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

    

The IPTA days in Jabalpur (part one)

Indian Peoples Theater Association (IPTA) convention in Indore on October 1-2 refreshed some old and –mostly, but not all- fond memories of my association with the leftist theatre movement. Himanshi Rai, a pillar of IPTA in Madhya Pradesh, was predictably there. 

Out association is three decades old: once it was thick but slackened with time. Period. We met during IPTA meet but could not spend as much time together as both, or at least I, desired. Nevertheless, I was delighted and nostalgic throughout the day after our meeting.

A part of my IPTA years in Jabalpur got spent sowing the wild oats. Born romantic—Scorpions are known to be so—I would get easily drawn to girls. Being reasonably handsome helped. That said, I was by no means a lecherous liability on IPTA. 

Although never considered fit enough for any post in the organization for reasons I am yet to fathom, my commitment to the IPTA movement was 100 percent till I was part of it. Ideologically, I guess, I was less wavering than many, if not most, of my colleagues. Yet, I had had enough (not necessarily all valid when I look back) reasons to get disillusioned. But that was then. Today, I sorely miss the IPTA days. 

Somehow, this foolish longing flickered in my heart that someone in the Indore IPTA convention might call me on stage as an old hand in the movement to share experiences. I was mentally prepared for that. But who would have cared? Back to home by my cycle from the convention, I spent hours ruminating the tumultuous years in the IPTA. The organization in Jabalpur was, in fact, Vivechana, the theater group founded in 1974. Both were synonymous since 1980 when IPTA was revived.

IPTA’s revival is attributed to many persons, timings and factors. But I would like to believe with fair amount of conviction that the revival was conceptualized in the Progressive Writers Association’s (PWA’s) national convention in Jabalpur in 1980. 

Late AK Hangal and Kaifi Azmi were there. Since Hangal is not a writer, his presence in the PWA jamboree could only mean he had some other, more important, agenda than writerly discussion. In his obituaries , the nonagenarian actor, who died a few months ago, was widely hailed as reviver of IPTA, though  nowhere was it mentioned where the revival plan materialized.

I was a young, idealistic youth then, bubbling with energy. Fresh in the company of communists and overflowing with revolutionary ideas, I was an enthusiastic volunteer in the PWA convention which was, more or less, Gyan Ranjan show. He was, characteristically, managing the show from behind the curtains as chief organizer. We all were at his back and call.   

We had a separate group discussion on how to revive IPTA. I don’t remember whether Himanshi Rai was there or not. I had yet to know him. He was posted, I believe, in a Durg branch of Dena bank. Anyway, the plan to revive IPTA was put in place. Since Vivechana was already doing precisely what IPTA was supposed to do, formality of forming IPTA was not called for in Jabalpur.  

However, sense of association with a movement pioneered by the likes of Balraj Sahani, Kaifi Azmi, Sajjad Zaheer and, of course, AK Hangal gave a district impetus to Vivechana’s theatrical activities. We vociferously descended from proscenium to the street with vigour. Vivechana had the distinction of staging street play in early seventies when the genre was little known. There was some play authored by Shashank which was staged out on the street. Probably its title was Panchwa Sawar. But street theatre was yet to come in vogue as a potent weapon of social awakening.

It was a time of organizational churning in Vivechana too. To go into that makes no sense now. I don’t know where Dr SB Patel and Dr Prabhat Mishra, the two old guards of Vivechana are. Dr MG Pateriya, another old guard,  is, unfortunately, no longer with us. Gyan Ranjan had more important works to do in Pahal and PWA.

So, the mantle of Vivechana fell on younger generation. By this time,  Himanshu was back from Durg to Jabalpur. Arun Pandey was not a veteran but he was one of the most active members in the group. Both Arun and Himanshu had keen interest in running the organization, unlike performers such as Tapan Banerjee , Sita Ram Soni, Raj Kumar Kamle, Alok Chaterjee and , lastly, me. We gladly facilitated and celebrated ascension of Himanshu and Arun in the Vivechana hierarchy and hailed it as the harbinger of a new chapter in the organization’s history. The transition was not smooth as was only to be expected.    

Around this time, Bharat Bhavan was taking shape. Vivechana was poorer by three good artistes—Alok, Ganga Mishra and Raj Kumar Kamale. Alakh Nandan, our sole director, also joined Bharat Bhavan repertory. Vivechana’s loss was Bharat Bhavan’s gain as subsequent years resoundingly proved. The vacuum thus caused made roles of Himanshu and Arun more important. Himanshu took the organization, Arun direction.

