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.

             

               

 

Weak foundation of English journalism in MP

As promised in previous blog, I am writing about editors of MP’s English newspapers. Unlike Hindi’s, English newspaper editors since inception of the state in 1956 can be counted on finger tips.

For over three decades, MP Chronicle and Hitavada (both published in Bhopal) largely catered to the English readership in the state capital. AD Mani in Hitavada and KP Narayanan in MP Chronicle were founder editors. They were considered illustrious too. I can’t comment on their glory because I have not worked under them. But this much I can say safely that they were not an institution unto themselves the way BG Varghese or M Chelapati Rao or Frank Moreas - to name just a few- have been.

I have seen the journalistic acumen and linguistic quality of the journalists who worked under AD Mani. They were  hardly inspiring, to put it mildly. Their training suggested  about the work of the editors they worked under. Name taking in this context makes no sense. Suffice would be to say that none of the English journalists in either Hitavada or MP Chronicle shone bright enough, at least till they served in the two papers.

Since Congress leader VC Shukla had the title of the paper, the Hitavada’s political inclination was not hard to understand. Its being anti-establishment was out of question when Congress behemoth ruled the country, including MP. The paper did not sell much, though its impact was more than those of HT or TOI today.

However, Hitavada with all its grand name and history was just okay. Its production quality was poor but that was not its minus point per se, for Hindi papers fared no better on this count either.    

KP Narayanan of MP Chronicle was, no doubt, a scholar of English and Sanskrit. He was, I learnt from Mayaram Surjan’s book , a gold medalist in English literature from Madras university.

Late Ram Gopal Maheshwari brought him to launch and head MP Chronicle. KP was well respected editor. He was allotted a big bungalow in Civil Lines in Bhopal. He was provided a car by the MP Chronicle management in the time when most journalists used to travel by bicycle.

But, the MP Chronicle hardly qualified as a good newspaper under him. Even during his time, the paper spawned a myriad jokes about its language. That said, it can not be gainsaid that MP Chronicle was pretty popular among Malayalee (and other south Indian, to some extent) population in the BHEL area, a legacy that endures even today, albeit weakened a great deal.  

KP Narayanan, I am given to understand, was keener to serve The Hindu of which he was a special correspondent in Bhopal than looking after the MP Chronicle. It is said that not only he was not averse to hearing jokes about the quality of MP Chronicle, he himself volunteered some of them.

None of the Narayanan’s junior colleagues is heard to have made a mark as a quality journalist. None, in fact, showed any interest in ridding the MP Chronicle of the ridicules the paper would incur for its substandard English. Perhaps KP Narayanan’s stature spared the MP Chronicle from being overshadowed by the Hindi Big Brother Nav Bharat for some years. But after his demise, the MP Chronicle (later Central Chronicle) turned out to be a poor carbon copy (literally) of Nav Bharat. The Nav Bharat reporters used to be asked (and are still asked I believe) to file stories for Central Chronicle as well.

After KP Narayanan, Shrawan Garg was the only editor whose credentials as such were beyond questioning. But Garg’s English was atrocious. ( I will talk of more abject poverty of English editors of MP later).

Afterwards, the owner assumed the editorship and let the paper rot, and the rot was never stemmed. My brief attempt in 1992-93 and then 200-2002 to make a semblance of readable English in the paper proved a lonely furrow in the long sand dunes.                           

So, it is evident that very foundation of English journalism has been weak in MP. How could one expect a miracle?

At the rate English literacy has increased since its formation in 1956, Madhya Pradesh should have had combined circulation of English newspapers in Lakhs. The last 58 years saw rapid proliferation of English medium schools and colleges. The state’s main centres Bhopal, Indore, Jabalpur and Gwalior have emerged as significant education hubs in India.

English has far outstripped Hindi as medium of instruction at all level. Yet, the transformation in no way translated into growth of English newspapers. A state with over six crore population has combined circulation of all English newspapers (published in MP and out of MP) at around 1.2 lakh.

