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.            

     

Da, Durg and Dark Days

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                

Towards realizing a music dream

"Kehte hai, ke agar kisi bhi cheez ko dil se chaho to puri ki puri qayanaat tumhe use milaane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai." The dialogue from blockbuster ‘Om Shanti Om’ is, of course, quintessentially filmi and it was meant so in the film. But somehow I’m hugely fascinated by Shah Rukh’s stylish utterance of the dialogue.

Why? Because it invariably echoes in my mind whenever I chance upon something unexpected.

The last time the dialogue flashed on my mind was when I met Dhrupad exponent Manoj Saraf. It was a sheer chance meeting. I am a regular at a Herbalife health club at the LIG square since July this year. The club is like an extended family where all the young members adore me. Or, so they make me feel. The affection is, of course, mutual.

Manoj came looking for the club ten days back. He is a little obese and wants to shed some kilos of his fat body. Uncharacteristically, I immediately struck a conversation with him at the club. Normally I am rather reticent but in the club you can find me at my gregarious best. The company of the young arouses ebullience in me.

Within minutes of our first talk, I learnt that Manoj Saraf hails from Ujjain, learnt Dhrupad for four years in Bhopal under tutelage of Ustad Fariduddin Dagar, struggled for 12 years in Mumbai and is back now to settle in Indore and try his luck in property dealings.

His wife Sulabha Saraf (earlier Chourasia) turned out to be a cousin sister of Shobha Chaterjee, my friend Alok’s wife. Both Manoj and Sulabha fell in love while learning Dhrupad and married. Manoj and Sulabha live with younger brother Ajay whose wife Shivani is Sulabha’s real sister. What a happy and united family!

Their background inspired me to become their pupil. The long dormant desire to learn classic vocal music resurfaced. I urged Manoj to teach me Dhrupad. He graciously agreed.

Later, I also learnt that Manoj’s brother and sister-in-law too are into music. Ajay and his wife earlier used to accompany Sadhvi Ritambhara on her religious discourses and sang devotional songs. The foursome of the joint family is steeped in music and this is pretty evident in their home. A room is earmarked for music lessons. It has a synthesizer, Tanpura and other musical instruments kept on a corner. All four take classes in different times—Manoj and his wife on Dhrupad and Ajay and his wife on light music. 

The first day of Dhrupad learning was an exhilarating experience last week. How ‘Sa’ is different from ‘Ni’ in cadence, nuance and octave took half an hour to practise. But my devotion probably impressed Manoj. He appeared satisfied with my sincere efforts.

Only three classes so far and I am beginning to visualize the day when I will sing and that too classical. What a fortuitous meeting with Manoj has turn into me! Soon, I plan to buy a Tanpura to practice at home.

All through my long theatre years, I yearned to become a reasonably good singer but music always remained my Achilles Heel. I remember acting in Gogol’s play ‘Aala Afasar’ in which I played lead role. It was an adaptation in Noutanki style and I was supposed to sing my dialogues. Every thing else was fine as far as audience reaction went except singing part. I felt ashamed. All the encomiums for good looks and fine acting held no meaning for me because I felt I failed miserably in delivering the dialogues in expected tune.

Full throated but tuneful delivery is the soul of Nautanki. I was acutely conscious of the fact but couldn’t do justice to the role.  Lack of tunefulness always saddened me when in company of friends singing songs.

We in Vivechana theatre group in Jabalpur would often travel with plays in early eighties. While on train or bus, film songs kept us in high spirit. I had the little singing power to join the chorus that would reasonably hide my tuneless voice. But I would always be a little envious of Tapan Banerjee when he sang ‘Wanha Kaun Hai Tera’ or Rajendra Dani when he sang Hawaon Pe Likh Do Hawaon Ke Naam….. Such mellifluous voices, such soulful songs. Arun Pandey was ‘ Besura’ was it was hard to make him realize that. 

Perhaps I may have reconciled to being an unlucky Besura, if it were not Alok Chaterjee’s observation that my sense of musical notations is very good. All I need, he told me, was to hone the voice through practice. Being a gold medalist from NSD and a good singer himself, Alok must be telling the truth, I felt.

By coincidence, the person teaching me Dhrupad is Alok’s distant brother-in-law. It is just beginning and Manoj appears to be satisfied with my learning. Yesterday, when I went to his beautiful home in Simran tower opposite railway station, he was doing ‘riyaaz’. I quietly sat on the mattress in front of him. He was immersed in his singing. After 15 minutes he finished his riyaaz and putting the Tanpura aside, he remarked, ‘Rakesh Ji wait for one year. You will also be singing like this”. I was thrilled. Could I sing with a modicum of singing sense all those songs I love so much?  

Could I ever win applause in company of friends and colleagues by singing old melodies? I will. What is my age after all? At 54, it is just youth. Isn’t it?  

