Recounting The Art of Storytelling By Pulitzer Winner Paul Salopek

GUWAHATI: Two-time Pulitzer awardees, Scientist, National Geographic Explorer and international journalist Paul Salopek, interacted with the students of Royal School of Communication and Media on ‘The Art of Storytelling & Walking’ at Royal Global University on Tuesday. During his interactive session, he asked the students to think differently and motivated them to become a slow journalist to explore the hidden issues of the world. Priyanka Borpujari, eminent journalist, is Paul Salopek’s Indian walking partner who is chronicling the ancestral journey undertaken by our ancestors out of Africa and across the world.

Paul Salopek started his interaction with a presentation covering the major stories of current era—from climate change to technological innovation, from mass migration to cultural survival—by giving voice to the people who inhabit them every day. Paul as a slow journalist has followed the footsteps of the first men who migrated out of Africa in the Stone Age. Paul through his words, photographs, video, and audio, voices the stories told by villagers, nomads, traders, farmers, soldiers, and artists who seldom make headlines. Salopek embarked on this seven year walk in 2013 to retrace global migration history on foot beginning in Africa, in Ethiopia, across the Middle East and through Asia via Alaska and down the western edge of the Americans to the southern tip of Chile. This project is called ‘Out of Eden Walk’ funded by National Geographic Magazine, the knight Foundation and the Abundance Foundation. “Walking by definition makes you a better storyteller because you are charging”, said Paul.

Priyanka Borpujari gave a presentation on the unobserved mundane downtrodden people contributing to mainstream economy but going unnoticed and unsung. Students from various institutions like Cotton University, Gauhati University and JB Law College also participated in the interactive session and interacted with Salopek and Borpujari. The event was organized to give an in-depth knowledge to the students about how journalism can be pursued as an unobstructed passion for several years. Both were welcomed by phulamgamusa, japi and mementoes.

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