Amidst all the turmoil we witness these days in the media world, it is somewhat consoling to remember old-time journalists who had done their bit not just to entertain their clients-readers and listeners-but to inform and educate them with a certain amount of objectivity that placed them above their contemporaries.
On June 22, just a few weeks ago, The Hindu remembered that it was the 50th anniversary of the passing-away of one of its earlier editors, Kasturi Srinivasan, at the age of 71. Born on August 7, 1887 at Coimbatore, he was near or at the helm of the newspaper between 1905-when his father, the legendary Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, a lawyer and freedom fighter who became a great editor, bought the paper-and 1959. Shri Srinivasan led his newspaper through some stirring times and was known for his fairness and restraint at a time when the British rulers were not particularly distinguished for either. He never seemed perturbed.
I had myself become an editor at the age of 29 and in consequence entitled to be a member of the prestigious All India Newspaper Editors’ Conference (AINEC), but at no time did he treat me in any other way than he treated others, much to my own embarrassment. He was reticent and not given to much talking at the frequent AINEC meetings, but when he spoke, he was quite clear in his mind as to what needs to be done to fight for media rights. Such men are rare and one is grateful to The Hindu to remind its readers of a distant past when editors commanded the highest respect everywhere in the country. It was a period of giants like Tushar Kanti Ghosh of the Amritbazaar Patrika, Devdas Gandhi of Hindustan Times, S Sadanand of the Free Press Journal, not to speak of M Chalapathi Rao of National Herald and Stalin Srinivasan of The Indian Express. They are all gone now, the old familiar faces.
RK Laxman is a contemporary and in his eighties, but the release of a book on the man and his works under the title RK Laxman: The Uncommon Man recently by the Governor of Maharashtra reminds one again of another day and time. The book priced high and beyond the means of the average reader consists of five parts: a biographic sketch precedes the other four devoted to political cartoons and Laxman’s sense of humour. Present on the occasion was Maharashtra’s Chief Minister Ashok Chavan.
It is some what odd but perhaps it is reflective of today’s generation that when Michael Jackson died, it received massive publicity, but the death of Walter Cronkite, a former CBS news anchor, at the age of 92 obviously was of no concern to today’s generation. Probably in his time there was no one anywhere close to him as an anchorman, and during my own dozen years as a news correspondent in the US I can’t imagine ever missing listening to his daily broadcasts. The presumption was that if Cronkite said something, it must be true. He carried conviction even to the cynic. The Economist said in an obituary, Cronkite’s career was founded firmly on reverence for facts. The rise and rise of ‘Infotainment’ on television distressed him. He was an anchor icon to every citizen, such was his standing. To the entire country he was Mr Trustworthy. We will not see the likes of him again. He belonged to a different age and clime. His avuncular manner, his body language, his very human approach to news reporting-as he was reporting the assassination of John Kennedy, he couldn’t help removing his glasses and wiping his eyes several times. Why don’t we have someone like him in India?
If one can remember Cronkite, there is all the more reason for an Indian to remember one of the finest artists of our time, Syed Haider Raza, 87 years old, living in a village in the south of France, all by himself. He left India sometime in the fifties, settled in Paris and married a French lady Janine Mongillat. When he left Mumbai, art was just getting to come alive in the city and the field was occupied by excellent artists like KK Hebbar, Ara, Gaitonde and a host of others. A painting could be had for something like Rs 300. When I was posted as The Times of India’s correspondent in Paris in the early sixties, I renewed Raza’s acquaintance, and often saw him at an art gallery where his works were on sale. He never ceased to be an Indian. It was, therefore, a pleasure to read an interview with him by Dileep Padgaonkar, also an old Paris hand, in The Times of India (August 21). At 87, Raza told Padgaonkar that he wants to ‘retire’ because, according to French law, after a certain advanced age he cannot any longer sell his paintings. How was he spending his time? By reading, he said, his favourite poets, reciting the dohas of Kabir and the abhangs of Tukaram!
Raza is Indian to the core, even if he has lived the best part of his life in France, expects to die there and to be buried in a place next to that of his wife who pre-deceased him. They were a loving pair. I missed Raza when he was in Mumbai some months ago and regret it for he was such a wonderful human being who keeps saying that his aim now in his fading years (“three months, three years, who can say?” as he told Dileep) is “to repay my debts to India”. Fancy a good Muslim going to mass in a nearby church and in his spare time singing Tukaram’s abhangs! That’s a true Indian for you, which reminds me of a story in The Hindu (August 21) about Rev Francis Clooney of Harvard University who has written a book called Beyond Compare: St Francis and Sri Vedanta Desika on Loving Surrender to God. According to Rev Clooney, there is much in common between Christian concept of loving surrender to God and Vaishnavism. That was once delightfully brought to my attention when I was a student at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, in 1940. I was, as a student, getting somewhat notorious for loudly discussing philosophy with my fellow students and much to my surprise I was one day summoned by Rev Heras, a distinguished Indologist who was then, I guess, the Principal. I was somewhat scared, wondering whether I had crossed some college norm in being peremptorily summoned by Rev Heras. It turned out that he had indeed heard of my excessive interest in Hindu, especially dvaitic, philosophy and he wanted to know whether I was aware that there was much similarity in terms of dualism of Madhvacharya and the Catholic Church.
I remember the long lecture he gave me that evening much to my relief and the discussion I had with him and the thought of his caring for the views of a young man on the fundamentals of dvaita came as a pleasant surprise to me. Rev Heras told me that I was always welcome to see him if I wanted to discuss philosophy. I never took advantage of the offer, too awed by Rev Father’s deep scholarship. But now I should get a copy of Rev Clooney’s work to remind me of another clime and age.