Badal Sircar’s Juloos, of which I have discussed in one of my previous blogs, was the mile stone in revamped Vivechana. Two new street plays—Raja Ka Baaja and Machine—stormed the street theatre with the kind of kinetic energy the people of Jabalpur had never seen before. 

Both were originally Alakh Nandan’s direction. He still had love left for Vivechana in the initial days of his shift to Bhopal. Today’s generation will find it impossible to imagine how we would perform street plays and collect money , throwing sheet for people to throw coins on.   

Then Tapan took upon himself the responsibility of directing Hari Shankar Parsai’s immortal creation, ‘Inspector Matadin Chand Par’. The play when staged on street created a massive storm. Its fame spread far and wide across the country. 

Soon enough, the play became a cult of sorts in street theatre movement. The original play had Alakh Nandan’s inimitable touch, though Tapan’s hard work can not be discounted.

I and Arun had visualized a paunchy, laggard, stereotype police inspector as protagonist. But Alakh cast Sita Ram Soni for the inspector’s role. Soni, a gangly but lithe artiste with amazing sense of comedy timing proved better choice than we thought.  The gamble paid off. For street theatre, speed is the name of the game. I was cast as narrator for reason only Alakh Nandan knew. By the time I dissociated with the street play its had already been staged more than 300 times , in Jabalpur and elsewhere. Later, we adopted Juloos too as street theatre.

Oh, this blog has got too big. I stop here. Will write about IPTA in next blog. A lot needs to be shared, irrespective of whether any body cares to read it or not.

