How often does the storyteller become the story? It’s as rare as sighting a globetrotting Formula One journalist from a cricket mad South Asian country in the giant media centre of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
And if the journalist is a woman, all the better to feed some mystique.
It was love at first sight for Niharika Ghorpade and motorsport when she, a Formula One enthusiast’s daughter, was taken by her father to a karting track several moons ago.
Although he hails from a family of car lovers, Ghorpade never had any ambitions in motorsport. Her younger brother, Parth Ghorpade, did. He subsequently became a five-time national champion in India and the first Indian to test with the Ferrari Driver Academy.
But Ghorpade is now the country’s sole full-time F1 journalist, and she has just finished her 11th season as an accredited writer at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
It is a marvellous achievement for somebody from Kolhapur (a small town in Maharashtra) to defy the odds to become one of the few women journalists writing about F1 cars, engineering marvels and spellbinding races anywhere around the world.
“Figure out what the gender dynamic is because in India, boy-girl is very confusing. We are still way, way too much of a patriarchy-driven society. You need to keep proving yourself and you have to work towards it all the time,” a nostalgic Ghorpade looked back at her difficult journey.
While Ghorpade may have made a name for herself as being an important voice from India, even today she struggles commuting every year from one city to the other in the long 24-race F1 season that has pit stops in Asia, Europe, Australia and America.
My passport goes against me; most countries - unlike the other colleagues in the media centre who are from somewhere else – they don’t need a visa.”
“The Forex is also against us. It’s expensive, very difficult to get publications to take care of your budgets, so that tends to be a battle.
“Then of course it is a very British-dominated sport. The PRs are always changing, so you have to start getting chummy with everyone all over again in the team and your (Indian) reports are less known than the standard ones they know in this sport.
“So yes, it is a very tough profession and I had two options — either I let it get to my head and continue thinking about how difficult the journey was but also against all odds, or the sunny side of the story was to try and survive and thrive. And now, it is my biggest identity, the only Indian journalist — man or woman — to cover a complete F1 season.”
And the man whose heart wells with pride watching her cover F1 races and interview stars like Max Verstappen is Karnsingh Ghorpade, her father.
“He’s 71 now, yet we were both privileged enough to sit there and talk about motorsport, the father-daughter thing of my family,” she said.
“So, it’s one of those rare households. Most families gossip at gatherings. But we debrief engines, strategy and all that,’” she laughed.
“It’s actually very normal for our house. And he’s very proud of how far I’ve got along my road to F1 journalism.”