             

IPTA in Jabalpur (part two)

As the bus started for Bhopal from Jabalpur, a powerful song repeating Hyderabad several times broke out from the back seats. It was thunderous song full of vigour which took all other Baraatis by surprise. My relatives, mostly from villages, were intrigued by what the song was about. The time was June 28, 1986 night. Next day world cup football final was slated between Argentina and Brazil apart from my seven feras with Jaya.

The bus was carrying the baraat of which I was the groom and the singers were my friends from Vivechana (IPTA). The song was a rather long- lingering hangover of the IPTA convention in Hyderabad. An energetic group from Patna had composed the song as homage to Hyderabad, recalling the tempestuous event of Telangana communist uprising of late fifties. The Hyderabad meet was, in a way, turning point in the IPTA movement.

On the day AK Hangal died recently, Hyderabad persistently came to my mind. It was in this beautiful city in (1985? or 1986?) that I had gone with a Vivechana team to take part in the IPTA meet. We were equipped with revolutionary people’s songs. After the revival of IPTA in Jabalpur PWA meet of which I talked in the first part, it was first national meet for us.

We were naturally bubbling with enthusiasm. AK Hangal, Kaifi Azmi, Farooq Sheikh, Sagar Sarhadi (his film ‘Bazaar’ was critically acclaimed in that period) were all there. We shared dais filmmaker Shyam Benegal and comrade AB Bardhan. Vivechana was one of the few privileged groups which was given an opportunity to present songs on the stage. Clad in dark red IPTA T-shirts we sang with full throated voice, ‘Uthao Toofan Palat Do Sari Duniya (raise a storm and change the world).  What an exhilarating feeling it was!  A visibly moved Shyam Benegal came to us to congratulate on the stage.

But excitement is not what I remember the Hyderabad meet for. It is more for the way AK Hangal was unjustly pilloried that I recall Hyderabad more vividly.

On the second day of the IPTA convention at CPI state office, delegates deliberated extensively. A resolution was passed and members were called upon to speak on it. Apparently, the resolution had the clear stamp of the old guards like AK Hangal.

When it came to debate on the resolution, some young members bitterly criticized it for lacking clear ideological direction. The tone and tenor of the anti-resolution was dismaying to me. Although barely 26 then, I firmly believed that art must not be shackled by political ideology, be it CPI, CPM or any other of the left outfits. Most vociferous among the critics were from Bihar and UP.

AK Hangal tried to remove their misgivings but he was virtually shouted down. The scene, as I recall it, was pathetic. Here was a veteran who lived all his life for IPTA values and he was being ridiculed over semantic quibbling in the draft of the resolution. One activist found serious fault in the very wordings of the draft which, however, I found quite lucid. Arun Pandey was with me and he shared my feelings. Other friends from Vivechana, mostly neophytes in IPTA ideology, thought otherwise, though they had no convincing arguments to back their opposition.

I am highlighting the Hyderabad episode because this dialectics of art versus political ideology seems to have always dogged the IPTA. Art demands autonomy within broad ideological moorings underpinning it. Left parties seek to make art a propagandist tool to further their interests which may , at times, clash with the very essence of true art.

Even before the IPTA was revived, Vivechana faced this crisis. CPI, Jabalpur unit, would doubt ideological commitment of some of our key members, both in their personal conviction and their artistic expression. However, to be fair to the CPI bosses, the problem never assumed any serious proportion. The communist party kept a dignified distance from Vivechana.

One instance deserves mention in this regard. We had produced ‘Sagina Mehto’ (a play on which a film was also made featuring Dilip Kumar in lead role). I essayed Sagina’s character. The play is about how a rustic but powerful trade union leader is sought to be corrupted by the system dominated by capitalism. Alok Chaterjee, then an artiste in Bharat Bhavan repertory, directed the play.

It was quite a nice production. But Praveen Atloori, then AISF state secretary ( or president?) didn’t like the play, not because it was badly produced; his objection to the play was for its alleged anti-communist undertone. He wrote a long article in CPI’s Hindi mouthpiece ‘ Jan Yug’ , questioning Vivechana’s rationale in choosing such a “ reactionary” play for production. The article dwelled mostly on Sagina Mehto’s ‘individualistic approach’ which Atloori found to be militating against communist trade unionism. He concluded by saying Vivechana should be more cautious in choosing plays. I was Atloori’s good friend. We didn’t mind his well-meaning , if misplaced, criticism of the play. Incidentally, Atloori was a great fan of one of our early plays ‘Darinde’ which, in his view, conformed to all the requirements of a revolutionary theatre. The play indeed was very popular, though it somewhat lacked aesthetic finesse.

                On again, it is time to wrap up. For, I have decided not to let any blog exceed 1000 words.

If any body cared to read this, he /she is requested to wait for more on IPTA in next blog