I am a journalist. My name is Pranoy Mukherjee. I did my mass communication from one of the best colleges in India, the “Jawaharlal Nehru University” in New Delhi. I was one of those idealistic kinds. You know the kinds who don’t give two hoots about money and materialistic pursuits. Among my few passions, one was reading books. Hitler’s ‘Maine Kampf,’ Anthony Burgess’s ‘Clockwork Orange,’ ‘The Wanting Seed,’ ‘Rajneesh, the god that failed,’ ‘Metamorphosis,’ and it went on and on. According to me, the only thing that mattered was principles and values. I always wanted to cover the real stories, the ones that didn’t affect anyone, but the ones that really should. My aim of doing a course in journalism was to change the world with my stories, but I irritatingly found that the only things that ever got attention were something like, Paris Hilton’s 23 day stint in jail, Lindsay Lohan going back to the rehab, Tiger Woods winning millions for putting a ball into a hole, Donald Trump getting his head shaved as part of a bet and some other such very important things. But I did not lose hope. I joined “The Times of India” as a trainee.

I went to great lengths to cover hard-hitting news. I went to Kolkatta to cover the plight of prostitutes. I interviewed real sex-workers and got their side of the story, to show the world that just because someone’s selling their bodies to make a living, no one has a right to pass judgments, especially when they do not have a clue about that person. Sonia’s uncle, who bought her along from Nepal on the pretext of getting her a job, traded her to a pimp for a measly Rs.1000, Monica’s (real name: Mansi), husband slept with her for 6 months before dumping her in a brothel and thousands of other such heart-wrenching stories hit the nation every morning. I ran a whole series in the Sunday Times under the title, “Whorer Stories,” which won me the Times “Young Achiever” award in my first year. I was thrilled.

Then I did this report on the bizarre world of “Aghori Babas” in Varanasi. These people usually lurk around ‘ghaats’ or river banks where dead bodies are burnt and not buried, according to the Hindu customs. These babas stand near the pyres looking skywards, as if saying a quick prayer. After a minute or two they put their hand right through the fire, rip a piece of flesh from the burning body and eat it. They quickly leave after that. They believe that doing this would make them immortal. I made a whole documentary, which grossed out most of the people who watched it. It was critically acclaimed globally.

Would you believe that in some villages in rural India, men from the same family, sometimes as many as five, get married to the same woman? Because apparently foeticide was high in these villages and hence there were very few women. They all sleep with her on a rotational basis. This story of mine rocked the world. My heart was happy that I was doing what I wanted to do and that was ‘uncovering truth.’

My work once took me to Hyderabad, the beautiful, culturally rich city of Andhra Pradesh. I had gone there to cover a protest launched by the beedi industry (Indian cigarette made out of betel leaves) against a recent regulation passed by the nation’s health minister. But my news-sniffing habits tagged along. While chatting up a fellow journalist belonging to a rival paper, I found that children from the State’s juvenile remand home were increasingly slashing their wrists to draw the government’s attention towards something, but no one was really paying any heed. He further revealed that barring a mention in a small 5 by 2 inches column in some unnoticeable corner in a newspaper, nothing much was being done about it. My blood boiled when I heard this. That was it; I dropped the idea of covering the protest and rushed back to my hotel to make a few phone calls. The purpose being to get the permission to enter the remand home and I succeeded.

I went to the home the first thing in the morning with some candies and cookies. I quickly befriended the kids there. They had been bought there from all over the State. Some of the things that I heard from them shocked me. They were sometimes made to clean filthy toilets with their bare hands and were made to go without food for days. The “food” itself wasn’t a five-star hotel fare; it was merely two slices of bread and water and that to only twice a day. They were shown porn movies and magazines by the male and female supervisors and then told to pleasure them in the same way. I was getting goose pimples while listening to their stories. My job at that time felt empowering and it gladdened me that my pen could really communicate their plights to others, the ones sitting in their ivory tower. All these children were caught either stealing or begging in trains, on railway stations, traffic signals or temples and other such places. The children also told me that they never dared to disobey the people at the home. If they ever did so, the ramifications were grave. They recounted the night when a bunch of boys and girls were stripped naked and paraded around the home. Then the head supervisor poked them with hot iron rods and rubbed chilly powder on their private parts until they screamed in pain. I had taken a special permission to talk to the children alone in a separate room and hence they were able to talk their hearts out.  

“Uncle,” one of the kids held my hand and said, “I miss my mom very much. Will you take me to her?” I gulped a lump that formed in my throat. I looked at her and said “I will make all efforts to take you home.”
I got a little disturbed when one of the boys sitting in one corner of the room, all lost and dazed, started mumbling some gibberish. He was shivering and seemed to me as if he had gone through something traumatic.

“He will kill all of us, kill all of us, kill…,” and then he went silent.
“Does anyone here know what he is talking about?” I repeated myself when no one responded. One boy stood up glancing around nervously, while the others sitting next to him tried to stop him by tugging at his shirt, as if they feared something. He appeared as if he had something really important to tell me. I encouraged him to go on and told him not be scared of anyone as long as I was there.

He came towards me, a little unsure of himself and almost whispered, “the supervisor killed two boys last week. They had disobeyed him and so as a way of punishing them, he had told them to…,” the boy almost vomited while saying this, “to eat his shit, and when they didn’t, he took them to his room. In the morning when we went to their room, they were lying dead on floor.”

