office all the time but you have to be with your sources at their time. In addition to that, in some cases you have to be at work even if you don’t really like. I fell into such compulsion this week.

I was planning to write a story about Saraha Giri’s interview but my plan was altered as I as assigned to interview Krishna Pahadi. I did that. No problem. I can do two (or three) works simultaneously. Like, for instance, chatting and writing stories and browsing Internet and talking to persons on phone. And that’s what I did.

As I was about to leave the office finishing the Pahadi story, the news of raid in Radio Sagarmatha came into our newsroom. I have already written more about this incident in a UWB post.

Filed under: Wagle Web Log