Even as the media world is agog with the news that Radhika and Dr Prannoy Roy have resigned as directors on the board of RRPR Holding Pvt. Ltd. with effect from November 29, I am transported back to 1984. Those were the days when India was still many years away from the din of private TV channels. Nobody knew that something like Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms would invade our world soon. The telecom revolution, too, was far away.
Those days I was a student at Delhi University. During the summer vacation, I worked in a vast TV showroom of my friend’s family in the then Archana Cinema shopping arcade in Greater Kailash-part I. That TV showroom belonged to Weston Company and had a huge video library. Those were the days of VCR. Movie buffs from across South and New Delhi used to throng there to take video cassettes on rent. While I was not involved with it even remotely, I used to see people coming there all the time.
That video library was handled by some employees of Kamal Vachani, son of Weston company’s founder Sunder Vachani. I vividly remember Kamal Vachani was a very polite guy and used to strike up a conversation with his customers. Among the regulars at the library were none other than Radhika and Prannoy Roy. They lived in a Greater Kailash barsaati and visited in their chocolate-colour Fiat car. While Radhika Roy was working for the Indian Express, Dr Prannoy Roy was reaching in Delhi School of Economics.
I learned that he was Dr Prannoy Roy only when he was handling perhaps the first live election coverage India had seen in 1984. He was there with Vinod Dua. That election occurred after Mrs Indira Gandhi’s gory killing and subsequent anti-Sikh Riots. That 24×7 election coverage was a mind-blowing experience for Indian TV viewers. By then, I had already quit the Music Nest job even though respected Sunder Vachani had promised to give critical responsibilities to his Weston Company. Sunder Vachani established Mayfair Garden, an upmarket residential area for Sindhis in South Delhi.
It goes to say that the election coverage of 1984 changed the face of Indian TV forever. Post-1984 election coverage, Prannoy Roy became a regular face on Doordarshan with his weekly show ‘The World this week.’ That show made a profound impact among discerning viewers keen to know the world’s major events. With his dignified and superb anchoring, Dr Prannoy Roy became a favourite TV personality in India. Before NDTV was launched, his company provided content to various channels.
In 1986, I joined the Hindustan Times group. Those were the days when the part of the buzzing HT sports desk was converted into the office of Sports Apartments that was coming up in IP Extension in East Delhi. Veterans of HT like M. Madhavan, Vinod Varshney, Aroon Kumar, and Dr Kailash Papne used to work there after finishing their office work. And we sports lovers, too, dropped in often to discuss the latest in sports with giants like PC Nigam, CS Rao, Sandeep Nakai and others. Film critic and poet Anil Saari joined us often as the HT Sunday room was next to HT Sports.
And one day, as we discussed some issues, we saw Dr Prannoy Roy standing there and talking to Vinod Varshney. He had come to hand over the quarterly instalment of his flat in Sports Apartments. That was the late 80s, and Dr Prannoy Roy had already become a star of Indian TV news.
Vinod Varshney had introduced all of us to him. He was with us for a couple of minutes. We found him to be an incredibly gracious gentleman. Even he had kadak chai of HT House with us. I reminded him I was working for Music Nest, where he was a regular visitor to take cassettes of some Hollywood movies. We shared notes of those days briefly, and then he left. But I used to see him from to time in HT’s house.
As Music Nest and HT House are distant memory, I still think about how the likes of Dr Prannoy Roy grabbed the opportunities that came their way and became a formidable name in India. He started his venture from the same place ( Archana Cinema complex) where he used to visit to take video cassettes, his preference being thrillers. He became the owner of that vast complex that initially belonged to Atma Ram Chaddha, a businessman in Delhi. Atmaram Sanatan Dharam College (ARSD) of Delhi University was named after him.
A few decades later, Dr Prannoy and Radhika Roy have an empire worth hundreds of crores. They no longer lived in Barsaati and sold off their IP Extension flat. Finally, as NDTV is in the control of Gautam Adani, the wealthiest Indian, one has to accept that both these gentlemen have one common thing: They are first-generation entrepreneurs.
Like Dr Roy, Gautam Adani also started his professional career in the 1980s. And now, he is the wealthiest man in Asia and has a net worth of US $ 122.4 billion. He founded the Adani Group- a multinational conglomerate company involved in port development and operations in India. His Group has also become a crucial player in oil and gas exploration, coal trading and mining, power generation and multi-modal logistics, and media.
Finally, Adani has inducted Sanjay Pugalia & Senthil Sinniah Chengalvarayan in place of the Roy couple on the board. Both are ace journalists. Adani Enterprises established Pugalia as the CEO and editor-in-chief to lead the Group’s media initiatives in 2021. At the same time, Senthil Chengalvarayan is also a very formidable name in India’s business journalism. Chengalvarayan has also been the editor-in-chief of Network 18’s business newsroom.
We hope that under the new dispensation, NDTV will continue to do meaningful journalism.
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