This is my very first FO° Wednesday, and I’m writing to you from a quiet neighborhood in Goa. Not long ago, I was racing against hourly deadlines at a major media organization in Noida, a satellite city of India’s polluted national capital, New Delhi. Today, I find myself in a home surrounded by coconut trees, monsoon clouds and silence. Even though I have been here only briefly, I have come to value silence as I learn, write and grow at Fair Observer.

Most of you don’t know who I am, or how I got here. So here is my story.

A Jet-Set Life, Literally

I grew up across a dozen schools because my father was a fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force. That’s a glamorous way of saying I was always the “new kid.” Each school, each city, each friend left a mark on me. You could say my childhood was stitched together with different dialects, cultures, ethnicities – but, above all, aircraft.

Dinner conversations in my family were about geopolitics and fighter jets. In middle school, I’d pore over military magazines while others were reading Harry Potter. By the time I was in high school, I could tell a Sukhoi from a MiG just by the sound they made. That passion for aviation has stayed with me.

I went on to study in the United States, completing my undergraduate degree in international relations at James Madison University, Virginia. After graduating early, I returned to India to follow in my father’s footsteps, only to experience heartbreak. At 22 years old, I was told about my incurable condition – color blindness. Declared medically unfit for aviation, I buried my passion with a heavy heart and pursued my master’s in international relations at OP Jindal Global University.

During my master’s, I spent a month in Kabul, Afghanistan from December 18, 2018 to January 19, 2019. During this period, the Taliban were knocking on Kabul’s door. Curiously, I found myself in the heart of the city, staying with the family of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of Afghanistan’s most prominent warlords. My security was handled by Hekmatyar’s strongmen. You might think I would be afraid but instead my relationships with my Afghan protectors was rather warm.

Two Afghan soldiers guard the graffiti-laden blast walls of the Ministry of Women’s affairs, Kabul, Afghanistan, 2019. Photo by the author. 

The people I met on the streets, in homes and in marketplaces were welcoming, curious and incredibly kind. They lit up when they learned I was Indian. That month in Kabul was the first time I truly realized how reality can be drastically different from how the media portrays it to be. The headlines showed a country in chaos, but instead I experienced a warm, friendly and hospitable capital city. 

That experience in Kabul has stayed with me. It has taught me to question dominant narratives, and to always look for the human story beneath the headlines. You can say that my time in Kabul has landed me in journalism.

Going viral on YouTube

My first real foray into the media world began at Firstpost. And when I say “real,” I mean trial by fire. I was part of a team that was building something big and fast. I worked on five different shows before becoming the writer for Vantage, the flagship show of the Firstpost YouTube channel.

Vantage averaged over 150 million views a month. I saw our YouTube channel grow from 800,000 to 8.3 million subscribers over two and a half years. It was exhilarating, exhausting and addictive. I was part of a newsroom that published nonstop. The constant freneticism sharpened my typing skills but left little room to pause, breathe and think. 

Young professionals were cannon fodder. We were like soldiers in World War I dealing with constant machine gun fire and artillery shells. Yes, I am exaggerating a bit. None of us really lost a limb or died. However, the deluge of nonstop headlines and the assault of social media posts on our senses left us more than slightly discombobulated. Yet I am grateful for my experience because it taught me how digital platforms work, how audiences respond and how to stay calm when social media numbers are all over the place. Life is more than clicks, likes and followers.

A Socratic masterclass in geopolitics

What brought me to Fair Observer, wasn’t a job listing. It was a three-hour conversation with Atul Singh, the eccentric founder of this world news organization.

I came to meet him at his parents’ flat in Noida. Like me, he is a military brat. He grew up all around the country and studied in many schools as well. He asked me to list the three most important geopolitical issues in the world. To be precise, he asked me: “What are the three top issues? Why are they the top issues?”

The issues I mentioned are immaterial. What is material is that I was unable to answer the why. In his (in)famous Socratic style, Atul skewered me. To use military parlance, I had just unsuspectingly walked into an ambush. Luckily for me, it was an intellectual one. I left after an Oxford-style tutorial that made me think and I knew then that this was why I had entered journalism.

My experience in Noida had made me into a drone chasing clicks, likes and followers. I had forgotten how to think deeply. My experience in Kabul had become a dim memory of the past. No longer was I going beyond headlines for the human story. I was like a dutiful soldier in the trenches manning my own machine gun nest in a senseless war that did not make sense. 