Compare this with Mumbai and Delhi and the stark plight of English journalism in Madhya Pradesh becomes all too evident. Delhi with population of 1.2 crore has over 25 lakh English papers being sold with HT and TOI accounting for nearly 75% of the total circulation. The population and English reader ratio in Mumbai is even higher.

The shockingly dismal scenario in MP raises two questions: one, why people, who can read English, are averse to subscribing newspapers in this language? Two, do the MP’s English newspapers lack attraction to entice potential readers? In my humble view, answer to both the questions is YES. More on this topic later.

 

Enemy of English

Enemy of English

If it were not for a personal tragedy, I would have rewarded the warrior-reporters for the sheer tenacity with which they have been waging relentless war against English in English newspapers. So intense is their hatred for the language they write their story in that they don’t even look at their own edited/ rewritten stories in the paper next morning. And they make no bones about the aversion to the edited stories. Secure in the belief that they can easily get away with distorting the language any which way they can, reporters seem to take pride in their vicarious freedom struggle against English a good 65 years after the British quit India.

My age is possibly the only saving grace, otherwise I would have been a frequent object of open ridicule of the reporters for trying to serve the colonialists by rewriting their copies, an effort they believe is waste of time.

However, their valued opinions expressed behind my back about my love’s labour lost some times ricochet on my unsuspecting ears. Earlier, I used to be pained by such irreverence to my hard work. But, having done the futile job for over two decades, I’m inured to the sniggers.

Dard Ka Had Se Guzarana Hai Dawa Ho Jana.

I often wonder if my untimely baldness is linked to having to deal with reporters’ copies in the last two decades. Sure enough, I am fantastically athletic for my age, very agile. But the thinning hairline is a lone sour point.  I believe you don’t need to demonstrably (and physically)  tear your hair off to lose them fast. This might be an internal process, triggered by the everyday rage over rewriting reporters’ stories only to find they don’t care about this all.  

If I recapitulate here what horrible howlers I confront, an epic-size description would be needed. Besides, differentiating one reporter from another would be a grave injustice to their class. There are reporters whose copies are better than others. But, the ability to treat the edited stories with utter disdain is a common point. Barring a few like P Naveen ( Times of India), Shams Ur Rehman Alavi ( Hindustan Times), Devbrat Ghose (HT) , Archana Khare ( TOI)  or Avinash Dutt Garg ( BBC) , I have come across very few reporters all through my long career who cared to learn from the edited copies. I’m tempted to believe that P Naveen’s remarkable rise in journalism is due to his ability and willingness to correct himself. Today, his most stories are nearly flawless, needing very little editing. A vast change from where he had begun a decade ago.   

Why I’m what I’m and why reporters are what they are? I have clear explanation for my incorrigibility. The reporters’ characteristic insouciance is also, to a great extent, explainable to me. The reporters class has the instinctive protection of semiliterate editors (in terms of English language) that unfortunately we have had in English papers in MP. Late N Rajan, in my life, was an honourable exception. Will write more about it later.

God, LK Joshi and elusive novel title

God, LK Joshi and elusive novel title

Title of the novel will forever elude me unless I bump into Lalil Kumar Joshi some day, some place in life. However, message of the novel will remain forever with me. It is not that LK Joshi is untraceable but to ask on email or phone what is title of the novel he had discussed with me two decades ago would be a sheer tomfoolery. Anyway, the message is more important than the title.  

As any senior journalist worth the salt in Bhopal will vouch, Lalit Kumar Joshi was one of the finest IAS officers Madhya Pradesh has ever had. As public relation commissioner he set certain high standards which none of his successors could match. He could talk to top most media baron and a cub reporter simultaneously without giving either a feeling of being discriminated against.

In an evening in 1992, I was chatting with LK Joshi in his office about literature. A voracious reader, Joshi used to read three books at a time (not simultaneously, of course). I mentioned during discussion about huge problem in rewriting reporters stories which besides being horrible English lack basic facts. He laughed consolingly and mentioned a novel he had read some time ago.

