As Paul Salopek walks on from India into Myanmar, he leaves behind a vivid narrative record of the past 18 months, including 22 online dispatches, dozens of videos and audio reports, hundreds of photographs, a multimedia tour of Kolkata, 12 Milestones, two major feature stories for National Geographic, and countless oral histories collected in notes along his 2,000-mile journey from Lahore to Manipur.
But the walk's legacy in India also includes something even more indelible: a growing cadre of fellow storytellers, starting with the 55 young journalists who participated in the National Geographic/Out of Eden Walk Slow Journalism workshops in Delhi, Chennai, and Kolkata in 2018. (See video below.)
After attending the sessions in Delhi, Indian filmmaker Nantha Kishore produced this short documentary about the slow journalism workshops.
Out of Eden Walk
Led by Salopek and a team of experts including Prem Panicker, former editor-in-chief of Yahoo! India, Arati Kumar-Rao, an award-winning photojournalist, and me, the workshops provided participants with hands-on training in slow journalism, an immersive style of reportage that opens new lines of storytelling in the lives and experiences of ordinary people.
On foot over the course of four intense days, these writers, photographers, and filmmakers tapped extraordinarily rich veins of storytelling in three of India’s most vibrant cities, on subjects ranging from street dentists in Delhi to the effects of climate change on the fishermen of Chennai to the bhadis, or water bearers, who haul fresh water on their backs to Kolkata’s dry-as-dust neighborhoods.
Together they produced three dozen published pieces (listed below) that ultimately reached tens of millions of Indian readers. Their ongoing work will bear witness to India’s, and the world’s, urgent need for in-depth, fact-based storytelling—a force, Salopek says, “for empowering our industry and readers with the unifying tools of journalism.”
For the participants, these workshops, sponsored by the National Geographic Society, had personal effects that are harder to measure, perhaps, but no less profound.
Nandita Singh, who wrote about a nine-year-old homeless girl in Delhi, describes her participation in the workshop as a life-changing experience. “I see the future a little more clearly now,” she says—“and in it, I'm writing.”
In the stories below, listed alphabetically by author with links to their published titles, she and other Indian journalists have added their voices to the growing global community of immersive storytellers inspired by the Out of Eden Walk.
On day four of the Delhi workshop, reporters worked on their story drafts with faculty, preparing them for submission to editors.
Don Belt
DELHI
Sacred water carriers of Delhi, Amitangshu Acharya
Sensing the rains, Amitangshu Acharya
Farmer suicides, Kabir Agarwal
Corrupt labor practices at historic sites, Hemani Bhandari
Government investigates labor practices at Red Fort, Hemani Bhandari
India’s forgotten power broker, Priyanka Borpujari
The last calligrapher in Old Delhi, Nantha Kishore
Street dentists, Priyanka Pant
Migrant laborers in the capital, Nikhil Roshan
Muslim women flock to shrines in Old Delhi, Shikha Sharma
Girl in the pink burka, Nandita Singh
Traffic police: choking in the line of duty, H.R. Venkatesh
Paul Salopek, left, discussed interviewing technique with workshop journalists on a late afternoon stroll through a Chennai neighborhood.
Nantha Kishore
CHENNAI
A road barrier to fishermen, Sibi Arasu
Ancient lakebed foretells water scarcity, Anupama Chandrasekaran
Traditional fishermen pushed to the edge, Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar
Hip-hop, rap, and gaana, Johanna Deeksha
Ultimatefrisbee, a mixed gender sport, Karen Dias
Questions for my grandmother, Poonam Ganglani
Surfing against the odds, Radhika Iyengar
Young migrant workers in Chennai, Manu Moudgil
The church of Doubting Thomas, Sindhuri Nandhakumar
Street Sweepers of Chennai, Aruna Natarajan
Desalinization in Chennai, T.K. Rohit
Women beach astrologers, Kirthika Soundararajan
Pavement dwellers, Swati Sanyal Tarafdar
Leaving the streets behind, Swati Sanyal Tarafdar
The boy from Manipur, Visvak
In Kolkata, classroom sessions on day one laid the groundwork for reporting forays on days two and three.
Nantha Kishore
KOLKATA
River brothers, Ayesha Aleem
The indispensables, Sohini Chattopadhyay
Morgue workers, Sohini Chattopadhyay
Water bearers, Arpita Chakrabarty
Flooding: Kolkata and climate change, Kartik Chandramouli
Elderly women beggars, Simantini Dey
Kolkata’s Chinatown, Emily Ding
Chinese culture in Kolkata, Jennifer Kishan
Prince of bangles, Loveleen Mann
Lottery ticket sellers, Vangmayi Parakala
Decline of kite flying in Kolkata, Sudipto Sanyal
Earthen tea cups, Elizabeth Soumya
During his 25 years as a National Geographic writer and senior editor, Don Belt authored more than two dozen feature stories for the magazine. He now teaches journalism at the University of Richmond. He’s on Twitter @dbelt50.
