Dealing with disaster, beer baron way

By way of prologue may I say that this week8217;s column might not have appeared at all because, had the gods not willed otherwise, it woul...

By way of prologue may I say that this week8217;s column might not have appeared at all because, had the gods not willed otherwise, it would have been your columnist who would have crashed with Vijay Mallya in his helicopter and not NDTV cameraman Ajmal Jami. There was room for only one of us so he flew and I drove and so it is him in hospital today and him who suffered the agony of driving thirteen hours with a badly broken arm, in a rattletrap of a taxi, along roads so bad we would have been better off on a dirt track.

But, let me begin at the beginning. In Mumbai, not long ago, I heard from the actor, Sanjay Khan, that Mallya, famed sybarite and liquor king, was taking politics so seriously he had taken to campaigning in rural Karnataka. He tells people that he wants nothing from them, Khan said, because he already has his Boeing and his Mercedes and all the money in the world so he has no reason to take from them but only give.

Not only did this sound like an intriguing new approach to politics but it sounded worthy of an episode for my new television programme, India-nama. So, Jami and I set off for Bangalore only to find that Mallya, despite his assignation with us, had set off for Jakarta to watch East Bengal win the ASEAN football cup.

Unreliable, I thought, but understandable if you keep in mind that he sponsors the team. The political tour was postponed not canceled and in Mallya8217;s absence we shot inside his shiny, new party office, surprisingly bereft of the 8216;common man8217;. Bereft, actually, of anyone but his political secretary, a woman by name of Tushita Patel. Ms Patel allowed us into Brewery House, Mallya8217;s ancestral home and we shot his silver swimming pool furniture and his 8216;8216;trophy room8217;8217; so filled with silver it looked like Alladin8217;s cave and we shot poolside pieces to camera of friendly nature. Here was a man who was ready to abandon his deluxe life style for the dirt and grime of the hustings. That sort of thing.

The political tour began the following day with me leaving on Mallya8217;s plane for Hubli and driving three hours from there to Bagalkot where Jami was scheduled to arrive by helicopter with Mallya, Sanjay Khan and Tushita. Mallya does things on a grand scale so a long convoy of vehicles bore us to Bagalkot with me driving part of the way in his magnificent Mercedes mini bus equipped with satellite dish, internet, music system, cases of Kingfisher beer and other material and technological comforts. We arrived at the helipad an hour before they took off from Hubli so I was allowed to ensconce myself in his palace on wheels 8212; a bus painted in saffron and green Janata Party colours that has a double bed room, shower and toilet, kitchen and drawing room. In all my years of covering political campaigns I have never seen anything so luxurious.

From the window of this palace-on-wheels I watched the helicopter try to land on a windswept hill and then descend nose first towards an unseen field. It did not look as if it were crashing so much as crash-landing. Within minutes our cavalcade took off without my realising there was anything amiss. Without my realising that Jami had been left to fend for himself in the wreckage without anyone helping him even find a splint for his broken arm. I learned of the crash several minutes later when I got Tushita on her cell phone to ask where Jami was. In hospital, she said calmly, his arm is broken.

Seriously worried, I caught up with Mallya8217;s Mercedes to ask if I could get a car to take me to the hospital where they had taken Jami. Mallya was sipping chilled Kingfisher beer with Tushita perched beside him saying 8216;8216;what a day to wear a sari,8217;8217; and a badly shaken Sanjay Khan sitting opposite. His press secretary and other flunkeys were in servile attendance. Nobody seemed concerned about Jami but I put this down to shock and Mallya being new to the political game. A cleverer politician would have gone with Jami to hospital and made a huge drama over sending him back in his private plane. Know what I mean?

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Instead, Mallya and party carried on with their tour and it was left to low-level party workers to help me find Jami. This was not easy because nobody was sure which of Bagalkot8217;s primitive, under-equipped hospitals he was in but this was the least of our problems, the more important one being how to get Jami to Bangalore or Delhi within the crucial first 24 hours.

We decided that driving to Bangalore was the only solution so I rang Tushita to ask if we could borrow the Pajero in which our luggage was. No, she said curtly, I cannot spare it but I can get you a Qualis. Two hours later our luggage was dumped outside the hospital and one of Mallya8217;s flunkeys offered me Rs 4,500 to pay for a taxi back to Bangalore. I was tempted to throw the money in his face.

Had it not been for friends arranging for a car with food, blankets and pillows to meet us half way to Bangalore, Jami would not have been able to sleep a wink on that endless, agonising drive. It was friends who ensured there was a doctor waiting in the hotel when we arrived. From the Mallya empire we got neither help, compassion or concern which leads me to conclude that Mallya should stick to the corporate world because Indian politics already has far too many people who care only for themselves.

Write to the author at tavleensinghexpressindia.com