The novel’s protagonist is a sculptor. Passionate and eccentric, he chisels out from a rock a huge statue of a human figure on the cliff of a hillock. On the other side is a deep valley. Having completed the statue, he invites his friends to see his creation. They come and marvel at the artiste’s labour of love.

They observe that the artiste has taken equal pain in shapely carving out the back part of the statue as the front. “Why have you worked so hard on the back of the statue which no body will see because beyond the cliff is the valley. You are mad. Who will bother to see the back?” wondered one of the friends while admiring the statue.

The artiste paused for a while and looking skyward quietly replied, “The god will see.” The way Joshiji narrated the story touched the core of my heart.   

I had not realised how deeply the story influenced me until a reporter asked the same question that the artiste’s friend had asked. The context was, of course, different. For 20 years, I have been rewriting copies of the reporters, even though I was essentially a reporter myself and late bureau chief. Somehow, I can’t suffer bad English. Or, at least what I think is bad English.  

I had finished rewiring the reporter’s shabbily written story. There was some factual mistake in the last paragraph. I checked with him about the fact. He corrected it but not without adding rather blithely, “Arre Sir, who is going to read this till the last?” I instinctively blurted out, “The god will read”. I wondered what might have prompted this reply.  Then the LK Joshi’s story flashed on the mind. Since then, the narration often haunts me whenever I edit stories.

My aversion to let go badly written stories in the print has not been appreciated even by some of the reporters who should have been, in fact, grateful. I also sometime argue with myself whether is it not true that few, if any one, read stories in English newspapers beyond second para unless they are spellbinding. But such spellbinding stories are  mostly carried on page one. Inside page stories go mostly unread. Most readers even don’t take trouble of unfolding the paper.

But, LK Joshi’s novel makes me feel guilty if ever I let any story in hand go unedited till the last word. I am not fanatic. My inclination to religiosity is fairly recent. Yet, any half hearted attempt or disingenuous tricks in the paper flusters me. I have paid heavy price for being stubborn on this count. But what to do ? Ye Dil Hai Ki Manata Nahi.    

   

10 tips to become a successful English editor

Failed aspirants for a goal have been seen emerging as quite successful coaches for the goal. There are numerous IAS coaching institutes run by persons who could not make it to all India or even state administrative services.

Scores of mediocre journalists can be seen teaching in journalism institutes. Unsuccessful actors giving coaching in acting institutes for films, TV and theatres is not uncommon.

Quite a few flop litterateurs wisely switched to publishing literary magazines so that they could pontificate in their columns to budding writers what and how ought or not ought to write. The list does not end here but I have to stop it here.   

Given this scenario, I should be forgiven for offering tips (just ten for now) on how to become a successful editor of an English newspaper. My tips are, needless to say, based on own experience of working in the MP’s English newspapers for over three decades.

I have had the misfortune of failing to imbibe even a modicum of success Mantras of the editors I have worked with.  Whether I failed for my own good is a moot point. I leave the decision on my well wishers.

Each editor I worked under had some peculiar qualities. There were a couple of common points too such as insouciance for quality of language in the newspaper and irrepressible longing to be in the good books of the top bureaucratic fraternity at the cost of the paper’s credibility and prestige. 

The tips below are based on observations of one of the editors in my previous newspaper.   

Tip number one

Always keep a veneer of contrived seriousness on the face when in the office. Even if you want to laugh at some genuinely laughing matters, suppress your impulse. The editor must be seen brooding, lest his cheerfulness is misconstrued by the colleagues as a sign of frivolity and companionship.

The editor must keep reminding himself that he is crowned to rule over the lesser mortals and must not look like them. Also, don’t encourage them to be cheerful either by your actions or expressions. Never mind if the colleagues have seen through your sophistry. Let them sneer at you or call you a hypocrite behind your back.

