Kay Benedict
Kay Benedict has been a journalist for 27 years, working for newspapers and magazines across India. He is currently the Associate Editor of India's "Mail Today", a subsidiary of the London-based Daily Mail.
Benedict got into journalism due to the influence of an uncle he met for the first time after Benedict's mother died suddenly, prompting him to run away from home. Alone and thousands of kilometers from home in the city of Shimla, his paternal uncle took Benedict under his wing.
The unnamed uncle had just retired as vice chancellor of Jodhpur University. His uncle was a highly educated man and a published author, and he pushed Benedict to work hard, to master the English language, and especially to improve his writing.
"He was not one to tolerate sloppy writing," Benedict told The Media Project.
"My uncle used to send me back my letters with all the mistakes duly marked with red ink covering the letter, which in effect said that I was not working hard enough to improve
my English."
The pressure worked. Those admonitions to excellence stayed with Benedict long after his uncle's death.
"I took it as a challenge," Benedict said. "And within a couple of years I was able to get my first article printed in a newspaper."
