Mr Roy and 'Front-page Journalist' syndrome

Mr Roy was not a journalist, he was the journalist. Mumbai media world swore by his news gathering capabilities. He was bespectacled not for an eye disorder, but to spot news from a distance, he had an extra long nose just to smell news ahead of others.

He loved the sweet, intelligent bird like chattering psychiatrist Chirpy Bose, just in order to understand how an investment banker can reveal the biggest trans-national deal by committing some Freudian slip over an extended drinking session in some exorbitant Bandra pub.

Roy had developed a punch after guzzling hundreds of glasses of alcohol and overeating chicken platters every other day in the company of investment bankers. Mumbai media didn’t consider his sagging punch as an ordinary 'beer belly' but adorably termed it as the 'Roy belly'. The belly of dedication and journalistic excellence. The hundreds of alcohol glasses produced thousands of breaking stories on the number one financial daily that Roy worked with.

Mr Roy was courted by the editors of all top media houses with lucrative offers every weekend at the quaint, overcrowded Press Club near Azad Maidan, while the management of all top corporations wooed him with fancy dinners and other recreations at the finest luxury hotels and spas in and around Mumbai.

Roy stood like a granite rock, unfazed, not corrugated by any of the temptations. His only aim was to be on the front page of the number one pink newspaper. The pretty, bubbly Chirpy Bose sensed Roy is near the last leg of ‘Front-page Journalist’ syndrome, a thesis on which she did her post doctoral research and won many accolades across the world.

As Roy was close to insanity he found solace in football and as the world cup was on, he ignored Chirpy to such an extent that Chirpy stopped loving him and called him a nikamma old rooster. Roy, the rooster became a lonely man. His only friend was the front-page of the number one newspaper he worked for. As time passed, loneliness and alcohol consumed his passion, he missed his name on front-pages.

He still was considered the king of reportage by most of the media, but his happiness lied on the front-page appearance only.

After disappearing on the front-page for a consecutive five days Roy lost it. Roy tore all the fond photographs of Chirpy and David Beckham and also the numerous front-page cutouts he had pasted on his spacious bedroom wall. Roy was defeated, dejected and all very sad.

The blank looking Roy one day discovered a poster on the first-class train compartment he was travelling. It read, “108 times Chamatkari Baba Bangali Benareswale”..Mahayogi, mahagyani sare kaam sambhale. Pyar mein dhokha, bibika bhagna, jamin ka jhagda ho ya souten, chhudel ki samasya..baba sabarega bhag tumhara... kya stock market mein maal dubaya ya padosan ko dil de dia....sare uljhan ka haal jhatpat baba dega...chamatkari baba bangali...aaj hi ao taklif se niklo. To chup kyun ho aaj hin ao ya phir call karo 022-22222XXX , 10 lines. Credit card suvidha bhi uplabdh hai, milne ki dakshina sirf 1000 rupaye.

Milne ka pata Suite No 1001, Hotel Super, Kurla (East), near Champa Original Desi Bar, Police station ke baju mein.

Roy, though hesitant about confiding his problems of insanity and frontpage syndrome with such a hindustani speaking baba, but nevertheless he managed to call and take an appointment from Monika, baba’s personal secretary.

The decade ends; remembering poppy flowers, ghats, rock pythons and friends

In past few days, I had a sudden consciousness about losing or going past another decade, the third one in my life.

When you think voluntarily, the recollections become vivid, unpredictable and leave you with sighs and mild laughter depending on what situation has appeared from memory lane like calling up a rare video from YouTube.

It comes up in your mind all the time. While preparing a cup of pepper-mint special tea for yourself on a Sunday morning, while jogging inside the small park in your locality, while travelling in a jam-packed Mumbai suburban train or even while chewing a Kalkattia mitha paan from the local cigarette and paan vendor in posh south Mumbai after office hours are over.

The first memory I had was of the undergraduate university days in eastern Uttar Pradesh. My university consisted of large colonial academic structures, a whitewashed small Chapel and vast stretches of green farm land and Orchards spread over 600-acres on the banks of mighty Yamuna River.

The 100 year-old campus was secluded from the crowded Allahabad city, separated by an old dilapidated Naini bridge that officially expired in 1970, but was able to support five-million-strong city populace, hundreds of passenger trains and every logistics carrier on its way from the north down Madhya Pradesh.

The winter months of December 1999 and January 2000 were full of hope and hesitation thanks to the the next century will be India's optimism, world will end fear, Y2K buzz etc. Those were also the months of floriculture practical classes for us. We were given small plots to grow and identify flowers. There was faint love affair with the delicate flowers in an otherwise boring and secluded campus. Three flower patches -- gladiolus, carnation and poppy – were in my kitty.

I loved of all, the bulbous red and pink poppy flowers which belonged to the Papaver genera popularly known as the Oriental or Opium poppy . When I remember how I welcomed this decade and millennium, tossing poppy flowers on windy wintry evenings instantly appear on my mind.

The early years of the decade also remind me of the morning and evening Yoga classes in another University in neighouring city of Benares, the mindless but spiritual wanderings on hundreds of ghats of the 3000-year-old settlement, the occasional association with bhang and regular listening to BBC Radio to improve English pronunciation and soft old Bollywood songs on Vividh Bharti to get a nice sleep.

The long hours spent in the huge lighted central library of the university, where I was the only one reading The Economist, Times and The New Yorker always taunt my present day painful reading adventures on a bean bag in my small sub-urban apartment balcony in Mumbai.


The memory lane also took me to my early days with the Indian Express newspaper in Delhi. The support from the Police, the threat from a builder and the protection from another bigger builder while doing a particular story was interesting.

A year in solitude, when I dared to craft a dream livelihood intervention project in southern Jaharkhand districts, and failed against the system touches me till date. I still remember the early morning trips to impassable villages crossing torrential rivers and rock pythons with a passion to connect with village women and build self-help groups for them.

The passion that forced me to try for cheaper innovations for the villagers.... How aggressively I fought with the local bank employee, when he passed lewd comments against my clients a 27 year-old Oraon tribal woman, whom I called didi, and her 14 year old daughter Chini, when they had approached the bank for a loan to buy a goat to sustain their six member family. There were many haunting moments that come to the memory but I have no words or intention to shock myself or readers.

The later half of the decade showed me journalism of different shades. Investigative, page 3, human, colourful and business. I travelled across many parts of India, exposed to its diversity and unique blending propositions.

Living in two megacities -- Delhi, followed by Mumbai – has been less than fun but an immersing affair. Witnessing the mindless terror acts and being a victim of one left me a changed person, almost like a new born.

The greatest discovery of the decade for me, were friends, who stood by me at all costs involved. That was the most permanent and satisfying discovery precious than hitting crude oil blocks or gold mines or even being nominated for a Nobel.