I too know Gyan Ranjan

Literary magazine ‘Pakhi’ brought out nice September issue on Gyan Ranjan, the writer-editor. The issue evoked a variety of reactions in me-- thrill, surprise, anguish, nostalgia and, at times, a sense of déjà vu. I too know Gyan Rajnan, though, of course, not as well as Kashi Nath Singh or Dudh Nath Singh do.
But I know him better than to fall for what Agneya or Vijay Bahadur Singh would like the world to believe about Gyan Ranjan.
 I think Rajendra Yadav’s assessment of Gyan Ranjan was the best in the magazine, though it may not be the most honest. He admitted to having formal relation with Gyan Ranjan and his evaluation amply reflects this dispassion.
With zero writerly ambition and an unobtrusive passion for literature, I knew, I could love Gyan Ranjan forever. ‘Pahal’ that triggered a ceaseless debate in literary circles whether he was a better writer or editor was never a yardstick for me to judge Gyan Ranjan. An innate indifference to Pahal polemics helped me endure the love.
Acute self consciousness about my inability to write anything remotely literary helped in no small measure. The closest I came to a literary misadventure before Gyan Ranjan was when I reviewed Asghar Wazahat’s story collection ‘DIlli Pahunchana Hai’ for the Pathak Manch in 1982. Hari Bhatnagar, then my colleague in ‘Gyan Yug Prabhat’ newspaper, asked me to substitute late Mahesh Bajpai as book reviewer. He overrated, and continues to overrate, me as a well read friend. His insistence left me with the Hobson’s choice.
He arranged me a copy of Wazahat’s book and asked me to read and review in four hours. Written review was to be read as Hari’s room, on top floor of Gyan Ranjan’s previous house in Agrawal colony. I am, of course, talking of Jabalpur. I read the book and prepared a review in a jiffy. Four hours later, I duly read it before a small group that included Gyan Ranjan.
The review was debated. Till the last moment Gyan Ranjan thought I was reading review written by Mahesh Bajpei. When he learnt the truth, his expression betrayed a pleasant surprise. He remarked, “It was a very nice review. I didn’t know it is yours. You should write more”. I knew myself better to take his remark seriously.
 In subsequent years, I was forced to foray into the uncharted terrain of literature several times. All are an imminently forgettable experience. Once Suresh Pandey, then programme executive in the Akashwani, Jabalpur Kendra, indulged me to write three poems for broadcast in just two hours. I was, understandably, flabbergasted rather than thrilled at the prospect of Rs 400 remuneration, current unemployed status notwithstanding.
But Suresh, like Hari Bhatnagar, was too good a friend to say no to. I pondered over potential subjects for poetry. Here Gyan Ranjan again came to rescue, though not physically. It so happened that eminent poet Alok Dhanva had come to Jabalpur and stayed with Gyan Ranjan.
He had returned from Bombay (not Mumbai—it was in 1983). We had a brief interaction with Alok at a place where we were rehearsing for our forthcoming play. I asked Alok if he saw Arabian Sea in Mumbai. He said no. Before I could react, Alok hastily added that he felt waves of a sea standing on the roof of Gyan Ranjan’s house on the second floor. Bulbul, Gyanji’s daughter, was with him in the evening, he said. “She wondered aloud how these rows of houses from this spot look like waves of a sea”, Dhanva recalled.
The poet’s interesting talk had stuck in my mind then. Under pressure from Suresh’s deadline, the Dhanva anecdote flashed back on the mind and I churned out some gibberish employing sea’s imagery and an 8-year-old girl’s quaint observation. I don’t remember a word of the so-called three pieces of love’s labour. But I do remember that Suresh said he liked the poetry and would have them broadcast from New Delhi station too.
When he so chose, Suresh’s ability to induce a delusion of grandeur in any gullible mind was mind-boggling. Mercifully, I was no so naïve. To me, poetry has always been a soothing friend but never as an itch to burden the world with unsolicited crap. The brief, albeit forced, dabble in poetic cheekiness was soon forgotten.
Almost 24 years later, a horrible episode at Hindustan Times again led me astray in the delusionary world of writing. This time in story writing. Daughter of a senior IAS officer on internship at the HT somehow got this horrendous impression that I was about to devour her. My silly attempts to disabuse her mind of this only compounded my miseries. She was adamant on seeing me out of the HT for no crime whatsoever I thought I committed except sincerely trying to mentor her as feature editor. The editor was somehow convinced that an IAS officer’s daughter, a privileged guest in the paper rather an intern, can’t be faulted; the fault must be mine.
In his uncharacteristic fulmination, he rebuked me so harshly that I was simply benumbed for days. The matter was so delicate I couldn’t share it with family. I was extremely upset all the time. The world seemed to have come down crashing before me. A foolish desire to redeem my self respect through story writing overwhelmed me. In one sitting, I wrote the entire episode in a style that I vaguely thought might be construed as literary enough. A long season of silliness followed the story crudely titled ‘Afsar Ki Beti’ because mind was desperately craving for ‘redemption’. I approached Hari Bhatnagar with story for publishing in Sakshatkar, the magazine he edits. Hari, a great friend, profusely praised the story for reason I know for sure was friendship.
