Some myths about journalism

 This blog is born out of a lengthy conversation on phone I had with an old friend a few hours ago.

Apart from numerous other things he wanted to know if I have ‘conquered’ Indore, now that I am heading an English newspaper.

He assumed that by now all ministers, the collector, the commissioner, the IGP and other officers in Indore must have become my friends. I disappointed him.

Irritated, he was also curious to know whether I am as Chutiya as ever because I have not been able to buy a house. I told him he is right.

He did not sound impressed by my new hobbies for music and attempt at book writing. “ How you guys squeeze out time for stuff like that ? he wondered. The friend is senior journalist himself and quite resourceful one.  

The conservation made me ponder about myths in journalism that even senior journalists believe to be true.  I thought I should write and analyse some of them. Thirty two years.. seven cities including two metros … 13 newspapers ….two languages.

I am tempted to believe this much experience reasonably qualifies me to form an opinion about what are myths in journalism.

I am picking up some myths -- or what I think are  myths—in journalism 

Fabulous contacts—This is the most specious myth which every mind , whether of a journalist like my friend or a layman, must be disabused of.

Contacts in journalism are inversely proportional to serious reporting. The more the contacts, the less the reporting.

Contacts are a tool , not an asset to flaunt, in journalism. When PR instinct gets the better of the journalist in him, a journalist is inexorably on the downhill journey to short cut success. 

Dinners with bureaucrats, junkets with ministers, socializing with other influential people in the society are a sure recipe for his moral corruption and intellectual bankruptcy unless  the journalist keeps reminding himself  of his fundamental job.

But this becomes increasingly tougher as the aspiration for high life style overwhelms his sense of impartiality. He can’t write in glowing terms about all those he is obliged by all the time. He can’t write negative about them either, having allowed his conscience to be burdened with friendships.

Politicians and bureaucrats are more a false source of delusion of grandeur than real source of news. They manipulate the journalist for their own vested interests until he is reduced to their docile doormat.

A journalist who talks straight to the bureaucrats or politicians with a story in mind gets their quotes as well as respect.    

Target group

This is another myth often sought to be perpetuated by semiliterate and mediocre editors who rose up the ladder with shenanigans and sycophancy.

A good story is a good story is a good story. It makes no difference which class of people it is written about. It is a ludicrous fallacy that story about a missing Labrador dog of a rich industrialist will be read more than suicides by farmers in an English newspaper.

A good story needs a combination of factors to be received well by the reader.

Contextually  in the given time, well prepared draft, proper quotations, human faces in the story, statistics well explained, attractive headline, tight editing etc are the basic ingredients that go into making a story worth reading.

These basic inputs can enliven any subject, irrespective of class they are written about. Nothing is down market or up market  in journalism. It is all about marketability of the reports in positive sense.  

Nipta Diya ( Made him bite the dust) —

Many journalists are constantly on the high , believing what they write hugely resonates in the corridors of power. Some pieces may annoy one set of people and please another set of people, but it is preposterous for a journalist to assume that his targets lose sleep because of his reporting.

I have had too many such beguilingly naïve journalist  friends who would ask me to wait for the next day for the government of the day to collapse. Why ? Because, their story in the print is about to detonate the next morning as a Hydrogen bomb on the target.            

..BUT we are not Shakespeare

Most journalists proffer this kind of disingenuous, if  facetious, argument to defend their aversion to books. No body expects a journalist to be a bookworm. But no body expects a journalist to be bookless – in mind and at home--either.

One of the most self-defeating myths in journalism is that  a reporter need not be proficient in writing.

His job, the argument goes, is to collate facts in a simple language comprehensible to the dumbest of the readers. It is enough that he has elementary knowledge of the language he is writing in.

Since a majority of editors themselves are intellectually-challenged they can not be expected to hold torch to their colleagues.

When juniors see that a man can get to the highest possible position in a newspaper bandying about the obnoxious idea of ‘’…but we don’t need to be Shakespeare’, they see enough ground to rationalize their own apathy to reading.

As a result, we  have a growing crop of  young journalists who don’t read their own edited copies, forget the newspaper they work in.

