A deceptively cold evening, adorned with promises of tea and pakodas, came with a conversation that changed the way we look at what is fed to us, in terms of news. A conversation with Saurabh Dwivedi, Editor The Lallantop, was our refresher course in how to make news relevant in the world of today, the world we live in, in the language we all understand.
With genuine wit running through his veins and words, Saurabh took us on a journey into his life, personal and professional. Unko har type ki chiknahat se parhaiz hai, so much so that that became the founding stone for him to revolutionalise news as we knew it. With pretentiousness gone, his news and opinions website, Lallantop, became one that redefined the idea of news in contrast to the formal, expert opinion lead shows out of newsrooms. His focus is on making news interesting for the youth, making them engage in discussions that impact their lives.
A wonderfully surprising side to Lallantop and their approach to understanding their audience is their ability to do it with a ground-up approach: one that doesn't just come from the experts and their opinions but also from the lives of those who are affected by politics and news. There's an ease, an informality and an almost-no-pretence attitude towards the delivery of the most important stories from around the world and around us. How simply he made us understand the basis of politics, one that needs to be understood by those who are affected by it. Plus his ability to weave in references of history to the current news, or of something local that gets produced there, or even references from mythology, has made possible a sparkling new way of storytelling. Making it conversational and organic.
So whether it's about building a base on the colloquial language or talking about politics through our everyday lives, his intent of finding more and more opportunities to make news understood is what makes him a voice we all need to hear today.