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Ranajit Dam
Ranajit Dam is an accomplished professional with a strong educational background in journalism and law.
He pursued a Master of Science in Journalism from Columbia University in the City of New York and a Bachelor of Law in Law from Savitribai Phule Pune University.
Ranajit has held significant editorial roles in reputable organizations, currently serving as the Managing Editor for the Legal Media Group at Thomson Reuters.
Prior to his current position, he was a Senior Editor at Huawei Technologies, Managing Editor at Urbanatomy Media, Editor at Shenzhen Daily, Writer at Red Herring, and Independent Counsel at High Court, Calcutta.
His extensive experience across various media platforms and legal settings showcases his diverse skill set and expertise in journalism and law.
Highlights
Sometimes it helps to get out of your comfort zone. As I stood in front of an expensive-looking console with lots and lots of little buttons, trying to calculate the exact point in a song when I should turn its bass off and turn on the bass of the song it would soon make way for, I momentarily froze. What was I doing at an introduction to DJing workshop on a Saturday afternoon at Moonstone Bar? Midlife crisis? Delusions of potential superstardom? Or simply acute boredom? Either way, I remained statue-like while the beats thumped on, and my fellow workshop attendees – all about two decades younger than me – tried to help me out through hand gestures. Eventually our instructor Nez, known in the DJ world as DJ Nez Senja, stepped in. “Calm down,” he said. “Just count the beats with me. 1, 2, 3, 4. 2, 2, 3, 4…” Soon enough, I managed to transition between two songs for the first time in my life, and Nez was full of encouragement. “I hope to see you DJing at Marquee, soon, bro!” OK, so it’s unlikely that I will turn into a Guetta or a van Buuren any time soon, but I’m really happy I did the workshop. Apart from having a lot of fun and meeting interesting people, I also learnt a bunch of things, such as: - Almost all techno and house music are written using the same building blocks, and that’s so that DJs can mix tracks easily. The same goes for much of commercial hip hop. - Just because the songs are similar, it doesn’t mean the mixing process is easy. Even before you get into adding your creative flourishes, a lot of skills (and practice!) are needed just to understand song tempos and how two tracks blend together. - As a result, I have a newfound respect for DJs who can mix music live in front of hundreds or thousands of people. It’s not just the hard work; I’m absolutely in awe of the amount of focus needed to do just a one-hour set. - You’ll never find out just how fun things are until you go in and try them. Remember, there's only person who thinks about how ludicrous you seem, and that person is you. Now all I need to do is think of a DJ name. Any ideas?