When face to face, they will desist from opening up. And if they don’t open up, substantial discussion or planning on improving the paper can be avoided. This is an intelligent device to save yourself the avoidable embarrassment of blurting out some silly suggestions or betraying your ignorance about the newspaper functioning.

Tip number two

Always promote incompetent subordinates. They are useful tools to snoop at competent ones. Their sycophancy will keep your ego caressed and you will feel elevated. Incompetent subordinates can be trusted to carry out your ‘inspired’ ideas which conscientious colleagues might balk at, fearing adverse impact on the paper.

Mediocrity thrives on the unqualified blessings of the boss. Therefore, mediocre people should be relied upon to run down and discredit honest ones in the office. This way, you can rest assured about security of your job.

Tip number three

Make easy things in the paper look difficult by bureaucratizing functioning. Instead of straight talking to subordinates, take recourse to management parlance. Issue memos in official jargon, using words like ‘with reference to…. vitiating work culture…the management has not appreciated this or that …I am appalled to see…To the shock of my life… etc etc   

Tip number four

Keep ready some stock excuses to spike reports you don’t want published. For instance, if a reporter has filed a story about misdeeds of your politician/bureaucrat/ businessman friend and you obviously don’t want it carried, then frustrate the reporter by all means possible, without saying straight that you value friendship more than the paper.

You can say, there is no proper quote or the story is biased/ libelous. Instill fear of management’s wrath in the minds of reporters about the prospects of the paper being sued for the stories you don’t want published.   

Tip number five    

Have absolutely no qualms in appropriating credit for the hard and fine labour of your colleagues. If some honest and competent subordinate has planned and executed a big story package, don’t hesitate to flaunt it as your idea before your superiors—the chief editor or the owner, as the case may be.

The colleague could, at best, tear his hair out among the staffers or, at worst, try to subtly indicate that you did not give him the credit he deserved.

The editor must have enough thick skin to countenance such grouses with a dismissive air and bide his time to hit the complainant where it hurts most- namely the revision of the KRA.

Tip number six  

Be always willing to do the bidding of the public relation commissioner of the state government. It serves in many ways. For one, it facilitates good relations between the marketing head and the editor. For another, your hunger to expand friendship base in the government is satiated to a great extend. Government press releases ought to be treated with top priority, no matter howsoever falsehood  or stupidity they might bear.

Tip number seven

When you are writing on any subject, don’t give a second thought to placement. It must be on front page and that too on top with your nice photograph. Even if you are writing, say, a blatantly laudatory piece about some bogus government scheme or a minister’s lofty ‘brainchild’ or your bureaucrat friend’s idea to please the chief minister, it must get preference over all other news items on page one, never mind their news value. Don’t bother what reader might say about the paper. For change, you can write critical pieces against local municipal authority on garbage not being cleared in time. But the placement will remain the same.   

Tip number eight

When some one from the main publishing centre (headquarters) descends on your edition for some reason, immediately shed all the snobbery you are used to showing to the colleagues. It’s immaterial what the age or status of the man or woman from the headquarters is. You should leave no stone unturned to keep them in good humour.

Also, don’t forget to poison their ears about the honest and hardworking colleagues. You will be well advised to invite them on lunch or dinner even though you have never bothered to savour a single Samosa with colleagues you work with round the year. If the guests happen to belong to HR department, hospitality should be even grander.         

Tip number nine

You should be least concerned with language of the paper. If too many howlers occur to ignore, conveniently put the blame on the ‘poor desk’. But make sure that your chosen few don’t come to harm. Pick soft targets from the desk. If readers point out mistakes, tell them blithely that it is not humanly possible for you to take care of all the works in the paper where too many linguistically- challenged journalists are employed.

This will create an impression as though you are the most diligent man in the entire office. You can also argue that since the incompetent persons were appointed by your predecessor, you are not morally responsible for their stupidity.

Tip number 10

Never play with filed stories. If an impulse to rewrite a story surges in you, suppress it. You must realize that you were not appointed editor for being good in English language in the first place. Editing is a skilled job where your weakness will be exposed in no time.    