Having delivered the story, my fever subsided and I forgot all about the one-sitting stupidity. But Hari had not forgotten. He published the story. Worse, he told me Gyan Ranjan, of all people, liked the story. Of course that was a joke cracked in all seriousness to please me but I was wise enough not to be amused, much less thrilled.
 I never needed ruse of an aspiring writer to earn Gyanji’s affection and free copies of Pahal at my doorstep in Jabalpur till I was there. He had enlisted me in his mailing list without asking. It was only after I came to Bhopal that I started missing Pahal sorely. Hari in Bhopal would sometimes lend copies of the magazine but the thrill of finding it at doorstep was missing. The free receipt of Pahal in Jabalpur had a hidden affection of the sender for the recipient. That affection, though not very demonstrative or deep, manifested itself in many ways.
The most enduring manifestation was the post card Gyan Ranjan wrote to me sometime in late nineties. If I remember it correctly, the card said, ‘Tumne Apne Ko Jis Tarah Sahej Kar Rakha Hai Usase Hame Prerna Milti Hai’. Its literal translation would thoroughly deceive any one about the real significance of the observation. What I understood in this cryptic sentence was his implicit admiration for my incorruptibility as a journalist and my undiminished passion for reading books.
 If I were a systematic person that I always thought I should be but could not, I would have had that post card laminated for record, if not displayed on the drawing room.
All this description might give an impression as though I was quite close to Gyan Ranjan. No, I was not. In fact, I seldom had had one- on- one conversation with him. If not in groups, at least Arun Pandey would be around when I happened to meet Gyan ji.
Arun in those days used to be a gregarious, happy-go-lucky youth. We were and still are close friends. He was my college mate and closest colleague in Vivechana. He had an uncanny knack for testing the limit of liberty he could take with elders. His inimitable Banarasi style always gave him leeway to retreat if the attempt at taking liberty backfired or misfired. I would feel both comfortable and fearful in his company whenever we had to talk to respectable people.
Gyan ji’s affection for Arun was pretty obvious and Arun could take liberty with him. Arun first introduced me to Gyan Ranjan in 1980 when I was still a student. Arun brought me to Vivechana, our theatre group, for acting, having seen my award-winning play in the college’s social gathering. Gyan Ranjan impressed me on first sight, though I had yet to read his stories. I told my mother about Gyan Ranjan. She had read him. Her first reaction was, ‘Buda Bansh Kabir Ka Upja Put Kamaal’.
It took me years to grasp the real import of Mummy’s comment. A research scholar on Jai Shankar Parasad under the guidance of Rameshwar Shukla ‘Anchal’, Mummy’s comment shouldn’t have been surprising. She was quintessentially ‘Chhayavadi’ Hindi scholar who thought Ramnath Suman, Gyan Ji’s father, was grossly undervalued in the Hindi literature. Gyan’s few stories that she had read didn’t impress her.
Imbued in the mother’s sensibility of literature since childhood, I had to take years of reading Marxism and western literature, apart from Hindi literature, to appreciate and mesmerized by Gyan Ranjan’s stories. I am consciously avoiding mention of the stories, lest this blog should get too long. To an extent, his stories are also responsible for my diffidence at writing. If you can’t write even one percent like Gyan Ranjan did then what is the point of writing? Besides Vivechana, the Hitavada was another reason that made me keep in touch with Gyan Ranjan. The paper was launched in 1980. Its proprietor Anand Shrivastava, Maharshi Mahesh Yogi’s nephew, was Gyan Ranjan’s student. Gyan Ranjan became a sort of undeclared adviser for the paper, though he never came to the fore. Arun Pandey joined the paper and I followed instinctively. Careeism was a hated word for me in those halcyon days of idealism. Innuendoes about Marxist Gyan Ranjan’s association with ‘religious ’ paper spread across literary circles. Kayasthwad was another insinuation. But Gyan Ranjan fobbed off all these subtle and not-so-subtle murmurs with insouciance. His only contribution to the paper of Maharshi Mahesh Yogi that I distinctly remember was his beautiful homage to Shaheed Bhagat Singh. Its title was Inquilab Zindabad.
 Pasha was a big factor that kept me emotionally closer to Gyan Ranajn than he ever realised. Whenever I recall Pasha, the picture that flashes on mind is that of a Christ Church school boy in Khakhi uniform going by rickshaw from the narrow alley of Agrawal colony. He was so respectful and sweet to me all along that It is still hard to think of him as a grown up man.
To attend Pasha’s Baraat in Allahabad, I even risked being told to please join only reception later. Frankly, there was hardly an invitation for me to join the Baraat. But Arun Pandey said let’s us go. I couldn’t resist seeing Pasha as bridegroom. Till the last moment when Sunayana Bhabhi was serving dinner just before departure of Baraat, I ate with trepidation.
Since I came to Bhopal, meeting with Gyan Ranjan became very infrequent. I would only learn that Gyan Ji had come recently and stayed with Hari or Raaj Kumar Keswani. A couple of times I urged him to stay with me too. He promised but didn’t oblige. I didn’t mind. You don’t have to be demonstratively close to any one to earn and endure love. The post card is a reminder of this.