       

Maudlin over city

This is one myth even good and rational journalists  are seen swayed by. ‘Oh my god, what has my city come to ?’ This love-your-city  syndrome in reporting is discernible ad nauseam  when some real or perceived moral, social or administrative danger looms large on the city the journalist is working in. 

Copious tears are shed in reporting with nostalgic quotes from old denizens.

Objectivity becomes a major casualty in sentimental reporting about city issues.

Swayed by the missionary zeal they think they must acquire to take up the city’s  causes, reporters make themselves a laughing stock.

Readers are not impressed by the reporters’ Messianic stance or pandering to baser reactionary ,parochial instincts in them.

Such stories might titillate some people for some time but, in the final analysis, objective and dispassionate views prevail.

       

English versus Hindi

Having worked in English and Hindi newspapers—five and eight respectively—I can say with fair degree of confidence that no such divide exists. Fools are fools in both the languages as much as wise are wise.

I would bemusedly soak up funny remarks from journalists in English papers about how their readership stratum is superior to that of their Hindi counterparts and, therefore, by extension, they are superior to their Hindi counterparts.

And , more often than not, such comments would come from the journalists who had studied in Hindi schools. Most of them strayed in English papers by default rather than by design.

   

Deriding well known journalists

It is not uncommon to hear in journalist fraternity that top notch journalists in metros owe their high position to a combination of factors, most important being their birth. The fallacy is that all these Pranay Roys, Vir Sanghvis, Vinod Mehtas, Barkha Dutts, Rajdeep Sardesais, Arnab Goswamis, Shekhar Guptas  are average people but fortunate to have been sired by influential parents.

Nothing can be far from the truth. The truth is these journalists have made their mark due to high professionalism, hard work, astounding ability to chew and throw information from all walks of life on an hourly basis. I have a lot of respect for them.

But the myth in small towns endures that big journalists are the ones who are saleable, without much intellectual prowess and without insight of real issues of “ real India”.    

Nandu, a sufi paanwalla

Nandu does chuna –Kattha coating on Paan with practised delicacy. His underarm balancing of the Pan –making ensures that the precariously perched portable TV atop a small raised wooden platform remains unbroken. The TV is barely a foot away from Nandu’s elbowroom in the small kiosk on the entrance of the Press Complex in Indore.  

Had Nandu been like many vigorous paan makers of Jabalpur, the TV set would have gone to pieces long back.

A score of Jabalpur Paan makers do the coating with their whole body shaking in an almost violent rhythm as though possessed by some evil spirit. It is quite a feast to eyes to watch them coating-rolling paan, regaling customers with jokes and pleasantries, keeping them abreast of their friends’ comings and goings and still not missing any ingredients strewn all over the shops for the finished Paan. Such deftness of the hands is indeed a treat to watch.  

Nandu, in contrast, is too cool for Jabalpur paan trade.  He is almost a Sufi saint. Even if Barrack Obama were to ask for a Paan, Nandu’s enchanted eyes would not tear off the TV set on the front, belting out Bhajans, old Hindi songs, stand- up comedies or any thing worth his watching. 

And he is quite catholic in his taste. One moment it is Discovery channel, another Aastha channel. In between his keeps switching channels from Hindi movies to songs. News channels he abhors. He needs channels he can synchronize his nervous energy with—for shaking head, humming with songs and leisurely attending to customers simultaneously.

I watch him bemusedly every time I visit his shop and his immersion is the self gives me more kick than the Zarda wala pan he sells to me at Rs 5 a piece.  

The adorable man, invariably in dirty Baniyan and crumpled pyjama, reminds me of characters from       

Shri Lal Shukla’s classic novel Raag Darbari.

He never disagrees with his customers, no matter the topics. If some one decries growing crime graph in Indore, Nandu nods like a spring doll, occasionally offering his supportive comments.

He can be biggest votary of Indore police next moment if the next customer sounded quite impressed with law and order in Indore.

For college students, he is a jolly friend. He gladly lets them flock the kiosk , unmindful of the crowd’s negative impact on his clientele.