Aziz Naza and Khatik Mohalla of Jabalpur

A pleasant sensation ran though the whole body as the mellifluous, if nasal, voice of Qawwal Aziz Naza fell on my ears. It was coming from an auto rickshaw stationed at LIG square today.

I was coming to the office at 4 pm, my usual office time. The auto driver, a hennaed-hair, paan-chewing Bhai Jaan in mid-forties was humming with the qawwali. Immersed in the ‘Jhoom Barabar Jhoom Sharabi….” the man gave impression of a Sufi. His head was shaking variously to the rhythm of the qawwali. 

Suddenly I felt myself transported to Jabalpur-- the Khatik Mohalla of Jabalpur, to be more specific. Old memories fleshed on the mind. 

The Aziz Naza Qawwali could be heard from all loudspeakers in the Mohalla and there was no shortage of loud speakers then. Also, there was no restriction- moral, social or legal- on volume of the speakers. Even if there had been any, it would have had absolutely no meaning in the locality. I am talking about seventies of the previous century.

The Khatik Mohalla in Ghamapur area needed no particular occasion- auspicious or otherwise- to treat the people’s unsuspecting ears with Aziz Naza qawwali.

Birth of a pig’s litter was a good enough occasion for the owner to celebrate the new arrivals with the Qawwali. However, Aziz Naza would conspicuously abstain from assailing the ears when police raided the illicit liquor dens in the Mohalla.

The raids happened on an average once a month. When police chased the bootleggers, they would throw the raw materials for illicit liquor distillation like molasses, Nausadar etc into the nullah flowing in the midst of the Mohalla. The effluent would flow with dirty water and intoxicate the nullah. The inadvertent beneficiaries of the police raids would be pigs and their litters.

Completely sozzled pigs in the intoxicated Nullah water were a delight to watch. Since their owners would be on the run during the police raids, no one would disturb the pigs.

At times, Aziz Naza would be a source of group clashes in the Mohalla. The genesis of the fight would be competitive upping in volume of the loud speakers. The revelers celebrating different occasions in the Mohalla would quarrel on the justifiability of their reason to raise the pitch of Naza qawwali.

Good thing about such clashes was that neither side would target the passersby on the main road to Ghamapur. Armed with Suwarmaar bum (the crude bombs used to kill pigs), the warring parties would politely ask passersby to keep going. They would attack each other only when they felt the innocent people were out of the possible crossfire. Some times, their assessment would go wrong and pedestrians would be hit. But such collateral damages would be unintended. 

Alas, those days are now just a memory. The Ghamapur no longer has Aziz Naza quawali, nor the road remains abuzz with cycle-borne employees of the three defence production factories.

Desh Bandhu, Babuji and Bhopal

I haven’t heard of any other newspaper except Desh Bandhu where a senior editor graciously got away with writing against the owner. The paper has many other unique features to its credit of which I will write later.   

Senior journalist Vijaya Kumar Tiwari’s comment on facebook over my blog about Raj Narayan Mishra has freshened up some memories of late Mayaram Surjan (Babuji), the founder of Desh Bandhu group.

Tiwariji wrote that Raj Narayan Mishra could excel in Desh Bandhu mainly because the paper had the leadership of a visionary owner- editor like Babuji. I cannot agree with him more. Indeed, Babuji’s well delineated left-of-the-centre ideological line earned the paper huge respectability, though it always remained plagued by resource crunch.

Babuji himself was a fine writer. His half a dozen books bear glorious testimony to his lucid style and focused writing.

The critical piece I referred to in the beginning had appeared probably in early seventies. Late Ramashraya Upadhyay was the editor. The paper was facing severe resource crunch. Salaries of the staff had not been paid for months. Atmosphere in the paper was understandably somewhat tense and despondent. Ramashraya Upadhyay, a known leftist, one day lost cool and wrote a satirical piece in the paper with title—Ek Naukar Jo Malik Ban Baitha ( a servant who rose to become the owner).

