Somebody has said-

                                        “Experience is the teacher of all things”

Somebodies quotation might not fit for everyone in this world but I have seen a guy whose experience made him to work again in a place where he was an intern just few months back. I got a chance to talk few minutes with Deepak Bagri, who works in CGNetSwara currently not as an employee but as an intern. Yes, he is doing his internship twice in the same place. What do you think? Is it interesting working again in the same place where you have worked before? In this short life, people always want to experience different things. If the answer is yes, than the previous experience was must have something which made him working here again.

So, today I interviewed Deepak Bagri (an intern of CGNetSwara).

Deepak Bagri, May I know your background first?

Yes, of course. This is Deepak Bagri from Sagar, Madhya Pradesh. Currently I am doing my Master’s in Mass Communication and Journalism from Dr. Harish Singh Gour University, Sagar.

So, how did you come to know about CGNetSwara?

Okay, as I have mentioned that I am a student, one of my department faculty Dr. Vivek Jaiswal Sir had told me about CGnetSwara and also suggested to go for an internship there. So did me.

So, how did it start? I mean your journey in CGNetSwara, how have it been?

My journey started when I entered inside CGNetSwara Office in Raipur on 10^th May. At first I did not know anything about CGNetSwara just had visited it is official website cgnetswara.org .The website itself explains the foundation objective and work but the office work is totally different. Then slowly I came to know that- CGNetSwara basically works for poor, rural people in Central Gondwana. I started learning- how people record their messages through mobile and how then we work on each message, which has done by moderation team.

What type of messages used to come?

The messages usually related to basic issues like, drinking water or hand-pump problem or about road issue. People also record messages about NAREGA wages issue or about function of high schools. They mostly record when these things not working or running properly.

So, if you have any social problem you can record and send it to CGNetSwara. Is it work like this?

No, not exactly. People can sure record their problems but we also appreciate when people record songs in local language or share something about their own culture in their local dialect.

What was your work their?

Here we have different teams. I started working in moderation team, where I used to listen all the messages comes daily, then edit it properly and send it our head. Sometimes if the message is incomplete, it goes to the modenc list. Where again I used to call back the caller, try to understand the issue and make the caller understand the right process of recording the message.

I have asked many questions about your work. May I know your life in CGNetSwara?

Yes Of course. Life at CGNetSwara is more or less like family type. Here all the employees and the intern stay together inside one office cum home. We start daily work with the morning g meeting at 8:30am and it ends up with the morning breakfast. And it continues like that. Interestingly the people who work here also help in cooking and other cleaning activity. So it gives the feeling of home inside. You come to know about each other’s culture and language too. Every day is very productive which gives knowledge about tribal languages like- Gondi, Chhattisgarhi and so on.

So, can I take this as a reason of you being here again after 6 months?

Yes, sure this could be one of the reasons but apart from this, the work at CGNetSwara really inspired me a lot. It is vision to work for rural people and give them a confidence and platform to raise their voice, influenced my decision and now I am here. That experience helped me to understand what are citizen journalism, media democratization, and development communication and enlightened me with the truth current situation of our rural part of the country. So I am very grateful to CGNetSwara….

Thank You Deepak Bagri for sharing your experience with me.

Really experience sometimes teaches so many things in life…..