A couple of years ago, I was hospitalised for a few days. It was diagnosed that my heart was working at a pace lower than the desired. With timely medical intervention, I recovered and returned safe and sound. It was a timely warning. I changed my life style. Discontinued my two pegs of old monk which I was enjoying for more than 30 years. Now I am a social drinker at India International Center bar.
As luck would have it, my friend, philosopher and guide and a fellow journalist 1970s called me with a welcome news. Courtesy him, I started working for a monthly magazine for a renumeration that met my all basic needs. Besides this my weekly book review column in a national Hindi daily continues. But what actually keeps me going is my reading vice. Yes there is a bestseller The Book of Vices by Robert J. Hutchinson. It declares reading a vice. I accept this left-handed compliment. But with books around, you cam never feel lonely or bored. They are the best companion.
People after the mid-40 blues start preparing for post retirement life. Provident fund, savings, extra income and cribbing. I never needed any of them. I believe that one should accept people, even if you don't agree with them. After all the article 21 of Indian Constitution grants you the freedom of speech. Though many people are misusing that freedom and creating an unprecedented atmosphere of intolerance.
I took to debating in my Hansraj College and won 58 inter-college debates with my senior partner late and lamented Shailendra Mehta. It befriended me with the power of word. The natural corollary was Hindi journalism. Soon I graduated to Onlooker fortnightly, under the guidance of another mentor Diego Silviera, a noble Goan Christian who taught me the basics of English investigative journalism. He made me an iconoclast. I spent seven days and seven months in that job before I got a call from Aroon Puie to see him next day in F 14 office in Connaught Place. He had got all my professional details. He took out a paper and offered me thrice the salary, loan for car, air travel and I don't remember what other perks. A Chandni Chowk, bania boy with humble roots was working as a high profile reporter of the country. M.J.Akbar operated next door in INS building on Rafi Marg in Sunday office as its editor.Laterwhen I became the editor of Super film monthly in Bombay, I met him in Samovar at Flora Fountain and he complimented that I was the youngest editor in Bombay at that time.
one day, he asked me to interview five top politicians of the day on and off the record. Then he asked me to use both the versions. I was shocked. But he insisted. being my editor, I couldn't refuse. All the five were good contacts. They were aghast. But in the long run, people saw the logic. How double-faced, the politicians were. They say one thing in private and another in public.
Coming back to today, I am flooded with old memories. Old contacts, anecdotes, bad and good both surface as a film reel every night. They are disturbing. But you can't help them. There is no way, you can avoid them. Besides dreams, no one call me anymore. Only a couple of years ago, when I was heading four media schools in Delhi, I was flooded with requests for free-lance classes at Rs 500 a an hour. I had done the same for 20 years from 1985 to 2004 in Delhi University college like Kamla Nehru, Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan and YMCA.
I live with my family but more as a guest. No interference. No objections. Glued to mindless TV serials like Savdhan India and Crime Petrol laced with an occasional dekho at channel 507 for Times Now news headlines.
But my day starts at 6 with a self-made cup of tea browsing the repetitive, mundane and listless headlines of rape, murder, infidelity and political infighting. It takes me five minutes to flip through 80 odd headlines that give me a total grasp of what is happening and not happening in the world around me. I am scared of the Hindutva wave in the country. I had a brief brush with RSS and ABVP in my college days but I walked out of it after a few years untouched, unaffected. I had no problem with them. Their stories of Maharana Pratap and Shivaji sounded like straight from school books. But today, it is turning into a serious debate. But I am sure, the secularism, liberalism and inclusiveness of India will prevail.
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