100 days: My experience in DNA

My experience in DNA

The DNA, Indore, scored the first goal by default on the launching day. The paper started off humbly: no pomp and show, no big hoardings, no tall claims and no shouting from the roof top. Just a few days of dummy-run and the paper was out on June 26.
Yet, its launch frightened an established rival enough to mess up with the fundamentals of journalism, little realizing in its fevered mind that the boys will be boys and girls, girls.
While the rival on its front page sought to portray Indore doctors out-divining the God in transforming girls into boys, the DNA gently tickled the Indore’s memories of erstwhile ruler Yashwant Rao resemblance with whose face led an Arab Sheikh to believe himself a reincarnate of the Holkar King. Well begun is half done.
Seeing the inaugural issue on the DNA website, a senior journalist friend in Bhopal congratulated me on phone. “Bade Bhaiya (it’s me), your paper is greaaaat. I think it can reach 50,000 circulation in a few months.”
Having been in this profession for three decades, I knew better than to share his optimism, but didn’t dampen his spirit.
The friend, who had worked in Indore long back, genuinely felt that proliferation of English education in the 15th fastest growing city in India will enable DNA to capture the reader’s imagination fast. His opinion rang a sense of deja vu in me.
I said you understand the status of English papers in a Hindi-speaking state like Madhya Pradesh and still saying so. He kept mum.
Since then I have heard many otherwise knowledgeable people in Indore wonder aloud why English newspapers are nowhere near their Hindi counterparts with so many public schools, professional colleges, an IIT, an IIM, not to
speak of a host of big industries being in existence in the commercial capital of MP.
The co-relation between English education and English papers does not land to an easy explanation. It is like a candidate in an election counting on all the votes of his community in his favour. That does not work. The candidate needs much more than just the caste to cast a
charm on his fellow caste people.
That is precisely one of the big challenges for the DNA, my 14th employer. It has a long way to go to become a voice of the reader.
Aspirations of Indore have yet to find adequate expression in the paper. The paper is still in infancy. A large chunk of the potential readers is still beyond us.
Of course, we can’t boast to have a most desirable team in DNA. Reporters with all their hard works are yet to come to grips with issues that fascinate (not just interest) an upward mobile populace. Desk people have a lot to work on style and content to make the paper look snazzier. Various departments have yet to evolve as a core team
to take the paper to a newer height.
But the most remarkable thing about the paper is that willingness to surmount all these obstacles is
there in the staff.
Indore was not an altogether unknown place for me. I know many journalists from this city, though I have had no opportunity to work here before. I have great respect for Indore’s journalism, not the least because the city produced two of the finest editors in India- Rajendra Mathur and Prabhash Joshi. But that’s in Hindi.
English journalism in Indore, frankly, is far behind the metros, notwithstanding the fact that one English new paper is in existence since 1982 and, another, bigger paper, had been supplying daily four-page pull out since 2000 till it started full-fledged Indore edition a year ago. Language is a big issue and, we in DNA are facing this acutely.
Lack of good deskmen has, however, become a national crisis. Even metro papers wail about acute dearth of good hands to handle the desk.
People not so well-versed with the dynamics of the English newspaper in India are amazed at this crisis. They facilely point out to amazing proliferation of public schools.
“When there are so many good English schools and English papers offer such a good salary, why is this
crisis of good deskmen?” they wonder. This same glib belief is a cause for their wonderment about poor circulation of English newspapers in cities such as Indore and Bhopal. It is hard to explain.
Even at the risk of sounding cynical, I try to temper the glee of the staffers over laudatory comments on their stories.
Yes, we have broken many outstanding stories. True, our presentation of even some seemingly ordinary stories (the suicide attempt by a convict of death sentence, for example) has made DNA look apart.
But, the DNA is still far away from the goal when it will be read as a single complete newspaper, without the reader having to feel the need for any Hindi paper for local coverage.
No English newspaper could achieve this cherished goal in MP so far. English newspapers remain a supplementary reading for those who can afford more than one newspapers.
The DNA has a task cut out for it to make itself a complete newspaper.

Indore, an outsider perspective

Indore evokes a grudging admiration in rest of Madhya Pradesh. Its opulence makes people rate their own city (Jabalpur, Bhopal and Gwalior) as ‘different’ in comparison.
By ‘different’ they often mean inferior in most parameters of progress but would not admit so. Instead, they would indefensibly extol their respective city’s ‘virtue’ of ‘not running crazy after money’ unlike Indore. In the same
vein, however, they might blurt out praise for Indore’s historical advantages in promoting entrepreneurship in business, politics, media, etc vis-à-vis the city they belong.

