We have dreams, what you want to be, they change with various phases of life, and the thing is to pick up the good parts about the dream you had and then give in to the adventure part and move on without looking back.

Three years ago I had a dream to begin making video documentaries, get in to photo journalism create a revolution; write for the Indian Express (A newspaper known for its revolutionary touch.) As for Bhavika, she being a cricket fan wanted to be a sports reporter with her major focus being cricket.

That’s how we ended up meeting each other at the Bombay College of Journalism, (K C College Churchgate) I heard that BCJ (Bombay College of Journalism) offered a class on video documentary. Unfortunately after my second video documentary class majority of the people in the class did not like professor Tekwani, and voted him out.

I loved his blunt outlook towards life; the others just didn’t get what he was talking about. I liked a few lecturers and listened keenly to them, that course was around 21% worth the Rs.21,000 I spent on it. I wonder how much they sell it for now.

It helped both of us get jobs, the jobs helped us gather experience, the experience helped us write some breaking stories, the stories helped us move on to the blog.

A lot of my friends tried to get into newspapers, television some got in, some of them dint get it and a number of them got in and dropped out.

The reasons why we believe people dropped out are could be numerous, but the main reason is there is nothing like true Journalism alive, or at least in all the places we looked. We did look far and wide.

The Times of India:
The paper I grew up reading, thought it was a brilliant paper. It still is to the billions of people who pay for 80% advertisements and 20% content. The paper is a farce, though at times they do make the Sacred Space a good read for my mother! This is a paper that goes with the flow, fed directly by the system to mass control the population.

The Indian Express:

Valuable content, but when it comes to ethics. Let me tell you how most of the articles are churned out by this paper. The Indian Express gets 40 – 60 interns and tells them that some of them will be selected.

For months together these interns work on the pretext of being selected put in their hard work and to top that, the Indian Express makes them pay for the travel required to write a story. They do not pay them while they work with them, so at lest 60% of their content is generated free of cost.

Two sides of the same coin; I do not know which one of them is worse. Realizing that journalism is not different from any other industry, I got out of it.

Gonzo Journalism
Fractal Enlightenment started off, giving both of us a chance to do what we like doing, writing, about well, its a mixture of if you have been reading you know what I am talking about, we cover a wide variety of topics.

This brings me to what i actually wanted to talk about! Gonzo Journalism!

Hunter S Thompson, is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting which blurs distinctions between author and subject, fiction and nonfiction.

If you have watched the movie Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, Johnny Depp, plays Raoul Duke, who is Hunter in reality. Hunter, was the author of the novel Fear and Loathing!

The book is a first-person account by Raoul who is a journalist on a trip to Las Vegas with Dr. Gonzo, his 300-pound Samoan attorney, to cover a narcotics officers' convention and a race. During the trip, Duke and his lawyer become sidetracked by a search for the American dream, with the aid of copious amounts of alcohol, LSD, ether, adrenochrome, mescaline, cocaine, marijuana and other drugs.

Its a must watch to learn how various drugs act on the human body as Hunter consumes all of them and Johnny Depp, will just blow you apart!

Depp as Hunter

Depp lived with Thompson for four months, doing research for the role as well as studying Thompson's habits and mannerisms. Depp even traded his car for Thompson's red Chevrolet Caprice convertible, known to fans as The Great Red Shark, and drove it around California during his preparation for the role.Many of the costumes that Depp wears in the film are actually reproductions of genuine pieces that Depp borrowed from Thompson, and Thompson himself shaved Depp's head to match his own natural male pattern baldness. Other props, such as Duke's cigarette filter, shirts, hats and IDs, belonged to Thompson.

Thompson died at 5:42 p.m. on February 20, 2005, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He was 67 years old.

What family and police describe as a suicide note was delivered to his wife 4 days before his death and later published by Rolling Stone Magazine.

Entitled "Football Season Is Over", it read: "No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt"

We will have a favorite movie section coming up asap where we will have more on Fear and Loathing! So keep coming back for our fresh Gonzo articles!

More on Gonzo Journalism!

Image Source:

Hunter Thompson