Uddalak Chakraborty
One odd evening in September 2019, I was browsing Facebook while working in the office, suddenly a messenger notification appeared on the screen. The message came from former colleague Arghyaprasoon Roychowdhury. In the past, he was introduced through work in a daily newspaper, but after he left Bengal for a job in an all-India news agency, there was no further contact. After clearing the old conversation on Facebook, he said that the Hindustan Times organization has planned to bring a news website in Bengali language, the responsibility of the editor of which has been entrusted to him. He is a Delhiite by work, so Arghya has thought of this scoundrel to handle the desk in Kolkata. Needless to say, due to various reasons, at that time I was bored with the monotonous daily work and was also looking for a new opportunity. So I joined the Hindustan Times Bengali portal in November of that year in response to Arghyaprasun’s proposal.
Details have already been worked out, including the new website’s logo and design. Due to the late night long phone conversations, various plans and ideas related to the website have also been formed. Finally, on November 11, I first appeared at the then office of Hindustan Times Bengal at DLF Complex in New Town. The popular FM radio channel has three digital desk workers in one corner of the office. Apart from Ayan Das and Priyanka Mukherjee, who joined a few months ago, the talk was with Arghya Sengupta of the HR desk. FM channel says, hit Hindi-Bengali movie song is playing on Ashtapahar speaker. Honestly, after a lifetime spent in newsrooms of all kinds, seeing such a musical workplace was not uncomfortable, but quite amusing.
For the first time, there was an opportunity to experience the thrill of being associated with the inception of a digital news media. Meanwhile, within a few months of its launch, the number of desks began to increase gradually. Another former colleague Pinaki Bhattacharya joined the team. On the other hand, as the scope of work increased, so did the number of freelance journalists in virtual newsrooms.
When the website is fully launched, in the gap between copy editing, our eyes are glued to the calculations of Google Analytics. Sometimes, if the number of users or views increases rapidly, everyone leans on the monitor screen. 500, 1000, 2000, if the number of viewers reaches 3000, then jump and jump to celebrate the holiday at the tea shop below. It is as if everyone’s emotions are running around the newly created news portal which is growing like this in front of the eyes. From morning to night, thinking about that relentless adrenaline rush still gives me goosebumps.