My recent column on the penury of journalists elicited a surprisingly strong response. Some readers shared their experiences of struggling after retirement, while others sent sympathetic notes. One particular comment caught my attention.

A close friend of mine, a management professional and choir master, admitted that he was shocked by what I had written. He had grown up believing that journalists were a pampered lot—well-connected, influential, and always in the company of decision-makers, whether in Delhi, a state capital, a district town, or even a Taluk headquarters. To him, journalism was a profession to be envied.

My column had punctured that myth. I wrote that most retired journalists receive no pension. And when a pension is grudgingly given, it comes with humiliating conditions and is so meagre that it cannot guarantee even two square meals a day. The glitter of journalism, I argued, hides the grinding insecurity of the profession.

My friend wrote back, pitying journalists for their plight. I did not take offence, for his was a genuine reaction, born perhaps out of concern for me and his other friends in the profession. Still, I felt compelled to respond. I wrote to him that I do not believe in rebirth. But if God were to offer me another life and ask me to choose a profession again, I would choose journalism.

I meant every word. It was not a rhetorical flourish meant to score a brownie point. In fact, 52 years after I became a full-time journalist, the thrill of seeing my byline has not diminished. Thousands of times my name has appeared in print, yet I still feel a little spark of excitement each time it happens. The fascination remains intact. I still feel that I have more to write, more stories to tell, more insights to share. Passing on whatever little knowledge and experience I have acquired feels like a duty, not just a job.

Some may call this attitude ludicrous, even crazy. Perhaps, a little craziness is the defining trait of journalists. This brings me to a fundamental question: how does a person become a journalist? Or, to put it differently, what makes a journalist different from everyone else? The answer is not always easy. But sometimes, events make it clearer than theories.

When 9/11 happened in New York, the world saw unforgettable images: thousands of people fleeing the World Trade Centre towers in panic. Yet, amid the sea of terrified faces rushing out, there were a few running in the opposite direction—towards the burning infernos. Some were New York firemen, driven by duty to save lives. And alongside them were reporters, photographers, and videographers.

Only journalists can explain why they risked their lives that day. For them, the compulsion to witness, to record, to report was irresistible. The whole world was waiting for information, for clarity, for meaning. And it was their job to provide it.

I remember where I was when the news broke. At my desk in the Indian Express office in Delhi, I first assumed that the crash was an accident. But when the second plane hit, I knew instantly it was a terrorist attack. I decided to write an editorial.

Since the Express had multiple editions across the country, editors from Chandigarh to Kochi began messaging me for the page. Finally, I dispatched the edit page at the last moment, keeping them in suspense. No edition was delayed. On the first anniversary of 9/11, the Express republished an abridged version of the same editorial. By then, I had left the paper.

That night, I realised what makes a journalist different. A little recklessness, a touch of madness, and an unshakable sense of duty. I have witnessed this streak of madness up close in colleagues and friends.

Victor George (1955–2001), a photojournalist and a dear friend, once came home in Patna for a meal during election coverage. Always adventurous, he wanted to capture close-up pictures of a cloudburst and cascading waters. He got too close. The waters swept him away, camera and all. His body was found, and from his soaked camera, the last pictures were retrieved. Even in death, his work survived.

Another photographer, AV Mukesh, who served in Delhi for some time, was fond of wildlife photography. While trying to capture an image of a wild elephant in Kerala, he was attacked and killed by the very animal he was photographing. His death shocked us, but his pictures remain a testament to his courage.

I recall scolding another friend, photographer Rahul Pattom, for climbing the parapet of a multi-storeyed school building to get a particular shot. I told him no photo was worth his life. But he brushed aside my concern. That is the kind of madness journalists carry within them: the pursuit of a story or picture, regardless of the risks.

It is not glamour or money that drives them. For the truth is that journalists often earn little and retire with even less. What sustains them is passion, the thrill of telling a story first, the excitement of seeing their byline or photograph in print.

One journalist who embodied this spirit recently paid the ultimate price: Anas Al-Sharif, a 28-year-old reporter from Gaza. He was not just any correspondent—he had a Pulitzer Prize to his name and hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. In Gaza, where journalists have become prime targets, he refused to be silenced.

Israeli intelligence agents often phoned him, taunting him in Arabic: "Shut up, Anas." Many of his colleagues chose silence, exile, or anonymity. But Anas persisted. He believed Gaza needed a voice, and he would be that voice.

On the night of August 9, he called a childhood friend in Qatar. He said he knew the Israelis were preparing to kill him. Together, they recited a prayer to ward off fear. Hours later, an airstrike killed him and five of his colleagues in their makeshift newsroom near Al-Shifa hospital. His last post on social media was to report Israel's renewed bombardment.

