Dicking around with Diya
Diya Gupta, informally known as Dova Gurp, is my best friend and has been pretty much since high school although she’d deny that vehemently. One of my earlier memories of hanging out with her is her duping me into believing she’s a palm reader and me turning up at her bedside every night to “have my palm read” and believing every word of it. We’ve known each other for close north of a decade and seen each other be insane, downright stupid and eventually, grow in special, undefinable jagged ways. She’s one of the smartest and funniest people I know with a kind heart and is the most excellent partner in crime (and lord knows, there’s been a fair few in a decade). So, naturally, we chatted. I’ll be posting the conversation in three parts. This is the first part.
Would you consider yourself religious or spiritual?
I grew up pretty hardcore atheist because my Nana was pretty hardcore atheist so I never really understood organized religions and I still don’t. I think it’s pretty dangerous. Even spirituality when it gets into the world of pseudoscience and the cult mentality can be weird. But, I’ve also opened up to a broader way of thinking. I don’t know if that counts as spirituality. But yeah, I mean, I guess I am a little spiritual but I don’t know what I believe in. I believe there’s a lot we don’t know. It may very well be scientific but there’s a lot that humans can’t know. What humans know, perceive and understand the world is limited. I believe in something a bit greater. I don’t believe in God. I’m not sure how to answer this. I’m quite open-minded about whatever other people want to do. I am worried about the way people see religion because of the world right now.
Well, you did answer it. What’s the one thing you enjoy about being a reporter?
Meeting people, travelling to new places, oh, you said one thing.
It can be several things.
As you can tell, I’m pretty nervous about this. But, a phone call is much better than face to face. Getting into new rabbit holes with every news story, especially with the amount of research. I have a wide range of interests but I could never have enough patience with one topic to do a PhD. I do like exploring and learning about people. Especially, in the last year, I’ve been able to move around because of reporting on television. It’s nice to see everybody’s perspectives and see how everybody in the world is convinced that they’re right and that theirs is the only way of thinking. You find somebody with a different background, upbringing, culture and you realise how easily you can refute any argument in the world. That’s really fun because it widens your perception and makes you broad-minded if you perceive it correctly. A lot of people don’t do that, of course, they stick to what they believe in even if they're confronted by facts.
One thing you dislike about reporting.
What’s really frustrating is that journalism is also dependent on money, channels need to turn out a profit, push things that people will actually want to read or see. Not being able to report on things you really want to do is frustrating. I work with a French organisation so I often wonder- how the hell do you know what’s important or not? You don’t know anything about this country. I don’t know anything about the country that I’m not a part of. You can’t just report on important topics and people complain about it but at the end of the day, people tend to click on the sexier issues. Nobody wants to talk about unsexy issues like poverty. Finding the right publisher or client for a good story is an uphill battle. Some of my favourite stories are still hanging in the limbo. People think it’s boring or lame but it’s not to some people.
Tell me one great memory you have from work at Columbia.
Do you want me to talk about Palestine?
Yeah, basically.
(laughs)
I got a grant for my thesis for which I had to travel to Ramallah in the West Bank, mainly. I was reporting on a really cool group that does live action roleplay. Onground, they enact parts, etc. and they have a lot of political and historical roleplay that they do. For example, Palestinian students protesting in a University, getting ambushed by police forces or the battle of Jericho. That was a really fun experience and I travelled all alone to Palestine and it was the first time I’d travelled anywhere alone aside from Manali by bus or something. I met some of the most incredible things and learnt some incredible stories. I realised how sad the situation was. You can’t really truly empathise with somebody until you’re there. I remember 2018 new years, listening to Israeli police sirens at night because they only come at night and feeling kind of sad but also charged, proud of myself for being in a place that I’m not necessarily used to but still learning about people. That gave me a lot of confidence because generally, as a kid and human being, I generally don’t have much confidence. Whenever I need to feel good about myself, I look back at that time like-- you were so naive but you managed to do that and do it well.
Tell me your experience of New York as a journalism student there.
Yeah, that’s very tied in. You’re reporting about the world and you’re living in a city so that won’t be very separate from one another. Journalism is not the same everywhere but the basic tenets are the same. A journalism student in Jamia will be doing the same work as a journalism student in Columbia. But, the difference is, you’re in a very international audience in the country of America which we all know, is a pretty whackshit country. On one hand, it was very cool, I had exposure to all these cool ideas. I had some incredible people from South America, Iran, Philippines, Finland, Iceland and then you had the Americans, also the Indians. It’s a very polarised country, it’s a “liberal progressive” country in a very specific way that suits them alone. Friends from countries where the hijab is imposed cannot talk about or criticize the hijab in Columbia because it doesn't align with American liberal values. But, those women have that agency to talk about it and critique Islam justly so, if they want to. But, they’re like, no you can’t. So, there’s this weird idea of what progressive and modern is that just didn’t fly with me. It's not applicable to India and the Middle East. There’s also a lot of ignorance. I remember being made fun of because I didn’t know what Lincoln Centre looked like and there was a girl in my class, like a 30 year old mid-career journalist, who didn’t know that Lebanon is a Mediterranean country so like come on, am I really the one you should be making fun of? Having said that, I loved New York. I got depressed for a bit when I got back to Delhi.
Can you discuss a scary experience as a reporter?