He is too irresistible not to write about, primarily because he bears steaks of bumpkin a la Dilip Matthar of Jabalpur I have already written about.

However, Nandu, unlike Dilip Matthar, is not a small time criminal whose stupid idea of excluding a police officer’s mother from  his drunken inventory of invectives brutally boomeranged. I have written a blog on the whole episode earlier.   

Few men I have seen are so pleased with self as Nandu. He laughs rapturously when you don’t suspect any comic situation, leave alone joke, around. He hums with film songs unselfconsciously , letting impatient customers to wait. He talks what he thinks is funny and roars in laughter on it, not minding how others are reacting.

He is a little swarthy in look with swollen eyes and disheveled hair.

I have grown quite fond of Nandu due to his devil-may –care attitude. Such attitude is not easy to imbibe. It comes naturally.  

   

Woh Meharban Kal Ho Na Ho

Finally, I bought a harmonium today. This is two months after I began learning Dhrupad. Harmonium is not used in Dhrupad. It is not classical musical instrument but my Guru advised me to buy one because he expects me to learn light music too. Next week I will buy a Tanpura, the real and proper instrument for Dhrupad.

In buying harmonium  I was happier than when I bought the most expensive item in my life—my car; a house is still a (pipe) dream. A long deferred personal music journey picked a definite momentum with Sadhna at home today. Oh! What a feeling!

My guru and Dhrupad exponent Manoj Saraf himself took me in his car to Rajwada to buy the harmonium. Manoj is a disciple of Ustad Fariduddin Dagar and with his wife Sulabha makes the only Dhrupad singing couple in India. His confidence in my ability to learn music fast is really a humbling experience to me.

Next month, I plan to start learning Urdu. My old friend Javed Alam , a journalist in Nai Dunia, will be my teacher. I have seen his ability as Urdu teacher. He taught Avinash Duttt Garg ( BBC) and Hartosh Singh Bal ( political editor, OPEN) Urdu without formal lessons, over cups of coffees and chatting in the Indian Coffee House in Bhopal seven years ago. Now , it is my turn to be benefited from his amazing skills.

Indore is beginning to prove quite a learning experience. So many things are at hand to fill the void caused due to separation from the family.

Rigrous gym in the morning, then music class, then Herbalife shake at health club, then cleaning the house and self, then bath, then cooking, then library, then reading at home and then writing the two fictions I had planned a decade ago.  

The time to go to the office ( 4pm) never felt quicker. Once in the office, it nose to the grindstone till 12. 30 am, except for two outings—one for evening walk and breakfast and the other for dinner.   

Talking about writing, I am feeling adequately motivated to resume writing a fiction on the circumstance surrounding rise and fall ( suicide?) by my friend Sarla Mishra, a feisty Congress leader who was found 70% burnt in her house under mysterious circumstance in February, 1997. The other book is rather hazy. Its contours are still to emerge.         

         With all these, I hope my old age will not be an intolerable  boredom. When the severely punished eyes due to reading will begin to lose sight, music will be there to support.

Of course this will happen at least 25 years hence. Till then, Jo Hai Yanha Har Pal Jiyo, Who Mehraban Kal Ho Na Ho.   

Dr Arun Kumar, Jabalpur, Hitavad

Dr Arun Kumar, Jabalpur, Hitavad

Away from family, Indore affords ample time for introspection and retrospection to fill the vast solitude. Today as I remembered how I strayed in journalism in 1980, Dr Arun Kumar persistently flashed on the mind. He is my first Guru in journalism (and probably the only Guru if you think Guru is someone you learn anything useful from).

He was not a journalist though. Dr Arun Kumar was a lecturer in GS Commerce College, Jabalpur. He joined the launching team of Maharshi Mahesh Yogi-owned newspaper ‘Hitavad’ (Hindi) as part time journalist. He had had a brief stint as journalist in Banaras and that eminently qualified him to join the editorial team.

