Seeds of Greatness

                                                                                                                           Ankur Bora

I don’t watch a lot of television, but when I do tune in, it’s usually to BBC - perhaps the only trusted international news organization. I grew up in the midst of tumultuous events of Assam agitation, when BBC and it’s legendary India correspondent, Sir Mark Tully was the only authoritative and impartial voice to the outside world. I have been an admirer of BBC since then. I was thrilled when I came into contact with the Asia Editor of BBC, who is also an admired woman in all of news broadcasting in United Kingdom. Hailing from Assam, she had been at the top of the BBC News for many years presenting and editing a range of features, documentaries, daily programs in the flagship division. How she did it is a remarkable story.    

Rita Borgohain was born in Dibrugarh and she spent her early years in Margherita, where her father was Political Officer in what was then the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA). As a child, Rita loved to read. There was always plenty to read as her father used to collect the copies of Reader's Digest, National Geographic and Time magazine, apart from The Statesman, Assam Tribune and several Assamese and Bengali newspapers. Her father, Bipin Kumar Borgohain, instilled in his daughter from an early age, the importance of learning languages.  He was a kind of person who encouraged his child to come to the dinner table every night with a new vocabulary word. “My father wrote a regular column for the Assam Tribune - Off the mind and his last-minute dash to the post office every week to send off his report before the deadline became an ingrained part of our lives.”   Her father once presented her the complete set of Book of Knowledge – “I would pour over the maps for hours ; this book set opened me a window into exotic and foreign lands and sparked interest in natural history,  arts and geography that continues to this day 50 years later.” 

I recently had a conversation with Ms. Rita; with much enthusiasm, she provided a fascinating life story. Through many emotions, she shared her memories from her childhood, her career as a journalist,  her deep believe in the basic principles of journalism and her passion for being a lifelong learner. As she filled me on life at BBC, I sat transfixed by her cadence, intonation and her choice of magnificent English words. “I was taught by an Irish nun”, Rita reminisced about her boarding school at Loreto Convent ,Shillong.  “I am very grateful to my Loreto teacher Mother  Bernadette – she had once taught  English elocution  to Vivian Leigh , the famous actress of gone with the wind.”  Recounting her earliest memories as a young girl, she shared all of her meaningful events “My parents provided the best education available and they set a good example. The influence of my father, on me, was so basic that it extended to all areas of my life.”

 Rita, with the encouragement of his father and Ashok Sen who was Director-General of All India Radio (AIR) at the time, joined AIR and began her broadcasting career in 1970. The well-known newscasters at the time were Surojit Sen, Pamela Singh, Philip Neelam, Lotika Ratnam and Sishil Javeri. “Each of my former colleagues had a distinctive voice, once familiar to millions of people across the country.”  It was at AIR during her formative years as broadcast journalist, Rita Borgohain came to recognize her unique talents and how they could make a successful living from doing what she loved. In the year 1971, she moved to London, after her marriage to Geoffrey Payne.

Coming to London was a giant step for her. Rita Payne joined BBC in 1978 holding many different positions as program maker, broadcaster and editor. In a career spanning over 30 years , she covered some of the monumental events including  the ousting of the Shah of Iran, the Tiananmen Square killings, the fall of the Berlin Wall, assassination of Anwar Sadat and the two Gulf wards,  communicating the news to the world impartially and accurately. As Asia Editor, BBC World News (TV), she had the opportunity to interview a cross-section of Asian leaders, writers and other world figures including Benazir Bhutto, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Lee Kuan Yew and Abdullah Badawi. Later on, Rita Payne became the chairman of the Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA , UK branch) and was elected as international President of the CJA in the year 2012. She has chaired sessions at the One World Media Festival, Rotary World Peace Symposium and moderated key dialogues at the UN World Urban Forum in Rio de Janeiro and Nanjing. She was a member of the Commonwealth Election Observer Missions to the Solomon Islands and Sierra Leone.

“It had been a long and enthralling journey for me, and every step of the way demanded hard work – but immensely fulfilling hard work.” Rita is always driven by challenges. Once, when she was on a new assignment, a subeditor regaled with a comment– “you will not be able get past because of your accent”.  For Rita, who doesn’t take no for an answer, it only fueled her ambition.  She was determined to press on and worked doubly hard to get where she wanted to go. It was a joy to listen to her beautiful words of wisdom, “I guess my main motivating force has been curiosity and a desire to learn something new every day”

“The basic principles of good journalism remain the same; reports should be truthful, balanced and thoroughly researched” – Rita was responding to my question, “What message you want aspiring youth to hear so that they can learn from you”. She elaborated further enunciating from her own experience. At BBC, each unit, whether audio or video, follows BBC’s Editorial Guidelines. These Guidelines are the key foundation for the maintenance of high editorial standards in everything broadcast or produced by the BBC. As I concluded my interview, I realized that journalism isn’t a job for Rita Payne, it’s a mission, a pursuit which she followed all through her life with sincerity, zeal and rightfulness.  

The seeds planted in Rita Borgohain’s life when she was young set the trajectory of a remarkable life. She has a gifted voice, a way of connecting with people and she was equally determined to discover her true best self.  Today, whenever I tune to the voice of Rita Payne, I am transfixed - the metaphor of life comes alive as the unstoppable force of determination, passion and growth.                                                                                                                      ankurbora@hotmail.com 

• Rita Payne worked for nearly thirty years at the BBC until 2008.