Ramashraya Upadhyay was a veteran and well-respected journalist. Babuji used to call him “ Lekhni Ke Durvasa”. A more apt description would be hard to find. Like the sage Durvasa of Hindu mythology, Ramashraya Upadhyay was unsparing of all in his pious anger. His vision was sharp, pen sharper. 

The piece he wrote unmistakably alluded to Babuji who had been an employee of the Nav Bharat group till 50s. The Deshbandhu came up a decade later. I don’t know what the reaction in the office was but Babuji was reportedly more amused than angry with his editor’s subtle fulmination.

In fact, the piece came handy for Babuji many a time to pacify agitated complainants who would decry ‘uncharitable’ reference of them in the paper. One of the notable complainants was former chief minister Shyama Charan Shukla.

Having said this, it was not as though Desh Badhu was an anarchic, free for all paper. Not at all. It had a clear line and direction straight from Babuji and his eldest son Lalitji. But neither deliberate suppression nor overplay of certain reports to annoy or please certain individuals would be countenanced, though aberrations did occur in the paper on this count in those idealistic days too. Reporters would not fear reprisal from the powerful people they wrote against. The paper would stand by them.

Once Babuji himself told me about the story. The context was provided by Vitthal Bhai Patel’s visit to the Desh Bandhu office one morning in 1988. The bidi magnet and poet used to live in E-22 in 45 Bungalows and Desh Bandhu office was barely a hundred yards away. He was industry minister in Moti Lal Vora’s cabinet. His political mentor Vidya Charan Shukla had been expelled from the Congress a few months ago. VC had formed Jan Morcha with his handful supporters. Since Vitthal Bhai was close to VC, speculations were rife in Bhopal that he too might join Jan Morcha soon.

I wrote a piece in Desh Bandhu on this line. Coincidentally, Vitthal Bhai came to the office on the very day the weekly hit the market with the story about his possible desertion of the Congress.

When I saw him, I grew suspicious that he might have come to complain against me. To be fair to him, the story was purely conjecture. I had not talked to Vitthal Bhai. I felt he had a valid reason to object to the story. Restless, I tried to eavesdrop conversation between Babuji and Vitthal Bhai. It was a vain attempt. The Congress leader was in the office for an hour.

Soon after he left, I went to Babuji and circumspectly sought to know what the purpose of Vitthal Bhai’s visit was. Babuji said he is a friend and he often drops in. Babuji’s cheerful mood emboldened me to ask if the Congress leader had grouse against the story in Saptahik Desh Bandhu. He gave a cryptic smile. “ Gussa Nahi The, Thode Pareshan The. Tum Unase Baat Kar Ke Report Likhte To Jyada Behtar Hota”.

I was both ashamed and relieved. Ashamed because the story indeed was weak for want of quotation, and relieved that Babuji so lightly put the matter of journalistic ethics to me.

As I heaved a sigh of relief, Babuji asked, “ Tum Dar Rahe The Khya ?”  I nodded in affirmative. Then he narrated the story of Ramashraya Upadhyay’s piece and assured me to be relaxed.         

           

      

Dilip Matthar and RC Tiwari of Jabalpur

Last night I regaled a party of youths in a five-star hotel with Jabalpur’s Dilip Matthar story. The story is pretty old. It has earned me huge applauses hundreds of times before but none had suggested in the past that I should write it down too in my blog.

A young girl, who seemed completely bewitched by the story, kept asking me in the party why I don’t write it in the blog. She knew about my blog. Although the pretty girl is not familiar with Jabalpur, she had been to the city many times to her relatives who, she said, also shared some anecdotes with her, characterizing a quintessential Jabalpurian of old parts such as Dixitpura, Kamania, Miloni Ganj, Fuhara,  etc etc.

However, she confessed, none was like Dilip Matthar’s. She was particularly charmed by the word Matthar. Loosely translated in English, it could mean rugged in body and half empty in mind.  

