DAILY DOSE PLOUGHING THE FOURTH ESTATE By Bikram Vohra Over the past thirty five years as many as 500 to over 1000 Indians have hit the print scene as journalism grew and the daily English language newspapers in the region continued to fight a good fight against technology and hold the fort…and still do In the seventies the sub editors were from the subcontinent and the senior editors were western and the newspapers were pretty much two dimensional, carrying more information than news. Gradually, the GCC opened up to a more mature writing style coupled with the highest quality of printing and paper usage in the world. While syndicated material still ruled the roost and inhouse writers were severely limited the distribution system made home delivery its core added value and it worked. Circulations rose and so did ad spend. In Dubai, the Gulf News, then a fledgling newspaper hired a dynamic manager from England. Patrick Heyland, in his second tenure, combined with the local ‘Murdoch’ Obaid Al Tayer to relaunch the newspaper and make it 21st century and modern. At that juncture the more spartan but by far the market leader was Khaleej Times. Heyland, in one week, brought in 26 Indians on two flights and dropped the average age from 50 to 30 overnight. It was December 1984 and soon after, these livewires with an equal number arriving from the UK set the pace as the GN was launched in its new avatar. Journalists came and went and very soon the ‘went’ was predicated to inter-regional movements rather than going back home. Muscat, which now has five dailies and Qatar became viable options. In Bahrain, the ubiquitous Gulf Daily News brought in Indians and the litany of big names grew exponentially. Saudi’s Arab News, still the largest selling newspaper in the Middle East, has a large Indian group of editorial staff. Tausief, Khalid, The first major move was a bunch of Indians leaving the Gulf for Singapore, among them bizz whizz G.Panicker, Achuthan, Suresh Menon, Suresh Pattali and Ravi Shankar who took over The New Paper in the Straits Times group. Rameshprabhu made his mark and then went home. Meanwhile, as the news spread of this mini-revolution in the GCC enclave and the good money involved more professional journalists began to look this way. This is not to say that the real pioneers like KP Nayar and Aslam, Javed Naqvi, Raman Kapoor, Madhusudhan Rao and Raghunathan were inferior in any way they just came when it wasn’t fashionable and without doubt, these people set the trend even if they did not get the full fruit of their labour. In India, until Khushwant Singh made journalism socially respectable with his gigantic success called the Illustrated Weekly of India, most of the elitist alumni did not see journalism as a career. It was the foreign and administrative services, the IITs or medicine. Media, as a word, did not even exist in the eighties. With the Taryams of Sharjah adding Gulf Today to the local scene more Indians came forward, among them Dileep Padgaonkar, a former editor in chief of Times of India. Rahul Singh, the editor of Reader’s Digest arrived at the helm of Khaleej Times. Before that the venerable and highly respected S.Nihal Singh, former chief of Indian Express kept the paper on track for nearly a decade. One of the first big names to come in from India was Khalid Ansari of the Mid-Day group from Mumbai and a well-known personality in his own right. HT’s Resident Editor Rahul Sharma arrived at Khaleej Times with a whole army of professionals and tried to change the publication’s speed. Suresh Menon was and is a popular sports writer and columnist with a major following that still waits for him each weekend in Gulf News. Now two stalwarts in Gautam Bhattacharya and Robin Chatterjee run the section. Current editor of Deccan Chronicle Neena Gopal wrote history in Gulf News by being the last person to meet Rajiv Gandhi and on the spot when the suicide bomber went lethal. Her reports were first rate and still rank as one of the best real time coverages. Malavika Kamaraju has seen it all and is now a senior in the UAE pantheon of journalists. Prannay Gupta, the prolific writer did a short stint at the KT in Dubai and then went on to bigger things. Ravi Shankar (GN and KT) went to Papua New Guinea and is now editor of the China Daily in Beijing. Aziz Anasuddin left Dubai and started a paper in Manchester and now rubs shoulders with David Cameron and the like and occasionally deigns to speak to the great unwashed. Sudhakar Rao ran with GN and KT then switched tracks and became a medical millionaire. A whole bunch of Bahrain based staff made a move to Arab News in Jeddah including Syed Tausief, Boscoe Wroughton and Khalid with another group including Ajit John and Rahul Ahmed trotting back to The Goan which now has a Dubai edition. Suresh Pattali returned from Singapore to join up his old paper, the KT and now he news anchors it. Other GCC countries were looking for good hands and cross movements had became normal. The Patrick Michael gang of Dean, Rocky and Frankie and Andrews,most of them from the successful Mid-day Mumbai stable were the first to establish credentials in no small way in Bahrain. Michael returned to head KT. Then there is the old stalwart Isaac John, perhaps the most recognised and acknowledged writer by way of awards and effort. With him at KT another bright spark Allan Jacob, currently the Chief Reporter with miles to go. George Abraham took over the Peninsula in Qatar and