I covered my face with both my hands and almost broke down, but I knew I had to control myself. I quickly wiped my face and assuring the kids that I would everything possible to help them, stormed out to see the head supervisor.
“How dare you come into my room without my permission?” the supervisor bawled when I barged into his office.

“Shut up. I want to know about the two boys who were killed last month now. I want to see their post-mortem report. I want to know their backgrounds and the exact cause of their death.” I was angry, cold, confused and unbelievably mad when I was talking to this disgusting specimen of a human being in front of me. I wanted to punch him in his face, but I was a journalist and my job had some responsibilities.           

“Hmm, I see. And what do you propose to do if tell you that I don’t give a damn about any of this and you can go to hell.” He thumped his fist on the table and ordered me out by pointing his finger in the direction of the door.      
“You will see what I can do. I will strip you naked in public. The things that you are doing to these children are criminal. I will put you behind bars for the rest of your sad life. You just wait.” While saying all this I was already ready with my next move. I caught hold of one of the clerks and bribed him to get me the addresses of the boys who died. He could just manage one. Next I went to the police station and asked them to check their records for any deaths reported by the home in the past two months. There were none.

The same evening I drove my bike to the village where one of the boys lived. I traveled for almost 5 hours before reaching there. But the problem that stared me in my face was that none of the houses had any numbers or names on them. It was almost 9.30 in the night and I was dead tired. I kept looking for the address and asked every passerby for any clues, but nothing helped. So I went to sleep; under a tree, cold and hungry, waiting for the dawn to continue my mission. Early morning I began looking for boy’s house again. It was almost 12 in the noon when I finally managed to locate the house.

I entered the humble hut and saw an old, weary looking man coughing incessantly, spitting blood every time he did so. He looked up at me with tired eyes and stood up. In a worn-out, feeble voice he enquired who I was and what I wanted. I sat him down and narrated the whole incident. Suddenly his eyes welled up and he choked. I kept my hands on his shoulder and squeezed it and that opened the floodgates. He started beating his chest and wept inconsolably, perhaps at the sheer helplessness of it all. It was a while before he said anything.

“Ohh saheb, saheb (sir, sir),” he cried and fell at my feet. I reached out and helped him sit on the shaky jute chair. I noticed that there was no one else in the house.

“My child was my only support saheb. My wife died 2 years back of Tuberculosis and now I suffering from it too. I and Munna used to go and beg in the trains. I used to play the harmonium (Indian musical instrument) and he used to sing. We used to make around Rs.30-40 on good days and it was only enough for our food. On that fateful day, two cops in the train blocked our way and asked for money. When I refused, they slapped me and broke my harmonium. Then they dragged my child to the police station on charges of stealing and then sent him to the home. I went there once or twice after saving up some money, but they never let me meet my child and sent me off saying that he is well fed and is happy. What could I have done saheb? We are so poor, no one listens to us. I went to the police station too, but they didn’t even bother to listen to me. Our life is worthless saheb. We don’t have any right to live in this world of rich and powerful people.”
He coughed again, wiping the blood off his lips with a torn piece of cloth and continued.

“Then about two months back two officials from the home came here and took me with them. They gave me some money, two sets of clothes and good food. Then they took me to the mortuary and showed the dead body of my son.” The old man went blank and looked as if he was reliving that day. Tears rolled down from the corner of his eyes onto his wrinkled face, like water trickling down a set of stairs. He sighed and moved on.

“They told me that my son died because of a snake bite and that even the best doctor in the town could not save him. Can you imagine saheb? My young son, my only son, lying dead in front of me, his 70 year old father. A piece of white cloth covered his tiny body and there was this numbered tag tied to that cloth, as if poor people are not even humans, they are things, useless things, unnecessarily burdening the society. I took his pale face in my hands and kissed him, before the officials said it is getting late and I should make a move…” The old man’s lips stretched into a painful smile and he said, “as if I had come to visit a museum. It was the last time I was seeing my child and they said it’s getting late.”

I decided then that I had to provide justice to this man and had to bring out the truth about the happenings at the home. I made him pack few of his belongings and bought him to the city with me. I informed my seniors at the paper and organized a press conference. I made the old man recount everything in front of the people present there. I also bought all the children with me and made each one of them narrate their experiences. Within a few days of my articles, called “Uncovering Truth - Home of Horrors”, the police commissioner ordered an enquiry. The post mortem report said that the boys were made to consume alcohol laced with poison. The forensic department also found cigarette burns on their chests and back. The police found several pornographic tapes from the supervisor’s office, which the home officials had made with the children. There were also some videos showing some of the crème-de-la crème of the society forcing the children to do ghastly acts, while all the home officials gathered around laughing and cracking jokes.
The earth-shattering tale moved the masses and the entire country supported me and the cause. The investigators arrested the supervisor along with his assistants. The court charged them with multiple crimes and sentenced them to 40-years of rigorous imprisonment, though I wanted them to be hanged and stoned publicly. The government released many of the children and sent them back to their homes. They all personally came to thank me and that was my biggest reward. Their content happy faces; what a sight. 

I was the one of the seven people from around the world that year to win the respected Magasasay award. On the podium, during my thanksgiving, I broke down. I felt as if I had made a difference. I had done something. I kissed my pen and then my trophy. I, Pranoy Mukherjee was changing the world.