I have come across very few people in Bhopal and Jabalpur (the cities where I spent most of my life so far) who don’t have an opinion about Indore. And most opinions betray a sense of personal misfortune for inability to partake a bit of Indore’s fabulous riche. Slightly jealous of Indore’s prosperity, they seem to wallow in the vicarious pleasure of denigrating the Indoreran.
The sneer manifests itself in countless jokes about Indore’s insatiable lust for money, ‘gluttony’ for Poha-Jalebi and the 56- shops, racketeering of media people and funny anecdotes about its politicians.
One 24-year-old hilarious incident has endured while a lot many are forgotten.
A student leader-turned- MLA from Indore led a delegation of nurses to then chief minister Motilal Vora in 1987.
“ Babuji, ( as Vora used to be reverentially addressed) these nurses have been running from pillar to post for years. Please pregnant them.” Vora, a humourless septuagenarian, was appalled. The MLA insisted that CM immediately make them pregnant. Others in the delegation were shocked.
After a many embarrassing moments, it dawned
on the chief minister that the MLA was, in fact, demanding that he order to make these temporary nurses permanent. These are other equally funny jokes about English of the politician.
When you mention Indore, a Jabalpurean would first curse Mahakoshal politicians from DP Mishra to Kamal Nath to his heart content for doing nothing for the region and add admiringly “Indore Ke Neta Aese
Nahi Hai.” By this, he means Indore politicians might be as venal (even more) as theirs, but, “Woh Apne Logon Aur Kshetra Ka Poora Khayal Rakhate Hain.”
Though without a demonstrable basis, the belief about Indore politicians being more caring for their people and region has made a deep impression on collective psyche of rest of Madhya Pradesh.
Anecdotes, often exaggerated and apocryphal, about ‘Indore-first’ politicians from PC Sethi to Kailash Vijayvargiya are animatedly mentioned to drive home the point why Indore has progressed so fast and other MP cities have lagged behind.
When you talk Indore with bureaucrats (IAS, IPS officers) in Bhopal, many would instantly feign disdain for a government servant’s political connection to stress why they won’t be posted in Indore.
Without needing a push, they would reel out names of successive collectors in Indore and ask, “Haven’t they all been there because of proximity to the chief minister of the day?”
To buttress this point they would mention four former Indore collectors whose next posting was commissioner, public relations, in Bhopal.
This post is considered not only an interlocutor between the
government and media but also of a ‘wise mole’ of the chief minister to keep the master updated about goings- on in the rival political camps within and outside the ruling party.
Former commissioner, public relations, Dr Bhagirath Prasad, SR Mohanti, Manoj Shrivastava and incumbent commissioner Rakesh Shrivastava have been Indore collector. Ajit Jogi’s long jump from Indore collector’s post to Rajya Sabha in 1986 was a trendsetter in bureaucrats joining politics.
No need to go that deep into history. Two predecessors of incumbent Indore collector – Vivek Aggrawal and Rakesh Shrivastava-- are among chief minister’s most trusted bureaucrats. The first is in the CM secretariat and the second commissioner, public relations.
No other collector is more in the media scan than Indore’s for good or bad reasons in Madhya Pradesh. It is a widely held assumption in the corridors of powers that Indore has an uncanny capacity to corrupt its collectors and SPs. Bhagirath Prasad was considered clean when he was
collector in Jabalpur in mid eighties. A couple of years after he was shifted to Indore, people’s perception about his incorruptibility changed. People in MP were awestruck by myriad stories of retired IPS officer Panna Lal’s honesty and terror. But a few years as SP in Indore and the ‘honest terror’ was seen as a “mellowed” man.
No SP or collector in MP’s remaining 49 districts makes as strong a wave in state powerhouse as Indore’s does. It is because the Indore collector’s actions are seen as an extension of the chief minister’s political strategies.
When Manoj Shrivastava ordered demolition of Raj
Towers during Digvijay Singh’s regime, the message implicit in it was that powerful Sanghvis, who had raised the illegal building, were no longer in the good books of the CM.
The recent drive against builders, most prominently Bobby Chhabra by the district administration, was, in fact, a political move of the chief minister to silence the opposition about his government’s alleged complicity with the builder mafia.
Two decades ago the then chief minister Sundar Lal Patwa had also sent across a strong political message by ordering annihilation of notorious don Bala Baig’s ‘evil empire’ in Indore’s Mambai Bazaar that housed all sorts of illegal activities from gambling to prostitution.
Indore has come handy for successive chief ministers to dip into its vast resources for furthering their political ambitions too.
In Bhopal’s political-bureaucratic-media circles, stories about Indore politicians’ inexhaustible resources for event managements are a legion. As chief minister, Digvijay Singh banked on his Indore connection, particularly his Man Friday Mahesh Joshi, to organize historic AICC convention in Pachmarhi in 1998.
Four-vehicles bearing MP- 09 of varying sizes and models lugged paraphernalia in astonishing number –from cooks and tents to fridges and ACs—to Pachmarhi.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi was pleased with Digvijay for successful conclave and Digvijay, in turn, smugly reassured himself that his political investment in Indore was worth it.
Likewise, when newly nominated BJP president Nitin Gadkari needed his formal coronation to be remembered for long, he chose Indore for that. The BJP national executive in April , 2010 was in the news less for
the deliberations held there and more for the ‘white tent city’ erected in the outskirt of Indore.
The delegates returned marveling at the vast array of workers thrown in to make the event a huge success
by industry minister Kailash Vijayvargiya.
Both Vijayvargiya and chief minister Shivraj Singh earned praise from the BJP high command. Indore provided a big boost to Chouhan’s ambition to emerge as a national leader, thanks to the conclave.
In fact, carting workers in thousands in long fleets of garish cutout-bedecked vehicles to parade individual strength is a long tradition in Indore. Other cities too have adopted this tradition but Indore remains unmatched in terms of razzmatazz and resources.
One remarkable aspect of political life of Indore is that moneybags generously finance politicians of all hues but don’t take a direct plunge in party politics. They stay away from being identified with one particular party for obvious reason.
Arjun Singh faced allegations of extending political patronage to Ruchi Soya’s Kailash Shahra. Digvijay Singh’s only brush with the law after he was ousted was due to his government’s alleged favour to industrialist Subhash Gupta and builder Manish Kalani of Treasure Island. The EOW, however, could not gather any substantial evidence to prosecute Digvijay Singh in the two
cases.
Remarkably, none of the big politicians from Indore is from rich and elite class. The Holkars and their descendants studiously remained apolitical, unlike Scindias, though the Indore rulers have been extremely popular as philanthropists.
The political arena is left for middle and lower middle class politicians to rule. Almost all Indore politicians hail from middle and lower middle class.
They are quintessential Hindi-speaking, down-to-earth men and women whose primary capital is workers’ support.
Early politicians too were either trade union leaders or freedom fighters. Most notable among them was comrade Homi Daji, who surprised the nation by entering Lok Sabha from this conservative city on CPI ticket in 1962 election. Later PC Sethi, a clerk-turned-politician dominated the Indore politics for well over three decades till he was
defeated in 1989 by the then homemaker from middle class Maharashtrian family Sumitra Mahajan in Lok Sabha election.
Suresh Seth, Chandra Prabhash Shekhar, Mahesh Joshi, Lalit Jain, Yagya Dutt Sharma were also Indore faces in Bhopal as powerful ministers.
Each had his own peculiar image. Seth was known as an outspoken leader whose ride on elephant to the state assembly during the Janata Party rule is a part of MP’s political folklore. He has bounced back in the
news after two decades for taking on Kailash Vijayvargiya in the Sugni Devi land scam.