then handed it to Parvez Khusro who had cut his teeth in Dubai. Bahrain was always Soman Baby territory and though there was a brief challenge from a refurbished Bahrain Tribune with a slew of Indian journos including strongman P.S.Jayaram, Blessing Johnson, Vinod Menon, Arun Srinivasan, Anita Nair, the soft spoken and reliable Binu Samuel, Dayanand Nagueshkar and Ivor Vaz (now a big shot in Australia) joining Sylvester Mascaharenas and the indomitable Meera Ravi, still names to reckon with in Bahrain, collectively spearheading a revival but it gradually petered out. Ironically, Baby now heads the Bahrain Tribune. Joy Raphael held his own over the years, Anand Singh was the pivot at the unbeatable GDN and Sandeep Garewal move from BT to GDN and made his mark. From the City Times’ incredible success story Aquin George, a very fine writer gave up the newspaper world and along with Lejo Johnny and his skills went across the fence into PR for which they shall never be forgiven. Bindu Rai gave up full time writing(unless I have that wrong and she is still boss of 24/7,see that’s what happens when you don’t ask your old bosses to write for you) and she was good. Kishore was brilliant. That was one great team until the new boss changed the priorities…perhaps the best bunch in the last thirty years of English journalism. They rocked. Those who left us on the way to that newspaper in the sky include Renita Mascaranhes, Gopal Bhattachayra, Cedric Egbert and my special friend, Dayanand Nagueshkar. VM Satish wrote a book, K. Abdurab rushed up the ladder to run a daily, Sushil Kutty stormed off to Chennai to become a top business editor, Meraj Rizvi made pots of moolah along with co-author Meher Alam bringing out high end great quality biographies that made the coffee table look good. The incredible Sushmita Bose, a successful columnist and published author runs WKND magazine with panache and Aelred Luis is one of the senior most editorial persons at GN. Roopa Kurien, KJ George, Ambika Sachin, hold the fort at the KT features and rewrite desks. Geeta Rajan kept the City Times afloat for 10 years. Her husband whose name I will absolutely not mention was one (is????) master of the art of writing but refused to accept that oak leaf for which no one can forgive him. Anjaly Menon is an across the board writer and much in demand. David D’Souza showed the way up the corporate ladder with great grace and dignity, Cherian Thomas gave Sports its first big boost in GN in the 80s and Vigyan Arya moved into niche publishing where he still holds sway. Business writer Madhav Kara went off to the US and scored mightily. Gulf Today attracted several good men and true. There is P.Vivekanand who steered the ship for years after a tenure in Jordan, there is Shaadaab Bhakt, Saibal Chatterjee and the tireless Panorama magazine’s editor, TKV Mani. Jawahar Choda fine tuned the gossip column genre in City Times and now employs the website to get his opinion across. The wire services that fed us from home also had good men like KSK Menon (and his wife Radhika) and Sonny Abraham, the latter now a powerhorse with his website in Delhi. Pamela Raghunathan is probably one of the best read correspondents from India and the good man he is, Nithin Belle will be gallant enough to let the lady take first place. Muscat attracted a good amount of Indian talent. Old hands like Adarsh Mahadevan (another talented thoroughbred) have spent nearly 25 years in a very competitive 5 product environment. Neville Parker is there, so is Vinod Menon and these are senior guys. Ajit Das made editor of Oman Tribune. It says something for the Indian presence that all the leaders are Indian: Chinmay Chaudhary runs Times of Oman, Mohana Prabakhar is managing editor, Muscat Daily, Conrad Prabhu, chief reporter at the Oman Daily and Hubert Vaz runs Hi. Priya Arunkumar is editor of the successful and high end Black and White magazine.That is one big party. And there were those who made our words look good. IT genius Balaji who singlehandedly designed the Bahrain Tribune, designer artists Rajendran and Santosh, Kishore and Giri, outstanding photojournalists like Sandeep Naik who left the fourth estate, set up shop and now has Emirates as a regular. Despite so many Indians making good and sharing time and space and I being privileged enough to have worked with most of these people the one sad element in the story is they never became a journalistic fraternity, much of the fragmentation arising from a deep and abiding sense of insecurity. The night of the long knives did and still does leave them out in the cold. There are more, many more who come unsung because you cannot just place them…age and memory. The subs, the proof readers, the paste up artists, the men and women who allowed the ones mentioned to bask in the limelight and never resented it…they were and still are in many ways, the spine of the media. Got to say right here, with the speed of things some of these folks may not be where I say they are but like Kilroy, they were there. (The author has been Editor of Indian Express, Gulf News, Khaleej Times, City Times, Emirates Evening Post, Bahrain Tribune, Middle East Aviation Journal and has written (writes!!) columns in Times of Oman, Arab News, Sports 360, Times of India and Gulf Today). Positioned courtesy GLOBAL INDIAN ACORE GROUP DUBAI
Posted on: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 05:41:01 +0000
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