Opinion ‘In a profession where one gets thick-skinned and cynical,Vijay was extra sensitive’

Vijay (as I would call him) joined The Indian Express some time in April 2008 and was posted in Allahabad. Daily he would either call me or I would ring him up to find out what stories he was planning for the day. Initially,he would sound somewhat diffident. Maybe this had something to do with the fact that this was the first time he was working as a full-time reporter for a national daily. Before long,I realised that he was a sincere,hardworking man.

Then,one morning,he called up and said,“Jante hain aap?”,and went on to tell me that an octogenarian Hindi writer,who had won several awards,including one from the Sahitya Akademi,had fallen on bad days,that he was suffering from osteomyelitis which had made his bones brittle,that the treatment was expensive but he had little money,that he had sold his manuscripts for a pittance,that the man had shunned sarkari favours when he was young,but now wished somebody could help.

I hadn’t heard of Amar Kant,but a quick check confirmed that he had indeed been a widely respected name in Hindi literature. Nor had I met a reporter of an English newspaper who had shown such interest in a story about a Hindi writer past his prime. In this case,the story was picked up by Hindi papers after The Indian Express prominently carried Vijay’s report.

Soon offers of help started coming in,and Amar Kant could not thank Vijay enough.

This was the first time I had heard Vijay start a conversation with “jante hain aap?”. Before long I knew this was his way of introducing a good story idea. Over about the next two-and-a-half years,I would hear these words several times,and often it would reveal a new quality of Vijay’s.

For instance,the encounter in which the UP police killed dacoit Ghanshyam Kevat in Chitrakoot last year after four days. The first day,it was inside-page news for Lucknow newspapers,let alone the national media. In his usual morning call,Vijay started: “Jante hain aap? Kevat is alone,single-handedly fighting 400 policemen!”

Here was something that every reporter had missed. I asked Vijay to proceed to Chitrakoot,which is quite some distance from Allahabad. His description of how 400 policemen were finding it difficult to smoke out or kill a single dacoit hit the front page of The Indian Express. Next day,it was all over — in newspapers,on TV. Vijay stayed on in Chitrakoot and filed the best reports on the encounter and subsequent events.

In mofussil towns,politics,crime and local universities and colleges usually constitute the staple of newspaper reporters. Allahabad has its share of politicians,criminals and also a renowned university. Add to these the high court and the UP school board. But these weren’t enough for Vijay who had diverse interests. He consistently wrote on research activity at the Indian Institute of Information Technology and at the Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology.

From whatever I could gather,he was a self-made man who did not believe in short cuts. Injustice and unfairness deeply moved him. In a profession where one tends to get thick-skinned and cynical,Vijay was extra sensitive. Whenever he came across an instance of somebody trying to ride roughshod over a helpless man or woman,he would take great pains to collect details and put out a story — be it the case of a BSP leader who stalled a housing project for the poor in Shankargarh just because he did not get the contract,or the policemen who,in order to please an influential man,booked the widow of a Kargil martyr under the SC/ST Atrocity Prevention Act after some men who had taken shelter in her under-construction building died when it collapsed in a storm. None of Vijay’s stories were ever questioned.

To say that Vijay’s loss has created a vacuum is stating the obvious. You don’t easily find reporters who can write with equal facility about Atiq Ahmed and Amar Kant,a minister hijacking the Sangam to organise his son’s wedding,or a scientist working at the Great Hadron Collider.

The writer is Resident Editor,The Indian Express,Lucknow

virender.kumar@expressindia.com