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Old friends, colleagues reunite at SAJA convention

The journalist from San Francisco walked up the long ramps of Columbia University's Lerner Hall and was greeted by an old colleague from New Jersey, who then introduced him to an old colleague of his from the Bay Area, and then another from Manhattan, and then another from London, and then another from Bombay.

"New York is just this magical... magnet," giggled one journalist as they hugged one another and traded information on their lives. "You can meet just about anyone here."

Thus the annual South Asian Journalists Association convention began on Friday feeling as much like a college reunion as a professional meet. More than 500 journalists are expected to descend on Columbia University over the weekend to attend workshops, schmooze, and fete this year's winners of the annual SAJA journalism awards.

The event has transformed itself from a one-evening awards ceremony to an event spanning an entire weekend, and from a New York-centric group to one that can count membership across the globe.

"I'm really impressed by SAJA. Every year they get bigger and better," said Kishan Putta, a reporter with The Straits Times in Singapore and two-time SAJA conventioneer. "They're very well organized."

The convention opened with a workshop hosted by Tunku Varadarajan, the charismatic Wall Street Journal editorial page writer. He gave tips on how to break into editorial writing, explained the different types of written arguments, and answered questions on his own work.

Of course, in his signature garrulous-yet-endearing style, Varadarajan stayed true to his advice of getting straight to the point. Asked if he worried about getting people upset with his work, he replied point-blank: "I don't worry about antagonizing people."

Approached afterwards, Varadarajan was very sportsmanlike about the whole affair. "SAJA is one of those organizations that, if it didn't exist, it would need to be created," he said.

Other discussions included a lecture by Yahoo! Life editor Jeremy Caplan on how to improve your Web-surfing skills and a panel of New York Times journalists, moderated by NYT metro reporter Somini Sengupta, discussing what journalistic 'demons' they had wrestled with on the job.

Sreenath Sreenivasan, Columbia professor and SAJA co-founder, and Jyoti Thottam, Time reporter and this year's SAJA president, were amazed at the turnout, which often meant standing room only in some of the more popular panels.

"And this is only the first night," said an exhausted but happy Sreenivasan.

Varadarajan and Sengupta were among a handful of prominent desis in attendance on Friday. Other notables included former CNN anchor Riz Khan and authors Bapsi Sidhwa and Amitava Kumar.

Khan's speech at the end of the night often resembled a stand-up routine as he poked fun at his time at CNN, his career choice ("Mother said, 'What? You are bloody journalist?'") and South Indian names (I received resumes with names that had 20 syllables in them").

It was also a chance for Khan to answer some questions about himself as he spoke about his life from birth (in Aden, Yemen, to a Gujarati mother and a Punjabi father) to the demanding schedule as host of Q&A on CNN. In fact, it was because he felt burnt out doing Q&A that he decided to leave CNN, he said. His future plan is, he said, to make independent documentary films.

As the night aged, some journalists went home, others to an after-party being held in New York's East side. But for some there still was some discovery to do.

As the group of seven gathered to plan out where they were going to get dinner, two reporters stood across from each other, looked up, and smiled.

"Oh my god, did you work at the St Petersburg Times?" asked Vinita Gowda, now a graduate student at Columbia.

"Yes I did, you were there too, I think I saw you once or twice," replied Ameet Sachdev, a business reporter, now with The Chicago Tribune.

And they broke the circle to shake hands and reminisce, effectively interrupting dinner plans. The others in the circle laughed, and made fun of them, but appreciated the moment as well.

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