We had an amazing assortment of talented and somewhat eccentric youths in the editorial team. We had an unorthodox MBBS  ( Dr Yogendra Shrivastava), an exceptional theatre artiste (Arun Pandey), a multitasking bundle of energy (Brij Bhushan Shakargayen, photographer), perpetually angst-filled NGO activist (Rajesh Nayak), a veritable encyclopedic of Jabalpur (Shailesh Mishra, Guddu) to name but a few.

I joined the paper accidentally because I happened to be Arun Pandey’s friend and also because I could write well. Beyond that, I had neither appetite nor aptitude for journalism. Many of us owed our entry in Hitavad to Gyanranjan, the editor of Pahal, who was unannounced editorial adviser to the paper.

Gyanji chose to associate himself with the newspaper on request of Anand Shrivastava, Maharshi’s nephew, whose stars in the multi-billion spiritual-commercial organization shone brightest at that time. Anand was Gyanji’s student in the GS College.     

Dr Arun Kumar and Rajiv Shukla were guest editors, so to say. Like Dr Arun Kumar, Rajiv too had some working experience in a newspaper in Banaras. He had done some course in journalism. Rajiv was then programme officer in Agriculture University. He later joined All India Radio and rose up the ladder fast due to competence and erudition. Both Arun Kumar and Rajiv were voracious readers of Hindi and English literature. Dr Arun Kumar was witty and Rajiv humorous ( sometimes black and wry humour) .

I was immensely taken in by their talents. Commonality of reading literature cemented friendships among us in no time. Dr Yogendra Shrivastava, who happened to be Dr Arun Kumar’s neighbour, also shared our reading traits-- and worldview, to a great extent. So, we were all a small debating society for a while.    

Rajiv was almost my peer while Dr Arun Kumar must have been seven-eight years older to us.

What I found most fascinating about Dr Arun Kumar was his inimitable gift to make most difficult things look simple. Being rookies, we would be too excited on the workplace to make a rational selection of news. The overexcitement poorly reflected in our reporting skills as well.

Verbiage is a common ill that afflicts reporting of beginners in journalism. We were, of course, no exception, though I fared little better than most others on this count.

Dr Arun Kumar would, in his characteristic wit, explain the virtues of simplicity in reporting or headlining. Never ever he sounded condescending in explaining basics of journalism. Rajiv too was a great help in our formative days.

Not only in journalism, in other aspects of life too  Dr Arun Kumar’s facility to simplify matters would astound me.  GM Muktibodh was all the rage in those days among Marxist youths. Most critics I heard or read would hold forth on Muktibodh’s poetry sounded either demagogue or esoteric or, simply put, nonsense.

Dr Arun Kumar helped me understand Muktibodh in a remarkably simple language. That helped me go through the  oeuvre of the great poet in six volumes with the kind of confidence I had never experienced before. The same held true for other writers as well.

Dr Arun Kumar was not a critic; he was a teacher. His elder brother Dr Shirish Kumar was critic and professor in Hindi literature in RDVV. Both the brothers could not have been more different in approach to, at least, literature.

Dr Arun was cousin of Gyanranjan and both were colleagues in the GS College. I sensed a healthy respect for each other in them.  

Deconstruction of poetry, persons and polemics with reasonable dose of witticism was Dr Arun Kumar’s forte. The uncluttered analysis would come to him naturally, without efforts. He was exceptionally good at laughing at himself and that, in my view, must have contributed a great deal in making Dr Arun Kumar what he was.  He lived an austere life, without vehicle, in simple house with an adorable wife.

Although we used to laugh at whole range of people, I never discerned any rancour in the humour. I don’t know where Dr Arun Kumar is now. Wherever he is, I wish he knew how much I still respect him.     

    

      

             

Kaka ( Naveen Choubey) and FDI in retail

Kaka ( Naveen Choubey) and FDI in retail

Kaka was not a retail trader whose fate was the core concern in the FDI debate in the parliament. But he was an intrinsic part of what we call mom and pop stores. Kaka was an adorable nuisance who had arrogated himself the task of gratuitously keeping an eye on mobile vegetable venders, local grocery shoppers, gossipmongers at Paan shops, Bhajan singers and Ganja addicts in local temples, potential and real love affairs and sundry happenings in the Mohalla. He had a vantage point, mostly a tree shed, from where he would watch all the goings-on in the vicinity, sitting on a rope-woven cot.  