Mahesh Joshi’s influence lasted longest among Indore’s politicians , primarily because this one-time Sanjay Gandhi acolyte had been afforded all the freedom to rule the city as an uncrowned king by Digvijay Singh in the latter’s 10 years as chief minister.
Joshi largely basked in Digvijay’s reflected glory even as the four-decade- old Congress citadel had begun to crack in 1989.
Journalists in Bhopal got to see a new crop of Indore politicians in the state assembly after the 1990 assembly elections. Like the previous ones, all these BJP politicians were from lower and middle classes.
They rode piggyback on the massive Ayodhya wave to the state assembly. They were street-smart and fiercely pro-Hindutva.
Kailash Vijayvargiya emerged as the most vocal and popular among them. He easily befriended journalists in Bhopal and made a splash in the house by his earthy humour-tinged oratorical skills. He sings well
too, particularly bhajans. The singing has also helped Kailash rise. Now he has filled the space which Mahesh Joshi occupied once.
Post Ayodhya and post-liberalisation, Indore has begun to resemble more and more like Mumbai. The co-existence of dormant virulence of communal politics with proliferating malls has redefined Indore. This undesirable wedding of the money and communalism has also given rest
of MP one more reason to crack crude jokes at Indore’s expense. But, again, like Mumbai, Indore’s resilience is phenomenal.
Despite communal divide, its entrepreneurship is redoubtable.
During childhood, we used to play an indoor game
‘Vyapar’ during summer vacations. The play had various big cities valued in terms of money. Premium on Indore used to be the lowest. But we, the children in Jabalpur, used to take pride in the fact that at least one city from Madhya Pradesh figures among top business cities of India.
It is only when I grew older that opinion about Indore changed. Now that I am working here, I hope to have my views changed by vibrant Indore about itself.