After my meeting with Atul, I left with a sense that I had to return to my roots. I had to reconnect with the feeling that drove me to journalism after my disappointment at not being able to serve in the military. At that moment, I did not know what lay ahead. 

I had not come to Atul looking for a job. A family friend is friends with this founder and had put the two of us in touch. I left Atul’s parents’ flat with homework. He asked me how Fair Observer could do better. I took ten days before sending him a document, chastened by my first experience. We met again and then I met Roberta Campani as well over a video call. Then out of the blue, came the offer to work with them and I jumped on it. And here I am writing to you this Wednesday, July 9, 2025.

Real journalism and real dialogue

At Fair Observer, I am a social media manager and YouTube producer. If you are a skeptic, you might point out that I am still in the business of chasing clicks, likes and followers. What has changed?

I would answer a hell of a lot. I am not scouring AP and Reuters to put up anything willy-nilly for clicks. Yes, we want to spread the word. We want more of the world to read/watch/hear content on Fair Observer. However, our goal is to inform and educate. Unlike Indian news organizations that aim for attention for attention’s sake, our editorial agenda focuses on what truly matters.

Chief Strategy Officer Peter Isackson speaks constantly about real journalism and real dialogue. He means it and so does everyone else in the team. Peter and Atul constantly debate each other on all kinds of issues and view the world through very different lenses. So do our more than 3,000 authors.

In this highly intellectual team, I bring a new skill set. I try to popularize Fair Observer’s content and increase our reach. However, we do not make content with the purpose of social media statistics. Our raison d'être is not cheap popularity at all. At the end of the day, Atul, Roberta, Peter and others are citizens of the world who truly care. They are intellectuals and educators too.

Even my younger colleagues like Anton Schauble and Cheyenne Torres are natural educators. The Saturday 7:30–9:00 PM India time workshops for young editors have been an online gurukul — traditional Indian school with a guru imparting education — for me. After years of being a hamster on the Indian media wheel, I am learning again.

So far, I have learnt about history, philosophy, logic, grammar, editing and much more. Some days I’m analyzing US foreign policy vis-à-vis Israel and Iran. Other days I’m figuring out which thumbnail might work best for a video about tax dodging multinationals like Uber and Starbucks. At all times, I am learning from some of the best minds from around the world, making Peter’s words ring true. The variety and depth of my work inspire me.

Goa and the Global mindset

Relocating to Goa has reshaped how I approach my work and my life. Most people see Goa as a former Portuguese colony turned party capital of India — a place of beaches, churches, and shacks. But to me, it’s also a region with deep strategic significance that deserves more attention. 

You can find Indian Navy bases here, and, if you drive far enough from the beach bars, you’ll find airbases where naval fighter jets like the MiG-29K operate. It is not without reason that the Portuguese set up shop here. Goa is where the story of European colonization of India and indeed Asia begins.

For someone like me, who grew up around aircraft and strategic discussions at the dinner table, this duality of Goa — a place of leisure as well as a strategic hub — is fascinating. It mirrors my own shift from a high-speed newsroom in Noida to a more nuanced observation of the world. In many ways, Fair Observer feels like Goa: slightly off the mainstream map, rich in history, globally connected and richly alive with ideas. Our unofficial motto — Make Sense of the World — is my daily lived experience now.

Sunset at Benaulim Beach, Goa | Via Shutterstock

You might think I am naive to leave the national capital, which is a hotbed of Indian journalism, for Goa, a sleepy backwater with tourists smoking pot on the beach. Yet I prize depth over clicks, context over hot takes and learning over networking. As a millennial, I’ve witnessed the media evolve from newspapers to television, from social media to AI-generated feeds. Yet what hasn’t changed is the need for credible, thoughtful journalism. I am now fulfilling that need and that, my friends, gives me meaning.

Parting thoughts

If you’ve made it this far, thank you. You now know more about me than most of my LinkedIn connections. Please write to me with ideas about how I can do my job better. What sorts of videos should we be making? What topics should we be covering? Would you like to interview with me and, if so, on what?

I hope that in the months ahead at Fair Observer, the videos we make and the stories we share will not just inform you but challenge you, and maybe even inspire you.

I very much look forward to hearing from you.

Warm regards from Goa,