Ayan Das
I had already seen the job ‘post’. I was waiting for Mahalaya morning. I messaged on the day of initiation of Devipaksha. From there a link was made with ‘Hindustan Times Bangla’. Even then, I did not know for sure that the portal of ‘Hindustan Times’ was coming to Bengal. It was just what we call ‘gut feelings’ in English. The ‘gut feelings’ of that day were absolutely correct. And then I realized one thing that how auspicious time begins with the beginning of Devipaksha.
Khatayakalm ‘Shubh Samh’ started on November 11, 2019. I joined ‘Hindustan Times Bangla’ as the second member after Editor Arghyaprasun Roychowdhury. Four days later, the journey of ‘Hindustan Times Bangla’ officially started. I didn’t do much of the work that goes into launching a portal. But the spiritual tension created when you see the ‘birth’ of a portal with your own eyes, has been created with ‘Hindustan Times Bangla’.
However, the journey of ‘Hindustan Times Bangla’ after ‘Janm’ was not very easy. It is not only for us, but for everyone. The journey of ‘Hindustan Times Bangla’ started on November 15, 2019. Within three months, the first case of Covid was found in Kolkata. After a month of ‘lockdown’.
I was learning new words like ‘sanitization’, ‘lockdown’. We all stood in an incomplete unknown world. What would happen next, no one had any idea. Only one thing was certain – every day at 3:30 PM a press conference will be held by the Union Health Ministry on the Covid situation. Well, that’s it! The rest was uncertain. The number of Covid patients was increasing, the fear was increasing in parallel. Cyclone Amphan made the situation more complicated.
But what else does the media work without ‘challenge’? So everyone took the ‘challenge’. At the time of Amphan, Arghya Da used to publish the news as there was no electricity at home for three days. I saw Priyanka D on the news of Sushant Singh Rajput’s death. Saw Abhishek Da copying IPL live and statistics at the same time.
We can proudly say that we are the first to regularly copy ‘stat’ in Bengal. Moreover, be it TRP or multibagger share report or the equation of the game (which number will make it to the playoffs in IPL) – ‘Hindustan Times Bangla’ has created the trend in Bengal. However, our team was not big at all. But we all created that trend by joining hands.
And that was possible because of Arghya Da. Arghya Da had his own thoughts. Moreover, he gave us a ‘free-hand’. No restrictions. Which has been very effective for me. Although the real responsibility is ‘politics and news of the country and abroad’, I have reported the game. I have gone to ‘cover’ the results of secondary and higher secondary. Again, I got permission to go to the first trial run of the metro under the Ganga with one word. I went to the field and covered the ISL match.
Arghyada has a big contribution behind the spiritual connection that has become so much with ‘Hindustan Times Bangla’. In terms of cricket, my ‘coach’ was someone like Rahul Dravid or Ravi Shastri from day one, not Greg Chappell. And so when ‘Hindustan Times Bangla’ completes five years, it is filled with a wealth of memories and experiences. I don’t know what to say, what not to say.
Just want to say one thing, Hindustan Times Bengali has become ‘own’.
