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"When an antique clock breaks ... a clock that's been telling time for 200 or 300 years ... fixing it can be a real puzzle." This is how the podcast S-Town begins, and what follows is a journey into one of the most intriguing and memorable stories from Serial and This American Life.
I've replayed the first 1:45 minutes of that episode many times now. And boy, isn't that beautiful writing! I've set out to achieve just that — to tell captivating stories through voices that help us appreciate that our world is a little more fascinating, a little more puzzling, and a little more fun than we think it is.
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I'm a Vancouver-based journalist and a graduate from the University of British Columbia. I now make podcasts with Pacific Content. And prior to this, I was an Associate Producer at CBC Radio, Canada's public broadcaster.
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My works have appeared in CBC, NBC Nightly News, Global Reporting Program and Gulf News. My radio stories have appeared in CBC Radio's current affairs shows The Early Edition and On The Coast, and on UBC's community radio CiTR.
I was a fellow at the Global Reporting Centre and TRT World, Turkey's public broadcaster in the English language. I was also CBC Vancouver's Summer News Scholar in 2019.
A podcast I produced as part of a school assignment won CBC's Alexis Mazurin Award for the best radio story by a student.
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My passion lies in international stories, especially global events that resonate with diaspora communities in Vancouver and beyond. My personal mission is to explore stories that reflect the diversity of Canada — to tell those stories through voices and communities that have made Canada their home, and have helped make Canada what it is today. This mission stems from my own third-culture identity in this hyper-globalized world — I'm from India, grew up in Dubai and I'm still trying to figure out where home really is. My roots, I tell myself, come from my rootlessness.
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Thank you for joining my ride! (But I'm not your Uber driver. At least not yet.)
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The pronouncer for my name is [Reh-muh-TOO-la] [Shake]. Don't sweat if you don't get it right — my parents don't pronounce it correctly too. :)
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Image credits:
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Home page: By Maggie Macpherson. (Nobody does photo-led profile pieces better than her in Vancouver.)
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About Me: By Ben Nelms. (A genius eye who captures Vancouver's quirky and serendipitous moments.)
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Header and background: Artwork by AyÅŸegulnur Kabaca. The original art is by Sarah Glidden and it appears in her graphic novel 'Rolling Blackouts'. The image shows a Zoom H4 audio recorder, a dictaphone, earphones, pen and a notebook — essentially an audio journalist's toolbox.
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