Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Ayodhya8217;s enfant terrible, the Parivar8217;s pointman, the temple movement8217;s leading light8230; you could play with words to describe Ramchandra Parmahans. And the mahant would let out a roar every time you stepped into the Digambar Akhada, his very own and the largest in Ayodhya. So you are back to paint me a villain, he would shout. Those of us who had got used to his ways would remind him he had always been a wicked, old man. And a smile would cross his face: 8220;I am half as wicked as you. I know your tribe well. You write about the Ram temple from comfortable hotel rooms. Why don8217;t you spend a night at a Hindu home in Ayodhya and the next night at a Muslim home in Faizabad? You will have a great story. But you won8217;t do that. How can you stay two nights without your quota of rum and mutton?8221;
There were times when he would switch off all temple talk and start recalling names 8212; Muslim names 8212; of his old friends. 8220;I miss them and am sure they miss me too.8221; He blamed the media for the dispute: 8220;If you hadn8217;t come here and the netas had stayed away, all this wouldn8217;t have been necessary. We would have sorted this problem on our own. So what if we dragged each other to court, called each other names? It was a family fight. But you outsiders showed up and made it a mess. Now we may have to wait a lifetime.8221;
The Parivar knew his worth, so he ranked high in their Ayodhya pantheon. They would all go to him, aware he would fly into a rage at the slightest hint of being kept out of the loop. In Ayodhya, the mahant was always considered a notch above the Singhals and Togadias. The patriarch of a family he was never really comfortable with. To the Muslims of Faizabad, he remained, despite his ranting, one of their few contacts inside Ayodhya.
The mahant8217;s death today has snapped that old link, all the more worrying because it now gives 8220;the outsiders8221; a free run of the place. Something which the wily, old man tried to resist until the very end. Ayodhya, he always maintained, lost its innocence soon after Ram.