He was generous in offering unsolicited advices to any one who cared to listen (or even did not care to listen). The advices had a fantastic range. He could be seen railing against the youths for destroying culture. His captive audience on save- culture speeches would mostly be unemployed youths going to or coming from nearby Paan kiosks to while away time.

Next moment Kaka could be seen lamenting on venality in the society. This time, he had Sharmaji ( a Babu in MPEB) or Verma Ji ( a postman) or Shrivastava ji (a food inspector) or any one like them as trapped listeners.

By the time, office goers would start on bicycle for offices, youths for colleges and children for schools, Kaka had read local and national news in the newspapers he had brought with him on the vantage point many times over. His itch to share special comments was irrepressible.

The motley neighbourhood crowds of children, youth, servicemen, housewives, grocers, venders, bicycle-repairers, quacks or vagabonds  of the Mohalla had no choice but to surrender to the Kaka’s tirade against the society as a whole. “ Hamare Zamane Main” would be his refrain in most of the talks.    

But how the Kaka was intrinsic part of the retail trade culture? Well, Kaka was not always a cynical old man fulminating on this or that issue. He would help housewives get grocery items quickly by sending some youths in the surrounding on errands to retail shops.

He could also be an arbiter in disputes between vegetable venders and housewives on money transactions. He was, in many ways, conscience keeper of the Mohalla.

Much as the youth and children might make him butt of jokes, much as housewives might snigger at his interventionist streaks, much as office-goers might scoff at his lament on corruption, the Kaka was part and parcel of the Mohalla culture. His absence would be sorely missed.

So, who was Kaka? He was not just one individual. Kaka was a character born out of close-knit Mohalla culture in small cities and Kasbas. He could be seen in old parts of big cities like Bhopal, Jabalpur or Indore as well. 

Kaka was essentially a lower middle class old man who had a lot of time to release his nervous energy on subjects ranging from local to international.

He could be a retired postman/ schoolteacher or a small time trader. Although irascible, Kaka was not crooked. He would be the first to help make preparations for funeral in neighbourhood. In marriage functions too, he would be among the most enthusiastic hosts, never mind if he was invited indeed.  

That Kaka is now an engendered species. The post-liberalisation culture of pizza/Berger and malls has swallowed him.      

If he still lives in his eloquent best, it is in ‘Nithalle Ki Diary’. The play by Vivechana theatre group of Jabalpur is arguably the most staged Hindi play in MP.

Director Arun Pandey conceived and scripted the play based on satirical stories of great satirist Harishankar Parsai more than two decades ago. Since then ‘Nithalle Ki Diary’ remains flagship production of Vivechana.

Kaka is the sheet anchor of several stories strung together in the play.

My one of the best friends Naveen Choubey essays the Kaka’s role. Naveen has immortalized the character. He had taken the accent for Kaka from our common friend late Mahesh Bajpeyi.

The slow and biting Bundelkhandi accent of Mahesh Bajpeyi suited Kaka well. Naveen internalized the character on stage so perfectly that even for the audience absolutely ignorant of Bundelkhandi the sheer force of dialogue delivery accompanied by quaint mannerism would delight them. No wonder then the play has been hit across India.

   

                    

Weak foundation of English journalism ( 3)

The launching of the HT

The launch of Hindustan Times was preceded by almost a decade- long rumours about this or that national English daily coming to the MP’s capital soon. The rumours kept the hopefuls for change hopeful.

Finally, the HT started in March 2000. It lived up to the euphoria among the small band of young English journalists of Bhopal to a great extent. They were hired on almost double the salary they were getting in the previous papers. The HT, Bhopal, at the time of launching turned out to be the biggest paymaster in all Bhopal newspapers. Even the best of Hindi newspapers were not offering better than the HT.

It started off on promising note. Askari Zaidi, the resident editor, had pucca credentials as someone with proven track record and cosmopolitan outlook.

