Mera Khazana… The 1980s — Where My Journalistic Journey Began…by Baljit Balli
The 1980s hold a special place in my memories. They were the years when my journalistic journey was taking shape—years of struggle, excitement, learning and, above all, the sheer joy of seeing my byline in print.
I recently came across an old identity card while going through some of my records. It was issued by Hindustan Samachar News Agency in 1980. I had been meaning to share it anyway, and then I heard that Facebook was inviting people to share photographs and memories from the 1980s. So, here was the perfect opportunity.
Perhaps Meta is building its AI database by going back to the memories and photographs of that era!
The card carries the signature of Sutantarsheel, who was then Punjab in-charge of Hindustan Samachar and was based at its Jalandhar office. In Chandigarh, the agency was headed by Gyan Inder Bhardwaj.
I owe my introduction to Sutantarsheel to Roshan Singh Soch, a senior and extremely active journalist from Bathinda. He introduced me to him and helped me get this identity card.
That was how press cards looked in those days—simple, functional and carrying far more meaning for a young journalist than their appearance might suggest today.
The story of Hindustan Samachar itself was closely linked with one of the most extraordinary periods in India's history. When the Emergency was imposed in 1975, the Indira Gandhi government merged the country's major news agencies into a single organisation, which was named Hindustan Samachar.
After the Emergency ended, agencies such as PTI and UNI regained their independent identities. Hindustan Samachar, however, continued as a separate news agency.
By then, I was already working as its correspondent, while also contributing to Jagbani, the Patiala-based daily Ranjit, and a couple of other newspapers.
Hindustan Samachar had a wide reach in those days. Newspapers in Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu subscribed to its service. A story that I reported from Rampura Phul could find its way into six or seven newspapers at the same time. For a young journalist, there could hardly be a greater thrill.
And, of course, it made me quite a name in the area!
Later, when I became the Rampura Phul correspondent of Punjabi Tribune, I gave up my assignments with the other publications and concentrated on my new responsibility.
In 1982, I spent a few months working as a Sub-Editor on the Jagbani desk in Jalandhar. But Chandigarh was always my destination. My wife was employed with the Haryana Government there, and I wanted to move to Chandigarh and build my journalistic career from the Capital City.
As luck would have it, a vacancy for a Punjabi Sub-Editor opened up at the Chandigarh office of Hindustan Samachar. I got the opportunity and joined the agency.
I remained there for more than a year and a half.
Those were turbulent times. I was working at Hindustan Samachar when Operation Blue Star took place. Chandigarh was under curfew, but journalism did not stop. Carrying a curfew pass, I would ride my bicycle to the agency's office to do my job.
Gyan Inder Bhardwaj was in charge at the time. He was a committed RSS worker, but beyond his political and organisational affiliations, I remember him as a thorough professional, very decent, composed and good-hearted person.
Among the senior journalists there was Daya Ram, an altogether different kind of personality—an eccentric and rather unpredictable character whom I remember vividly even today.Maya Ram was our teleprinter operator.
The agency was not in a very healthy financial condition. If my memory serves me right, my monthly salary was around Rs 550. And even that salary had remained unpaid for nearly a year to a year and a quarter.
Yet, somehow, we carried on because my wife was goverment employee.I also used to do translation work to earn some money.
The technology of news gathering and distribution in those days was very different from what we take for granted today. Hindustan Samachar transmitted its Hindi news to newspapers across the region through teleprinters.
Punjabi was another story altogether.
The agency did not even have a Punjabi typewriter, let alone a Punjabi teleprinter.
So I would take the Hindi news, translate it into Punjabi, prepare handwritten news packets and send them to the Punjabi Tribune by hand through a massenger. The Tribune Group was also a subscriber to the agency's news service.
Today, when news travels across the world in seconds through smartphones and social media, it is difficult to imagine a time when a journalist would translate news by hand and physically send a handwritten packet to a newspaper. But that was our world.
And, strangely enough, I remember those days with enormous affection.
The modest salary, delayed payments, bicycles, curfew passes, teleprinters, handwritten news packets and the excitement of seeing one's stories appear in newspapers—all of it became part of my journalistic apprenticeship.
Looking back after all these years, that period remains one of the most unforgettable chapters of my life as a journalist.
September 12, 2026
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-1783778600610-1789211323807.jpg "Baljit Balli")
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Baljit Balli, Editor-in-Chief, Babushahi News Network
tirshinazar@gmail.com
Phone No. : +91-9915177722
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