Jasodhara Banerjee

My decision to become a journalist was a deliberate one, when I was studying to graduate with an Honours in History in college. Joining the Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication in Pune was a deliberate one too. However, my career path since then has been one paved by a mixture of designs and accidents.

Joining the Pune edition of The Indian Express in my last semester at SIMC was an accident. I was all prepared to take a couple of months off after graduating and taking my time to figure out where I would want to work. What I was not prepared to do was working full-time and studying at the same time.  But working in a small city, reporting and editing for the city supplement, and managing its pages was perhaps the best beginning that I could have hoped for. 

Taking a year off to do an MA in International Relations from the University of Leeds and, after that, joining the front page editing team of Hindustan Times in Mumbai was by design. It was my first job in a big city, with a big newspaper, with lots of competition breathing down my neck every evening. After three years of working on the front page, and managing special weekend pages, I wanted to explore another medium. And since television had never quite been an option, I found myself, yet again quite by chance, at Forbes India.

As part of the editorial team that launched ForbesLife India, I have conceptualised, written and edited content for the quarterly lifestyle magazine, as well as written and edited for Forbes India, a fortnightly business publication.