"My name is Jyotirmoy Nipendra Kumar Dey, and I want to learn crime reporting from you": A muscular, hulk of a man rattled off, when he first met me in the busy newsroom of Indian Express in Nariman Point, in the winter of 1996. Recruited by the then editor of the Express Newsline, city supplement of Indian Express, Saisuresh Sivaswamy, this man looked nothing like the jhola-wielding scribes of our time.

He looked extremely fit, well built, muscular, strong, having washboard abs, he could have easily passed off as a commando or army man. I wondered why a man like him wanted to do journalism and most importantly, mentor under someone who was almost 15 years his junior. Though I was grounded in crime reporting, covering four vast regions — Mumbai, Thane, Thane rural and Navi Mumbai — in the city, I felt a little awkward about taking an older person under my wings. Nonetheless, we desperately needed help on the team, and so, I said yes to him, not knowing that I was actually befriending a future phenomenon.