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Odisha TV journalist keeps recording for talk show despite mother’s demise, earns applause
On social media, those who know Joshi are hailing his professionalism and sense of commitment with many on Twitter saying his act was a “tribute to his late mother”.
Moments before the camera was ready to roll for an interview-based talk show on popular Odia channel OTV on August 24 afternoon, Manoranjan Joshi reached out for his mobile phone to switch it to aeroplane mode. Then his mobile phone rang and Joshi froze after his friend told him that his 73-year-old widowed mother Saraju had died of cardiac failure in an ambulance while on her way to a hospital in Bhubaneswar.
It took Joshi, 44, a Bolangir-based TV journalist, a few seconds to regain his composure to interview senior Congress leader Tara Prasad Bahinipati even as he was choking. Despite the Congress leader and his colleagues suggesting that the show be cancelled in view of his personal tragedy, Joshi went on interviewing and asking questions to the Congress leader for the talk show titled “Khola Katha”, which was aired on Friday evening.
“He exemplified what professionalism is. He could have cancelled it, but he told everyone around that the show must go on as he knew it was planned and his mourning could wait. Normally people don’t appreciate how journalists work under deadlines and difficult circumstances. But what Manoranjan did has made us all proud,” said Radha Madhav Mishra, OTV’s news editor.
On social media, those who know Joshi are hailing his professionalism and sense of commitment with many on Twitter saying his act was a “tribute to his late mother”. Bahinipati, who was interviewed by Joshi in the talk show, said the journalist has huge willpower. “His mother passed away and yet he continued with the show. He did not let his emotions take over. I pray to Lord Jagannath that her soul may rest in peace, and may the Lord give him and his family the courage to stay strong,” Bahinipati said.
Joshi who has been with OTV for more than a decade and is now its western Odisha bureau chief, said the moment when he heard the news of his mother’s demise was the most tragic moment of his life. “For a moment I felt the earth slipping under my feet and my eyes welled up. But then I thought she would have wanted me to keep working no matter what. I thought doing the talk show would be the best tribute to her,” Joshi said.
A day before she passed away, Joshi had arrived in Bhubaneswar for the recording of the talk show. However, on Tuesday, she complained of chest pain following which one of her sons, a doctor, admitted her to a hospital in Bolangir. Throughout the day, he kept making arrangements for his mother’s travel to a Bhubaneswar hospital in an ambulance till he got busy with the recording of the talk show.
While the show was being recorded, Joshi said he tried his best to focus, but struggled a lot. “She had brought me and my 3 brothers up and gave us freedom to chase our dreams. She was our support system. I don’t know how I recorded the show,” Joshi said after cremating his mother.
In a similar incident in 2017, a woman anchor of a TV channel of Chhattisgarh kept reading the news of a road accident in which her husband was killed without betraying any emotion. Supreet Kaur of channel IBC 24 kept on reading the breaking news of her husband’s death in a road accident leaving her colleagues speechless in her show of commitment and courage.