Israel claims he was a Hamas asset, though it has offered no convincing evidence. His outlet, Al Jazeera, has been banned from reporting in Israel for allegedly being a Hamas mouthpiece. For 22 months, Israel has banned foreign journalists from independently entering Gaza and even restricted filming of aid drops.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 186 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the war began—the highest toll in any conflict since records began in 1992.

With professional reporters silenced or dead, citizen journalists have stepped in. But even they face targeting. Anwar Nimr, a filmmaker, says he wanted to record desperate Palestinians risking their lives for sacks of flour at aid hubs. But fear made him hide his phone; he worried soldiers would shoot him for documenting hunger.

Anas Al-Sharif's story is both tragic and inspiring. It reminds us why journalism, despite its risks and hardships, is indispensable.

October is the month when the Nobel Committee announces its prizes, including the Peace Prize. Naturally, speculation is rife about who will be honoured this year.

In the mix, unexpectedly, is none other than US President Donald Trump. He has staked his claim openly. His logic is simple: if Barack Obama, with little to show at the time, could receive it, why not him? He and his administration, Trump insists, brought an end to the brief four-day India-Pakistan military conflict.

The claim is laughable, but Trump has been lobbying hard. Reports suggest he even pressured figures like Pakistan's Army Chief to recommend his name. That the Peace Prize eluded Mahatma Gandhi, but could potentially be claimed by Trump, is one of history's ironies.

Yet, this too highlights the strange interplay between power, propaganda, and recognition. Journalists like Anas Al-Sharif risk everything to document the truth and give a voice to the voiceless. Politicians, meanwhile, jostle for medals and prizes. The contrast could not be starker.

Trump had claimed that he would bring an end to the war Israel has been waging against Hamas. Yet, twenty-two months later, Gaza lies in ruins. Starvation, displacement, and death define everyday life. People scramble for scraps of food, their humiliation televised in fleeting images, while most of the media are barred from entering Gaza.

One day, when foreign journalists and photographers are finally allowed to enter Gaza unescorted by the Israeli army, the world will see the scale of devastation that has been hidden from view. When that happens, the backlash against Israel—and tragically against Jews worldwide—may be profound.

Thomas Friedman, writing in The New York Times, cited an extraordinary open letter published in Haaretz by two decorated former Israeli Air Force pilots, Brig. Gen. Asaf Agmon and Col. Uri Arad. Addressed to their colleagues still serving, the letter—backed by Forum 555 Patriots, a group of 1,700 pilots—was both a confession and a warning.

The veterans did not deny the barbarity of the October 7 Hamas massacre. They admitted that the war was initially justified. But as months passed, they saw it transformed into a war of revenge, stripped of strategy or security logic, driven instead by the political survival of Netanyahu's government. They condemned the chilling boast of a Knesset member that Israel could now kill 100 people in Gaza every day without the world batting an eye.

They wrote with anguish about a March 18 airstrike, when bombs intended to kill Hamas commanders instead set a grim record: some 300 dead, including many children. The pilots declared, "Even if some targets are legitimate, the disproportionate harm to civilians cannot be denied ... You will have to face your children and grandchildren and explain how so many innocent children perished by the deadly killing machine you piloted."

I reproduce their words at length because of the moral courage they embody. Fortunately, no sedition charges were filed against them in Israel. Contrast this with India, where respected journalists like Karan Thapar and Siddharth Varadarajan had to seek the Supreme Court's protection from custodial interrogation for merely questioning those in power.

What is most disturbing today is the world's silence. The genocide in Gaza has become normalised, as if Israel possesses an unquestionable right to obliterate Palestinians, paving the way for Trump to someday construct his seven-star Riviera on the ruins.

The one man who can stop this tragedy sits in the White House. But his gaze seems fixed on the Nobel Prize, not on the tens of thousands of a once-proud people now rendered homeless, armless, and foodless.

Amid this silence, there are still voices of conscience. One of them was Anas Al-Sharif. He bore witness when the world averted its eyes. To him, and to others who risk everything so that truth may not be buried under rubble, we owe our deepest tribute.

Let me conclude with an anecdote. Years ago, I saw a young reporter come out of the editor's room, her eyes brimming with tears. Curious, I asked her what had happened. She told me she had pleaded for an assignment to Surat to cover the outbreak of bubonic plague. The editor, however, had already chosen someone else.

Think of it: when the whole of Surat wanted to flee the city, here was a young woman who longed to go in. That is the madness of journalism—the calling that makes reporters walk into danger when ordinary people run away from it.

Anas Al-Sharif embodied that same spirit. He remained in Gaza when others fled, chronicling hunger, rubble, and death with the stubborn courage of one who believed the truth must be told, no matter the cost. He, too, could have sought safety, but like that young reporter—and far more than her—he chose to stay where the story was, until it consumed him.

That is why we remember him not merely as a victim of war, but as the very definition of what it means to be a journalist.