While writing this blog on Dilip, I’m acutely conscious of the near impossibility of creating the magic of narration in written English. The unique nuances of Jabalpurian dialect are impossible to enliven in the foreign language. Let me try all the same.

There was a police inspector named RC Tiwari in Jabalpur. Before he retired (possibly in late nineties), Tiwari remained, by and large, glued to the city – being posted from one police station to another. He was a well- built, Bullet-borne, slightly paunchy policeman with penchant for loud and foulest invectives. He loved to make his presence felt more by his choicest abuses on streets than his action.  

He would strike terror among small- time goons whenever he chose to. He would, however, refrain from disturbing big criminals or mafias—partly due to pressure from politicians/ higher ups and partly for his own ‘reasons’. RC Tiwari was darling of the local politicians as much as of local media. When he shot dead a trapped leopard in a house, the biggest newspaper of Jabalpur gave headline to his exploit as ‘Sher Ne Sher Ko Mara’.

The city chief of the paper, an unabashed admirer of RC Tiwari, did not bother about the fact that neither the killer nor the killed belonged the big cat family. But such was the aura of the police officer that the news was read with interest and widely debated across Paan kiosks that dotted Jabalpur landscape.

Talking about RC Tiwari’s real and imagined daredevilry tales was as common as talking about weather in Jabalpur those days. He was almost an essential narrative in Jabalpur’s socio-political life. He was also the cause of strikes in many colleges.

In those days, criminals were hard to tell from student leaders and their number was only growing. A police action against a criminal masquerading as student leader had an immense probability of turning into student unrest, triggering strike in colleges. Thus, RC Tiwari was both a hero and anti-hero among college students.

This was early eighties when youth angst in Jabalpur manifested itself in a variety of ways—from ridiculous and bizarre to violent.

Dilip Matthar was a small time criminal. He was semi literate simpleton who thoroughly enjoyed running errands for  more notable criminal, his boss. He was an adorable sidekick. Unemployed, Dilip lived in Kotwali area. I have little information about his family background except that his father probably had a small shop which fetched meager income.

Kotwali area had a huge population of youths who are in Marxist jargon called lumpen proletariat. Dilip was one of them.

In between his two-decade long stay in Jabalpur, Tiwari was posted in Kotwali as station in charge. The police station gave him instant fame. Since he was fond of catching small time criminals with panache, Tiwari had no dearth of youths to beat up and abuse in this police station area. This was a sensational time for criminals and Tiwari.

Dilip Matthar, despite his naivety, knew well he was potential candidate for RC Tiwari’s ravenous eyes for catching small time criminals.

So, Dilip thought of an ingenious way to keep off the harm’s way. He was, unsurprisingly, a worshipper of Bacchus.

Amid RC Tiwari’s reign of terror in Kotwali area, Dilip would come out drunk on the street and shout aloud, ‘RC Tiwari Ko Chhod Kar Sabaki Maa Ka …. .The nightly incantation of Tiwari in such a reverential term, he thought, would at least keep him off his wrath, if not endear him to the police officer. His trick saved him for a while.

But, as Dilip’s nocturnal rounds of drunken abuse went apace night after night, people in the area grew restive. They complained to the police officer that Dilip’s ingenuity might sound gratifying to him, but it is actually insulting. RC Tiwari heard them patiently but didn’t act.

One night, however, RC Tiwari felt it too embarrassing for him to bear Dilip sparing him from the torrents of drunken invectives in public. He caught hold of Dilip Matthar and pushed him inside the lockup after sound thrashing. Since no case could be made against Dilip, he was let off the next morning with warning.

Stung by the bashing and frustrated at failure of his method of propitiating the police officer, Dilip got drunk the same night again. This night he was drunk more heavily than usual.  His tongue was slurring, his feet off balance. He came out on the same road and shouted.. ‘Ab To RC TIwari Samet Sabaki Maa Ka……

Once again he was arrested but this time he had no regrets. He had avenged his humiliation by including the police officer in the vague quest to screw mothers of all.