women journalist community

women journalist community

Sunday, October 3, 2010Know About Leela Menon ,a First Women Journalist of Kerala
She was on the hospital bed, only just regaining consciousness. The doctor who came in with the biopsy result very bluntly told her she had cancer. It was in its secondary stage and she had only six months to live. Her journalis t friends made a beeline to the hospital room. One of them even cornered the doctor and asked him why he told her about this cruel disease. The doctor’s answer was again quite direct: “Because she is Leela Menon.”Would the doctor have said the same to Leela Manjari? To a simple, rustic woman, from a nondescript village called Vengola? Probably not. The evolution of this unsophisticated Leela Manjari into a leading journalist, Leela Menon, is the soul of ‘Nilaykatha Symphony,’ in Malayalam, brought out by Current Books, Thrissur.This is the story of Leela’s life. It is an account of her amazing career as a trailblazer in the field of journalism. Of horrific cancer, heart disease and facial palsy that weighed her down but still let her mind float free. It is a collection of memories retold with piercing truthfulness transforming her story into an experience.Like life, it is an unbroken flow of thoughts. She simply gets into rewind mode and allows the memories to tumble out of her very self.“Writing about my life was something I had not dreamed of. I don’t keep a diary so had to rely completely on my memory. I did not attempt to edit my thoughts. I wrote it down as it flowed,” says Leela.Like an unending symphony the story goes on. There are no definite chapters, no interruptions. Incidents are not arranged in chronological order. There are very few dates, and a lot of names.


Sense perceptions mingle with conscious thoughts, memories, experiences, feelings and associations.
There are passages in the book where the prose becomes intimate, poetical, as when Leela recounts her early childhood at Vengola and when she reminisces on Bhaskaran, her husband.“That’s true. Childhood was the best part of my life. My village has changed. But it was so beautiful, so pristine those days. The intimacy extended beyond my relatives and friends. There was a strong bond with Nature.”Leela paints pictures of her ailing father, loving mother (‘the only person in this world who loved me’), her aunt who virtually brought her up, her cousins, nephew, uncle and so many interesting portraits of people who made an impression on her during that impressionable age. There are poetic descriptions of the birds, the flowers, the smells, the various kinds of baskets, poverty, superstitions, of her village.“Maybe those memories are important to show the kind of background from where I began. Like any autobiography I have tried to convey what life means to me.
It is also intended as a message to journalists in general and women who are journalists in particular of what this profession ought to be. Nothing is impossible in life if one is prepared to work hard for it. That is what my life is all about.”
The writing comes from the heart when she talks about her husband, Bhaskaran. They met for the first time at YWCA, Madras. Leela remembers him as a handsome man with lovely, brown eyes, curly hair, smart, like any sportsman, with a charming voice.He was the cynosure of any gathering. Leela confesses that she could never say if it was love but till his death Bhaskaran remained her best friend. His influence on her life and career was tremendous. If there is one place in this book where Leela decides to hide her feelings it is about her relationships with Bhaskaran. Despite being so attached to each other Leela confesses about her ‘private hell,’ another side to her marriage. Yet, his death left a huge vacuum in her life. She felt like ‘a dead leaf carried away by the breeze.’ Often, in the loneliness of the night, she felt his fingers brush her face. And many a time she was jolted from sleep hearing him call for her.Every time Leela stepped into unknown territories of life she says she has found assistance from unexpected quarters.After a journalist interviewed Leela Menon for a story, "Sitting Pretty in the Post Office," Leela asked her husband if she could study journalism. He said yes, and she began taking course in the evening, eventually becoming Kerala's (a southern state in India) first female journalist. A recent article described her as "a trailblazer in the field of journalism."
I met Leela in February during a Group Study Exchange program to south India through Rotary. Part of this month-long cultural exchange included vocational days. During my stay in Kerala, which is located on the coast in southwestern India, my host, a poised talk show anchor, said that before I left I would meet her mentor, Leela Menon.Leela began her career late in life and kept her stories focused on women's issues. She started at the Indian Express in Hyderabad as a headline writer and later moved to the bureau in Kerala. "When I came," she recalls, "there were no women in the field, only in the office."Her first cover story was on women, and she continued to dive into such issues as her career progressed. She interviewed prostitutes, children being exploited as beggars and women abused or sexually harassed. She is known as the journalist who brought women's issues to the attention of the media. "Kerala has zero sexual literacy, and this is the main cause for such incidents," she said.
Despite several medical ailments, she never lost her drive to tell these stories. When she was diagnosed with cancer, she was told she had six months to live, but she didn't cry. She would not think about death. Instead, in her mind, she always throught about what her next story would be. She survived the cancer, and she continued to investigate.
Some of her most well-known articles include "Saved from the Beggar Mafia, Street Children Get a New Life in Kerala;" "Bearers of Odd Burdens," which spoke of girls who rarely make it through school before being wedded to "a gray, traumatic world of perpetual motherhood," and an autobiography written in Malayalam, her native language.My host, Ranjini Menon (no relation to Leela), sat on the floor looking up at Leela and me as we spoke."It is because of this woman that I -- and many other women -- became journalists," Ranjini said.Leela only smiled and said, "This woman is damn good."Her last words of advice: "Every kid must leave a footprint, and each woman should establish her own identity."
As a Journalist Career



Meeting Prema Viswanathan who did an interview on her as the only woman telegraphist, sparked the desire to become a journalist.While, working in Hyderabad she shared a hostel room with Chandra Muthaliar. It was Chandra who led her deep into the world of English and laid the foundation of her journalistic career.Then there was Sreedharan, her own ‘Shindettan’ without whom Leela would have perhaps, ‘married a farmer and lived her entire life in Vengola.’ It was ‘Shindettan’ who got her the job in the Postal Department and also admission at Nizam College. There are a whole lot of men and women who played important roles in Leela’s adventurous life.Her life has been a long battle against ailments. This and her path-breaking journalistic career has been the subject of numerous articles and even films. It forms a major chunk of this book too. Leela sketches in detail almost every significant moment, every important ‘story-break’ in her career.
Through all these experiences Leela retains her feminity. Even as memories crowd around her she does not fail to notice that Bhaskaran’s engagement ring did not have a few stones. She remembers the Aurangabad sari she bought with her first salary and the georgette one in the shop window that she longed for. It is these little memories that make this book special.There is frustration; fatigue at the end of what has been a long journey. Leela, quite surprisingly, says she has had enough. But, if given another life, she would still like to be born a woman and a journalist.The proceeds from the book, priced at Rs. 175, will go towards setting up a Trust, which will institute an annual award for the best female journalist.