This article was published in Assam Tribune Horizon, listed below feedbacks received from readers.

Dear Sir
Greetings to you! Just went through your write up on "Seeds of greatness"- really impressed having read about Rita Borgohain, a remarkable Woman Assamese journalist. This piece of yours will surely inspire and encourage a lot more young people. 
Regards
Dr Bandana Nabis Das 

On 'Seeds of Greatness'

Sir,   This refers to an article by Ankur Bora in the Sunday edition of Assam Tribune <15May,2016> on Rita Borgohain, eminent Journalist. Besides making us proud about this prominent journalist, the article has also brought to the fore the memory of an illustrious son of Assam late Bipin Borgohain whose contributions to Assam in various fields like law and literature seems to have been forgotten. Late Bipin Borgohain  besides being the Political Officer of the then NEFA, was also an eminent literary figure. During my service at the  All India Radio, Dibrugarh  during the Seventies, he was very close to me and I found him to be a very soft spoken person in all his dealings with the public. He was a writer too and the most well-dressed person of that time. An Advocate of the Supreme Court,,late Shri Borgohain did not have any unnecessary air around   and mixed with the general people very freely. An Aristocrat of the first category, late Shri Borgohain was also a regular contributor to the Assam Tribune and in every Spring time, he used to write a letter there on his seeing and hearing the  Cuckoo and it's voice that pleased the minds of the readers. It was a regular feature in the Letters to the Editor Column of the Assam Tribune to carry his letter on the cuckoo theme. Through your esteemed Daily I would like to thank Shri Bora for his very informative article with the hope that concerned organisations and authorities will take suitable steps to enable people to remember him for all time to come.

Yours'  Etc.,

Aswini Boruah,

Guwahati-21

09435704834

To Sri Ankur Bora, Author of “Seeds of Greatness”,

Being very greatly pleased to read your above mentioned memoir regarding Rita Borgohain, who happened to be not only great great granddaughter of the most memorable martyr of the first Freedom Struggle of 1857 in Assam, Maniram Dewan, but also is my niece as her mother was my first cousin, Jyotirmoyee Borgohain (Bula). On the very Foundation Day of the Maniram Dewan Memorial Trust, Guwahati, on the 9th October, 2009, the meeting also condoled the demise of few relatives and devout admirer of Maniram Dewan, which included his great granddaughter Jyotirmoyee Borgohain, died in April, 2002 in London.

In this context it is worth mentioning that Maniram Dewan, was a personality renowned of having versatile percipience and acumen, which includes journalism also besides being a statesman of high repute, a litterateur writing religious scriptures also besides others, a historian and the last but not the least an entrepreneur of excellence per se, about which one can find in GOOGLES besides in the books on Dewan’s life. His opening of two Tea Estates in early-1840s only a few years after the British opened TEs by forming their first tea company in June 1839, that also anointing Maniram Dutta Baruah as the first ‘Dewan’ of the Co. Maniram was ahead of Jamshedji Tata, who was born in 1839(after 33 yrs, of Maniram)and Tata’s Iron & Steel Industry achieved production in 1911 (after Tata’s death in 1904) whereas Maniram sent Tea samples to London Exhibition of 1851. For delay in Customs Clearance, the Tea Samples were displayed latter as the ‘Exhibit-1851’ at the Indian & Colonial Exhibition, where a ‘Bronze Medal’ was awarded by selecting it as one of the best quality tea, as per its record available at the archive of the India House of London.

            His journalistic acumen includes reporting time to time News Bulletins on Political and Historical Events besides Social hapennings and Advisory Notes to news papers viz. 'Somachar Chandrika' (Calcutta); 'Somachar Darpan', (Serampore); Somprakash (Cengripota)and 'Orunodoy' published by the Assam Mission of the American Baptist Missionary (Sibsagarh).

            He authored : (1):'Buranji Vivek Ratna' Vol.I, Vol II, & Vol.III, of which the menascript of Vol. II (1838)  only is available and was published by Dibrugarh University in 2009. (2): 'Baro-Bhuyanr Charit' Untraced; (3): Bhakti-Pradip ( A relious Scripture) untraced; and few more of his books were also untraced.

            Memoirs written on trade & commercial commodities were: (1): 'Native Account of Washing Gold in Assam'; not only published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in July issue of 1838; (2): 'Silk Industry of Assam'; translated by Capt. F.Jenkens & submitted in the Transactions of Agricultural & Horticultural Society of India, Vol.II, 1838; (3): A 'Note on the Process of Producing Good Quality Cotton'; Ibid.(4): A 'Note on Salt Mines of Assam, etc.          

I had to re-write the missing contents again & all these I intended to signify that Rita's present Globally acclaimed journalistic zest might be because of her inheritance of the percipience of high caliber from her mother's ancestor, Maniram Dewan. Members of our Trust would be grateful to Rita if she look into the admirable genii of this great personality of Assam of early 19th century using spare-times especially trying to propagate the roles played by Maniram in the matter of discovery of the Tea of Assam Origin, renowned world-over as 'Assam Tea' by British in hilly terrains of Eastern Assam only because of guidance rendered by Maniram, which was left undisclosed by Tea Historians.

 Aroon Chandra Barooah, (Mob#=9954676926;

Working President, Maniramm Dewan Memorial Trust,

H/No:86, Bitupon Chuburi, PO Dispur, Guwahati-5.