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Woman Up S3 EXCLUSIVE: Barkha Dutt on being afraid of people in power: Have to displace fear with…
In the recent episode of Woman Up S3 with Pinkvilla, Barkha Dutt talks about if she’s ever afraid of people in power.
In the recent episode of Woman Up S3 with Pinkvilla, we conversed with reputed journalist Barkha Dutt. We asked her if she’s ever afraid of people in powerful positions, and Dutt articulated that although there has always been fear, one has to replace it with something bigger.
Pinkvilla has always been about celebrating all facets and shades of womanhood in its full glory and as International Woman’s Day is just nearly there, we organized our annual segment Woman Up, where we talked to brave, resilient, and fiercely vulnerable women from different walks of life. In our latest episode, we talked with Barkha Dutt: a woman who is quite synonymous with Indian journalism.
Ask Barkha if her blunt and honest approach has ever made her afraid of people in power, and she replies, “Look, if I am going to tell you that I have never felt fear, that would be a lie. I have felt fear in Kargil, and the fear was displaced by the challenge of getting the tapes back to Delhi. We used to shoot on tapes, so we used to walk for kilometers finding the chopper pilots who would carry our tapes along with the coffins of our soldiers. If I tell you I didn’t feel scared to report in the pandemic, that would again be a lie. Again, the fear was displaced by the sense that you were witnessing history, you were reporting on the biggest story that would ever come your way in your lifetime.”
Dutt then adds, “So similarly, of course there have been times when the thought has crossed my mind that one day, I am going to meet someone, who dislikes me, (or they are) so angry that they could be harm to me. And I do get those threats online, there have been times when some random, anonymous person kept sending me nude pictures on my phone, my number had been posted on an escort service site. I had to go to the police, they didn’t do anything.”
Barkha continues, “So of course, these thoughts cross your mind. But you know, you can’t live thinking about the fear. You have to displace the fear, with something that you feel is bigger than the fear. So, if your passion is bigger than the fear, you focus psychologically on the passion. You fill your hours with what you love. It is a lie to say that there is no fear. There is always fear. But you always have to feel and focus on what is larger than the fear."
Watch Barkha Dutt’s interview with Pinkvilla here:
When asked if she has consciously conditioned herself to function like this, Barkha replies, “Yes, I mean I am sure it was conscious some point in time. Now it’s second skill. Of course there are times when you lie awake at night and you say ‘this could happen to me’ or ‘that could happen to me’. Or sometimes, you are in the middle of a story and you are fully aware that something could happen to you. But you can’t function if you keep thinking of that. I would get paralyzed if I keep thinking of that. Some part of you has to be willing to let go of that fear."
ALSO READ: Woman Up S3 EXCLUSIVE: Barkha Dutt wants Alia Bhatt to play her role in her biopic
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