Macabre joke on Nasir’s death

Macabre joke on Nasir’s death
I didn’t want to write this piece but my conscience has kept torturing me ever since I learnt this macabre joke about my dear friend Nasir Kamaal, who is no more. Nasir died of cardiac arrest last month in Mumbai where he was under training at Times of India for the paper’s soon-to-be-launched Bhopal edition. He was one of the finest human beings I had (have) ever known. And my circle of friends, relatives, acquaintances is no small, if not exactly a legion.
Forget friends, even those who have had a nodding acquaintance with Nasir were shocked to learn his untimely death. Fate had done great injustice to this talented and honest journalist. There was an absolute consensus among his friends that Nasir deserved much more than he got- career-wise and otherwise. It was only in the twilight zone of his career that he landed a job in Times of India and we felt that Mamu has, albeit belatedly, got a position he always richly deserved.
Only one man probably differed and he betrayed his anathema to Nasir’s respectable rehabilitation in a manner beyond belief. He was a Nasir’s and mine ex-editor.
Nasir died in the afternoon on August 6. The shocking news circulated fast through mobile and SMSes. Every one who got this news was shocked. This ex-editor was amused though. He had got the news on his mobile through a SMS from a common friend who is also a prominent citizen of Bhopal and known for frequent SMSing.
I can only visualise his expression on reading the SMS but sadness was definitely not on the ex-editor’s face. He called up a friend (who is my friend too) to ask, “Where is Nasir?” The tone had a bemused quizzing ring about it. The friend on the other side said Nasir is in Mumbai in Times of India. “No, No, just find out”, the ex-editor sought to deepen the mystery and switched off the mobile. The friend was baffled.
In the meantime the friend too had got the SMS about Nasir’s death but since he was busy talking to some one, he had not read it.
Soon after the ex-editor’s guess-where-is-Nasir call, the friend got a call from another common friend. He broke the sad news. They shared the sorrow genuinely. And then it dawned on the friend what the ex-editor had wanted to convey. What a way to convey the message! The friend was shocked. Can there be a more insensitive -- I’d dare call barbaric- way to break the sad news about the death of a person who never antagonised any one wittingly or otherwise? Who was known as an Ajat Shatru in Bhopal media?
I was appalled when I learnt about the entire episode. This has kept haunting me ever since. Now that I have written this piece, I feel a little light but the insensitivity of human nature will remain an unforgettable memory for me forever.

Homage to Badal Sircar

Homage to Badal Sircar

Amid Mamata Banerjee’s tumultuous victory celebrations in West Bengal, playwright Badal Sircar’s death on Saturday went virtually unnoticed. The octogenarian theatre-personality was the pioneer of the ‘Third Theatre’ and a strong torch-bearer of street play movement.
I knew him through his immensely popular plays, particularly ‘Juloos’, ‘Pagala Ghoda’ and ‘Evam Indrajeet’. I was part of ‘Juloos’ team in Vivechana ( Jabalpur) and was thrilled to watch Prashant Khirwarkar-directed “ Pagala Ghoda’ that featured stalwarts of then Bhopal theatre such as Rajiv Verma, Papiya Dasgupta, Vijay Dindorkar.
‘Evam Indrajit’ is, arguably, Badal Da’s most popular and controversial play that captured the angst of the urban youth in the sixties and seventies , not only in West Bengal but entire India.
Badal Da’s death has freshened my memories of early eighties when we in ‘Vivechana’ enacted ( to say staged would be to confuse, as we would, more often than not, act out the play without proper stage ).
That was our first play without proper director after director Alakhnandan and three of our actors including Ganga Mishra, Rajendra Kamale and Alok Chaterjee had left to join Bharat Bhawan repertory in Bhopal. The responsibility of direction fell on senior actor Arun Pandey.
We were lucky to have had chosen “Juloos” as the first play for Arun to direct. Honestly speaking, Arun’s directorial skill was doubtful. A difficult realistic or complex social play may have doomed Arun’s debut in direction as well as Vivechana’s future as theatre group.
Juloos has great potential for an energetic team of actors to exhibit its talent. The play is sans the protagonist and the antagonist. The crowd is the lead actor; the actors are in supporting cast.
With breathtaking swiftness, the crowd transforms itself into a train, a bus, a music concert, a funeral , a procession and much more. The supporting actors enliven the scenes by assuming various characters.
For instance, I would play five roles in the ‘Juloos’ the play whose duration was barely one hour. The roles were as diverse as toothpowder vender in a train, pop-singer (of Amitabh Bachchan vintage in Yarana) in a music concern and a street Romeo in a running bus. We had a cast of eight characters and each had different roles. Now you can imagine the rapidity with which scenes changed and kinetic energy of the characters that propelled the play.
The play was hugely popular. We staged it across Madhya Pradesh between 1982 and 85.
Incidentally, the play was staged in Bhopal when the city was under the grip of tension duo to communal strife over installation of goddess statue at Peer Gte which was later to be christened as “ Curfew Wali Mata”. Nav Bharat, then the most popular newspaper in Bhopal, carried the news about staging Juloos in box with headline” Curfew Mein Juloos”.
In the hindsight I am tempted to say Juloos had a major role in survival of Vivechana as a thriving theatre group in its days of existential crisis. Therefore, on behalf of all those who acted in the play, I sincerely offer my homage to Badal Sircar.