Readers' reactions are precious to writers. Most are just brief opinions; exceptionally, Kamla Kumar made a serious critique of my writings. She made me think about what I was doing; this is the result, published in Business Standard of 31 October 2000. Ivor Jehu was editor of Times of India in the 1940s; my brother Mahendra worked with him then. Lindsay Anderson was The Statesman's last British editor; apart from being a first-class writer, he was great company over lunch; I used to drop in on him whenever I was in Calcutta.
ARE WE EGOMANIACS?
Kamla Kumar writes
from Lucknow:
“….I feel, from
Ashok Desai to Bibek Debroy and now Subir Gokarn (not excluding Kishore Singh
and Giranjali Krishna), the Business
Standard edit pages now look more like a vehicle for personal experiences
and grievances.
I wonder if there
is anything new in such experiences. They are of daily occurrence to all
members of the public, though not while buying some MNC car or parking near a
five star hotel or about some good experiences at Stanford.
“If a common man is
allowed to write about his grievances against the traffic police, telephone
office, electricity department, PSU banks and the non-official local dada, the list will be too long and
several special issues of the Business
Standard will be required to accommodate them.
“What good
are such articles for the common reader? Does one expect them on the editorial
page? Is there such an urgency to include such articles, aren’t there many
other pages?
“I also think it
would do a great good if the writers are more forthcoming in naming the parties
involved – not referring to ‘a dealer’ or ‘a known international brand’. Please
keep edit pages only for hard core business, finance, economics and related
issues and keep such personal experiences for other pages, or start a page
where readers can also send pieces on their experiences. That may be more
productive and satisfying, both for the Business
Standard and its humble – not so influential – readers.”
I was quite taken
aback to find myself the target of this criticism. If 10,000 readers felt like
Kamla Kumar, the BS would be right to sack me. If 1,000 readers felt like her,
it should be seriously worried. If she feels like that, then I should take her
concern very seriously.
So I took out all
the Saturday and Tuesday columns I had written in the BS while I was in
Stanford; there were 62. I counted the number of times I had used the word ‘I’,
without which I think Ms Kumar would agree it would be difficult for me to
write about my experiences (though, now that I have become self-conscious, I am
sure I can do so). I had used the word 179 times, or just slightly less than 3
times per article. That shocked me; it sounded unduly egocentric. But then I
discovered that it was generally used in ways that were not egocentric – for
instance in phrases like “I doubt” or “I propose”. I trust Ms Kumar will agree
to forgive these.
Of these 179
references to myself, 43 occurred in three articles. One was the last article I
wrote from Stanford, in which I summed up my impressions of America. Another
was about the Afro-Americans and the Muslims. The third one was about
education.
Apart from these, I
had referred to my personal experiences in the government three times; they
were of more general significance. And I had referred to my experiences in
America three times. I think that for a journalist writing about American
media, it is legitimate to refer to his reading or watching of them.
My colleagues can
speak for themselves. But we do have writers who never refer to themselves: for
instance, Ajay Shah, who serves an undiluted fare of financial wisdom without
ever stooping to the art of making money, S S Tarapore, who has turned central
banking into abstract art, and Deepak Lal, who surveys a very broad range of scholarship.
Should these be our
models? While I would like to serve Kamla Kumar’s tastes week after week, there
are some considerations against. Our job – and that includes me – is to help
sell the Business Standard. Writing
on its editorial page may seem a prestigious thing to do; but editorial pages
are the least read in any newspaper. An editorial writer has to be aware of
this, and must do his best to remedy it. But he cannot write fiction or poetry;
he has to write about what can broadly be called public affairs. And for most
people, public affairs – which means things like telecom policy, Indo-US
diplomacy, anti-dumping duties, the definition of manufacture, etc – are a
deadly bore. The average reader is a Sachin Tendulkar; whatever the columnist
bowls, he will hit it for a six.
Yet one has to get
him out somehow – one has to make him read one’s dry-as-dust column – and feel
elated at the end of it. He should say at the end of it: um, that was
interesting; I had always thought this subject was deadly dull. Or, this is
dangerous nonsense; let me shoot off a letter to the editor. Or, well, I had
never quite understood that; this fellow has made it quite easy.
And remember, one
has to get this sort of a reaction from a reader who will have read more
newspapers than one can buy, who has been reading columns since the time of
Ivor Jehu and Lindsay Anderson, who has seen it all.
And look at the
competition. Gitanjali Krishna lives on nether Mars and meets all kinds of
colourful aliens. Or that decadent ex-royal, Kishore Singh, with his incredible
wife. Not everyone can be that lucky. I am lucky enough to read them, before
anything else, on Saturdays; far be it from me to think of emulating them. I do
not think they can be emulated if one’s raw material is the slack season credit
policy, or the import-export handbook.
But even without
doing so, as Kamla Kumar will see, the work of a columnist does present some
difficulty. It is in this context that I sometimes refer to personal
experiences. The idea is to introduce human interest; I think that as long as
it is used to support a general point, it may sometimes be defensible.
I can think of
other reasons why my colleagues write about personal experiences, although they
are not mine. One may want to show the difficulties faced by ordinary people in
this country; and in some respects even my colleagues are ordinary people. And
if one wants to write something libellous about someone, it is safest if it is
based on one’s personal experience. Libel suits are an occupational hazard of a
journalist; and I can personally testify that although they may finally come to
nothing, they are a worry, a nuisance and a waste of time in the meanwhile. Our
law does not distinguish between private and public persons; not does it place
the burden of proof upon the plaintiff. So a journalist has to step carefully
even when he is sure of the criminality of a politician, bureaucrat or
industrialist.
Kamla Kumar has a
point. This column must be about issues, not persons. But although I would find
it hard to accept that I am an egomaniac, I cannot entirely repress a certain
narcissistic instinct. That is why I
have used “I” 35 times in this article; that should keep me on the straight and
narrow for a while.