I’ve been in a pickle with the Hindu Mahasabha. I can charm my way out of it but I also have the right last name to do these things. We were filming a Dalit man whose daughter had been violently raped and burnt before any investigation could be done-- much like the Hathras case but not the same. We had to do this because our channel is pretty adamant on having footage. This guy was also very willing to talk about it because he wants justice for his daughter. Legally, we can’t show his face nor do we want to because we don’t want to jeopardize his safety in any way. Anyway, people are threatening him, threatening to burn his house down, kill his child, etc. I still call him once in a while to see if he’s okay because I’m so scared that something will happen because of our report. We’re not the only ones to report about him but it’s still very scary. We have a certain impunity, especially reporting for an International channel but local people or journalists don’t have the same thing and my biggest fear is like, hurting somebody else. Why are you asking me so many work questions?
I ask everybody work questions.
Fine.
Do you believe in settling down?
I actually kind of do. I don’t mean like, a traditional marriage, children, in that sense. Eventually, I want to be somewhere with friends around, a little garden, some kind of stability where you can just be at peace. I’m cool with anything but stability up to a point but after? I definitely want to settle down. Young Diya would totally judge me like-- you’ve lost your adventure streak, you’re a lame bitch but I’d tell her-- dude, you’re going to get so stressed at some point that all you’ll want is to have a little routine, some quiet time and stability in your life but she’d have still flipped me off because she was a pretty angry little girl.
(laughs) What makes your partnership work?
I don’t know because I’m not the queen of relationships. I’m in a happy one now but before this, I was in a shitty or toxic one. Like, if I did really well, there’d be jealousy, if I did badly, I wasn’t good enough. Now, my rule is to not take the good for granted. And, I have something good right now. I think it’s also because of staying positive and being really kind. Kindness, love, room to talk and be themselves and also expect that for yourself. I’m a big believer in that-- what you get from the Universe is what you give, which I guess makes me spiritual too.
One thing you’d like to change in your life in the coming year.
Tangibly, I’d like to get healthier. Aside from that, I want a massive, massive stress reduction in my day to day being. For the first time in my life, I’m on the right track. Even if there are things I want to improve, I’m slowly getting there and accepting the things that I can’t. I definitely want autonomy-- financial autonomy and accepting things I don’t have control over.
Tell me about growing up in Shimla.
In hindsight, it was pretty idyllic. At that time, I wasn’t too happy because I was so jealous of my cousins and friends who lived in Delhi and Bombay. They had Nickelodeon and wore cool things. They were so much cooler than I was. We were running around hills and waking up early for ice-skating.
That sounds like a dream.
Now, it does, yeah. Dawdling to school and things. I’m really grateful for that time, though. I’d want the same thing for my kids today. I went to a pretty shit school-- that’s the one thing I can’t take back. It was horrible for me and you know this-- I guess I can say it since everybody’s candid on this-- I was beaten up pretty badly in school, I had teachers who you know, hurt these little kids including me. That whole experience was something that everybody assumes is the way the world works here. Old-fashioned. It’s really troubling though-- I never had any confidence. I had a really good life at home and out on the roads of Shimla but school could be torture sometimes. I was also one of the kids who was picked on more. If I tell my Shimla friends today, I feel this way about how I was hit in school, they might roll their eyes and be like-- oh, all of us were. But, that’s not true. Some children were really unfairly hurt and picked on so much more than others. One specific teacher, I remember, thrashing me as a 4, 5, 6 year old. I went to visit my school a few years ago, just alone. I went from hall to hall and saw the same desks we’d scribbled on and it felt sad to be there. At the same time, it’s worked out because I don’t hate myself now. But, I really blamed myself as a child for a long time. I can’t remove that from my childhood in Shimla.
Why do you think the teachers were like that?
I think it’s a very old-school mentality of, “spare the road, spoil the child.” One Sanskrit teacher didn’t like me because I was from an English speaking family, he’d insult me and my family, things I haven’t even told them because I thought if I told them, I’d get beaten more or hurt more. It probably comes from abuse they’ve experienced themselves. But I can’t extend that sympathy as a 7 year old girl to a 40 year old woman with a face as hard as stone who can’t give a shit about what this helpless child is feeling.
I felt the same way about certain teachers in Welham. At least, I was 16 and I was like okay, it’s still okay.
It’s not cool, though.
Yeah, I remember the Vice Principal wrote on my paper, when I failed the mock exam in 11th grade for political science, she wrote “If you carry on like this, you’ll be condemned to mediocrity for the rest of your life.”
Dude, I can relate. One teacher told my parents in a PTA meeting, “iska kuch nahin hoga, iski shaadi karado.” (She won’t amount to anything, get her married off) Also, we don’t need to reduce what Welham did. The environment was really not accepting, the teachers also had this unacceptance. You had to fit a mould to be accepted. You’re 16 so basically, still a child. I remember sitting close to a female friend and my matron telling my parents in Hindi basically that she’s a whore. My parents were like-- what the fuck? To this day, they must wonder whether I’m gay. Which is fine, I don’t really care. They were just confused.
Yeah, exactly. That’s my motto. Keep everyone confused about your sexuality.
Keep everyone confused about everything.
What’s your best memory of us from Delhi?
Yeah, this is the cute stuff I was waiting for.
It’s really hard to pick one.
I wasn’t even very good friends with you in school. I made that statement that I hated you but I think that was a bit of an exaggeration on my part. But, we had such good times. My favourite memory is of us sitting in Naivedyam and discussing events of the week. Because, we were also laughing all the time. Nothing was serious. Everything was cushioned in humour.
Even though we were constantly going through shit. At work, in relationships, parents. It was a fuckfest.
We were hot messes. I’m pretty proud of where we are today.
Yeah, me too. Although I could be prouder but it’s okay for now.
To be continued.
Image source: Diya and I at a mall in Delhi scaring everybody around us, 2019