The death of a Russian spy, Daniel Craig in Leicester Square, Shilpa Shetty in Big Brother and Tata’s taking over Corus made it the best of times for Shonali Muthalaly to be in London as a winner of the British Chevening Print Journalist scholarship The dramatic poisoning of a Russian spy at a sushi bar in Piccadilly and the release of the latest James Bond movie, with hunky Daniel Craig pouting at the cameras in Leicester Square. Shilpa Shetty squealing ’chicken curry rules’ on popular British reality show Big Brother, and the Tatas taking over steel maker Corus, creating the world’s fifth-largest steel group. A Jack The Ripper styled serial killer in Ipswich, and a freak tornado in London city. The 2006-07 Chevening programme ended its London days in true journalistic fashion: with thrill-a-minute stories, shrieking headlines and 12 exhausted but exhilarated reporters. Of course I’m biased, but it was probably the best time to be in London, to be a journalist and to a Chevening scholar, all at the same time. The 2006 course began sedately enough, at the venerable Scala house with it’s to-die-for location just off Tottenham Court Road: five minutes to the British Museum, seven minutes to quirky Leicester Square with its outrageous nightclubs and hysterical movie premiers and 10 minutes to Oxford Street, bustling with Christmas sales and buzzed up shoppers. But by the time the first week had gone past, we were juggling classes at the University of Westminster’s stylish Harrow Campus, our project work and suddenly hectic social lives. At University, classes – interrupted only by hot chocolate and carrot cake at the bustling cafeteria – included practical workshops on photography and design besides academic lectures on the state of British media, laws and politics. Then there were the traditional invitations, dinner at India House hosted by the Deputy Indian High Commissioner where we swapped stories with Indian correspondents posted in London; lunch with Lord Swraj Paul, peppered with his disarmingly honest stories about the house of Lords; and the dinner parties we hosted at Scala House, which always seemed to teeter between being intellectual, academic discussions and hilarious get-togethers. The session with the inspiring Hala Jaber, war reporter for Sunday Times, for instance, during which she narrated breath-taking stories from Iraq all through dinner, and then took a dal recipe from one of the boys just before she left. This Chevening programme for journalists was memorable for a variety of reasons. Between Adam Hopkins, the long-suffering and well-loved course coordinator and the stylish Kathleen Herron, wonder woman and deputy Managing Editor of the Sunday Times, contacts were made, attachments were organised and speakers were hunted down. We managed to get into the Parliament, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (which funds the scholarship) and – standing on our toes – even peep into 10, Downing Street. Blair was not home though. Attachments with newspapers like the Guardian and Sunday Times demonstrated how different journalism can be in another country. And not just because the Sunday Times – where I worked – had a masseur, gym, hair stylist and a Starbucks counter. But it also showed how similar journalists are the world over: competitive, inquiring and always on the lookout for The Next Big Story. The way the Chevening is set up allows the scholars to pack as much as they can into the three months it runs. Between projects, meetings, exploring and reading about half a dozen newspapers – delivered home in a stack every morning – there seems barely enough time to soak it all in. Then, three months later we realised we had managed to explore London as tourists, and experience it as locals. To feel like fresh interns again, and yet be taken seriously as journalists. And to pause, rest and think. And then find stories that pushed us to write again.
Shonali Muthalaly pursued the Chevening Young Indian Print Journalists Programme at University of Westminster from 6 November 2006 – 2 February 2007. She is the Principal Correspondent for The Hindu.