Abhilash Khandekar’s elevation in the HT as bureau chief was only to be expected. The paper hired a good number of reporters and deskmen and women not only from Bhopal but across India.

Some of them were good, some lethargic and still some utter mediocre. But, none of them could be described as bad apples, as far as my assessment went.   

The HT brought dynamism in reporting events targeted at the so-called English readership. Circulation began to shoot up. Other English newspapers faced existential crisis. It looked as though the HT would swallow all other small English dailies and might come up to compete with big mainstream Hindi newspapers of Bhopal.

It was the time when HT had grand plans to expand across India under leadership of India’s one of the best editors Vir Sanghvi. Vir had the carte blanche of his proprietor Shobhna Bhartiya. Bhopal had the desk for HT’s Raipur and Nagpur editions too.

Bhopal was envisioned as the hub of Central India. But this dream was too grand to last.

I’m no media pundit and you didn’t need to be one to see that HT’s downfall began primarily due to poverty of English language. The reader, who lapped up the paper, by and by, realized that the reporters did not have much of journalistic tricks up their sleeves to impress him any more. They had run out of good story ideas soon enough. More importantly, they had lost the zeal to take initiative. Three- year contractual system spawned a killing complacency. Job security made them both insolent and slothful to a great extent. Money, of course, was a big factor.  

The reader also sensed that the desk lacked requisite professional acumen to pad up, forget polish and embellish stories. The paper as a product did not seem attractive any more. Its circulation stagnated.

Since enough advertisers couldn’t be wooed to keep the economics of rising circulation on the positive side, the Bhopal edition started fading in the HT’s grand scheme of things in the headquarters.

Raipur edition became the first casualty. It was wound up and whatever team stayed back was shifted to Bhopal. Nagpur edition followed suit.

It became more than apparent that the Bhopal is a neglected child for the Delhi management. Those at the helm of affairs in Bhopal did not do much to dispel this disillusion in Delhi and despondency in Bhopal.

I am deliberately not naming the individuals whose active or passive contributions brought the paper to a sorry pass. Two developments in quick succession dealt a severe blow to the paper. First HT’s general manager Mr Fahmi resigned , paving way for downgrading the unit head’s post to that of DGM. Not too long after that Askari Zaidi quit.

Zaidi with all his laidback attitude had the ability to get things going at Delhi end. Fahmi’s successor was an unmitigated disaster.

He had cut his marketing teeth in Nav Bharat as a junior errand boy of the owner and never grew up. His mentality didn’t grow out of a Mufassil paper’s salesman.   

In order to show profit in the edition, he drastically cut overhead expenditures and also strived hard to ensure that the staff are underpaid. He succeeded in the plan. In fact, he brazenly boasted about the plan, much to the discomfiture of the staffers.

The HT did come in profit on papers at the expense of the staffers. This has had disastrous impact on the morale of the team though.

Zaidi’s exit paved the way for an upstart racketeer’s entry as successor three months later in 2007. Mercifully, the successor did not last for more than three months, thanks largely to vocal protests by the staffers. (Will write a separate blog on this interesting episode) .Then another editor came. His arrival raised high hopes. But before too long, the HT men and women came to realise that they had shouted out a tweedledum to be replaced by tweedledee.

The paper started nose-diving fast both in terms of credibility and quality. By the time the tweedledee exited, vast damage had been done to not only the paper but also to English journalism as a whole, for the HT had held high hopes.      

When the paper got off, it was the highest paymaster in Bhopal. Ten years down the line, it lagged far behind other newspapers on this count.

This is a general outline of the paper’s rise and fall. If I give insider account of what went wrong, picture will be more realistic and clearer. But this will be unethical. I have had good and bad times in the HT. And I have grown well past the time. Good luck and good wishes to all my former colleagues

Weak foundation of English journalism in MP ( 2)

Weak foundation of English journalism in MP ( 2)  

In the previous blog I briefly attempted to put across the point as to how weak foundation put paid to future of English journalism in MP. I am picking up the thread where I left.

