Da, Durg and Dark Days

Jin Ladakiyon Ki Jitni Der Se Shadi Hoti Hai Woh Utani Hi Badi Bindi Lagati Hai, Utani Hi Gahari Mang Bharati Hai (The more late the girls are married, the bigger the bindi on the forehead, the deeper the vermillion in the parting of their hair).

This was Raj Narayan Mishra’s famous observation in his immensely popular weekly column ‘Dhumta Hua Aina (roving mirror) in Desh Bandhu, the newspaper from Raipur which is well past its glorious days now. This particular column had probably appeared in mid seventies, though I’m not very sure. For, I had not read the column, only heard about the widely talked out observation from others.

Mishra had produced a myriad such catchy comments from his prolific pen. Whatever the issues—political, social, economic, familial or civic—Mishra was adorably notorious for cheeky comments. Readers would love his column more for this cheekiness than the issues it dealt with.

The column was unsparing of people who mattered- big and small-- but its beauty was that none would get provoked enough to vent ire. That way, ‘Da’ was Ajat Shatru, as Lalil Surjan rightly pointed out in his homage to Raj Narayan Mishra in a column in Desh Bandhu last month.          

Raj Narayan Mishra, who was affectionately addressed as ‘Da’, died last month at the ripe age of 80. He had earned popularity as journalist while working in Desh Bandhu for over three decades. Originally from Uttar Pradesh, Da shifted from Jabalpur to Raipur in early sixties and settled there.

I spent some turbulent months in 1989 with Da in Durg while we were together working for Amar Kiran, a newspaper launched by an upstart Sardarji in the hope of making quick money through means more foul than fair. Da had a very hard time salvaging his reputation he had built over three decades in Desh Bandhu.

At times he looked pathetic, especially when drunk. I would wonder whether to pity or get angry at his helplessness. The Sardar had hired him as editor and put his in his own hotel. The Sardar’s was a rag- to-riche story in iron trade. He had minted money through contracts and contacts in the Bhilai Steel Plant. He was a semi-literate, impatient, eccentric nouveau riche who was absurdly keen to earn respectability through owning a newspaper.

Da, who had quit Desh Bandhu, proved an easy and potentially lucrative catch for the Sardar. Da too had no better option in the given situation.

A week after Da joining the paper, I contacted him from Bhopal. Da was my admirer. Or, so he would let me feel. He seemed particularly charmed by my style of interviewing and profiling of important people in the ‘Saptahik Desh Bandhu’, the weekly from Bhopal I was working in. We had struck closeness in Satna (1985) and later Jabalpur.

I and Da were in the launching team of Satna edition of Desh Bandhu. Da had come from Raipur to guide the paper, though we had late Shyam Sundar Sharma as editor. Sharmaji, a retired additional director in the state’s public relation department, owed his post to his proximity to Mayaram Surjan (Babuji). He was affable, harmless and master at guffawing at the drop of the hat. But editor’s job required more than that. Sharmaji had trouble shedding his PRO job he had moulded himself into over three decades of service in the MP government.

We were appalled when in one of his editorials he fawningly wrote about inauguration of some project by ‘Shri Arjun Singh ke Kar Kamalon dwara’.

So, Lalitji had valid concern that the fledging Satna edition needed professional hands to guide. He sent two of Desh Bandhu’s stalwarts –Satyen Gumashta and Raj Narayan Mishra—from Raipur one after the other. Both had different expertise—Gumashta ji was a veteran on the desk job, Da’s forte was, of course, rural reporting. He had the credit of putting rural reporting in Chhattisgarh region (it was not state then) on national map.

Da was the first Statesman rural reporting award recipient for Desh Bandhu in sixties. Having blazed the trail, Da delightfully witnessed a dozen Statesman awards coming to his paper in the subsequent years.

We instantly struck friendship in Satna. Yes, friendship is the right word. For, Da was never officious or condescending to his colleagues, no matter the age difference. The bonding got further cemented in Jabalpur, partly through boozing, when he was ‘shunted’ from Raipur for a while. He vainly tried to recreate his Raipur magic in Jabalpur eveninger. Frustrated, Da kept a low profile and whiled his time mostly boozing.

Although we did not maintain contacts, Da would some time call from Raipur to praise my stories in Saptahik Deshbandhu. The tie of mutual admiration, endured through years, prompted me to ask Da if he would like to appoint me as Bhopal correspondent of Amar Kiran. He was more than eager to have me in. That was the time Da had the blank cheque from the Sardar.

When I went to Durg, the Sardar requested if I could stay back for a couple of months to help launch the paper. I readily agreed. He put me with Da and another colleague from Jabalpur TIllu Verma (now a lawyer in Bilaspur) in his hotel.

Despite the Sardar’s initial extravagance and enthusiasm, I could sense something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Da betrayed his unease in apparent disinterest in work. Sardar’s son and two nephews, all three spoiled brats, would use Da’s room like an open bar.

Somehow, the paper got going. Before too long, the Sardar started showing his true colour. One day I learnt from our Bhilai correspondent that he brought a briefcase from a liquor baron for the Sardar in lieu of not publishing a report. It was a clear blackmail. Da knew it though he was not a party in it.

Barely a week later, a blackmailer hack of Durg wrote some nasty piece about the Sardar. A stung Sardar asked Da to cook up a bizarre story about the hack’s wife’s ‘infidelity’ and publish in the paper. For someone who had earned his name for strong socialist views and championing causes of the downtrodden, Da’s acute predicament in the face of the Sardar’s order was indescribable. But he acquiesced in and wrote nastier piece than was published about the Sardar.

It was a vulgar piece of which even a rank blackmailer would be ashamed of. Such was the time we endured in Durg.

Sardar hated Da and made no bones about it. He hated me too but was diplomatic about it for he ( mistakenly) thought I was quite influential journalist in Bhopal who must not be antagonized.

Not even for a day, Da could exercise his editor authority in the paper with the kind of aplomb he was expected. Those were horrible days. One day Tillu Verma, who was made city chief, printed an utterly absurd story about a house haunted by ghosts. Such superstitious stories would be hard to find even in Manohar Kahaniyan. But Da tolerated because the Sardar had liked it.

There are so many things about the nightmare that Amar Kiran to me and Da proved. Only respite for me was a girl friend about which I will never write in details. For Da, there was no respite except his drinks. He had stopped discriminating between day and night for drinks in those days.