By eighties, Hindi newspapers had started transforming themselves- both in content and form. Offset technology coupled with the advent of computer brought about huge technological revolution. Nai Dunia (Indore) and Bhaskar (Bhopal) were the frontrunners in adopting the new technologies. They also improved contents.

Nav Bharat, on the other hand, remained smugly slow in adapting itself to the changes sweeping the brave new world. But brand equity of Nav Bharat was still strong enough to keep it ahead of others, notwithstanding the paper’s slow progress.

At national level, the English newspapers were vying with one another in leveraging the technologies to increase their circulations.

In contrast, the two English newspapers –MP Chronicle and Hitavada—remained insular to the changes. They lost out fast to Hindi newspapers in production quality. They also deteriorated in contents.

VC Shukla’s fluctuating political fortunes had an adverse bearing on Hitavada. A paper founded by Servant of India Society of Gopal Krishna Gokhle was sold to an upstart Sardarji with dubious financial antecedents.

Paper’s downhill journey didn’t stop here. As the paper was in the doldrums, a feisty public relation department officer bought its title. A tragi-comic series of events ensued. The staff would neither quit nor work. As salaries were hard to come by, the PRO-turned- owner faced the humiliation of his house being gheraoed and filthy slogans being raised against him.

Many a time he was literally reduced to tears. His misadventure cost him dear both in reputation and in finance. The paper finally sunk without trace.

The MP Chronicle continued to live up to its notoriety of being a badly produced and howler-packed newspaper. Since Nav Bharat group’s flagship itself was on the decline, MP Chronicle, the poor cousin, could not have expected any kind attention from the owners. 

Meanwhile, Free Press Journal, Bombay, launched its edition from Indore in 1982. An apocryphal story about its launch from Indore suggests that the paper owed its birth in Indore to an injured ego of a rich man. The story goes like this.

A close relative of JK Karnani, owner of the Free Press Journal, had gone to meet the then Indore collector. He was made to wait for a long time while in the meantime owner of a big Hindi newspaper was respectfully ushered in the collector’s cabin.

The relative was stung by his perceived humiliation and thought that owning a newspaper is an easy way to win a collector’s respect. He persuaded Karnani to launch Free Press Journal from Indore.

I am not sure about veracity of the story but this much is sure that Free Press Journal in its initial days was much superior to the Hitavada and MP Chronicle. It had professional and qualified editors, though they too did not take much interest in improving language in the paper.

However, the Free Press Journal’s fearless and no-holds-barred presentation of reports endeared it to the readers who had not seen such courage in the older English papers. But the Free Press too started losing credibility, owing largely to its two Bihari managers’ obsession with hiring and firing journalists.  

In mid-eighties, Bhaskar group launched Daily Bhaskar. The launch was impressive and held promise for welcome change in the English journalism scenario.

It hired well respected N Rajan to edit the paper from Hitavada. Late Rajan sir was diligent, sharp and intellectually well –equipped. But, unfortunately, he had an insipid team. Some brilliant reporters like Bharat Desai joined and quit the paper but the deadwoods stayed put and stymied any prospects of the paper making a difference in the scenario.

N Rajan bore them along with unenviable patience. But how long could one man carry the paper on his frail shoulders? The paper started to fade.

After a while it was renamed National Mail. But the change proved only cosmetic. Dr Suresh Mehrotra succeeded N Rajan in 1993. Dr Sahab, with all his harmlessness and wide contacts, suffered from a basic flaw. Language was his Achilles Heel.

I and Mohammad Nasir joined the National Mail soon after Dr Mehrotra took over. The paper began to be noticed. We were euphoric. The management also got interested in promoting the paper.

However, the euphoria proved short-lived. Dr Sahab’s fundamental flaws in leading a team like a professional overwhelmed whatever fame or notoriety the paper had initially earned. I and Nasir got disillusioned.

He quit and I was sidelined. Mediocrity had the field day. In 1999, a few months after I quit National Mail, the paper was folded up.

In next blog, I will try to tell how the launch of first national daily –Hindustan Times-- rekindled hopes  of  putting Bhopal on national map of English journalism and how the hopes were dashed.