The Visitor From Capital

The other day I had a call from Delhi. It was from an old friend. It’d been years since we last met.

He said he was coming to my city, which is his too. I said I’d pick him up from the airport at 10pm.

I had stayed with him in Delhi for a few days 15 years ago when he was a reporter with a national magazine.

It was his early days in mainstream journalism. His stories had just begun to get noticed. I still hadn’t got into the stream.

I had sold my bike, companion for some years, to go to Delhi in my pursuit to become a journalist of some standing.

But I didn’t want to struggle. So I booked myself in the then new and all-A/C Rajadhani Express and reached the capital with high hopes of becoming a cricket writer.

The friend was one of my contacts and persons to call out for in need. I met him in his office and waited till he finished his cover story on a plane crash.

He took me out of the office, and we walked along some dark streets catching up on our lost worlds. Then we got into a bus, and got down somewhere, then again we walked.

He asked me if I had any money on me. I had plenty in exchange of my Yamaha. He said he was starving and didn’t have money to eat. We had a reasonably good dinner. Resurrected, we walked further along lanes and by-lanes and reached where he stayed.
It was one of the smallest rooms I had slept in. All it had was a mattress, books, magazines and a growing pile of newspapers. We slept on the floor. The toilet was the dingiest I had ever used.

By the time I left him later that day, I had my doubts about my preparedness to go through the grind to become a cricket reporter.

A couple of days later, I had an appointment with a leading journalist and columnist from Kerala. He was staying somewhere near the AIIMS. I somehow found out his house. He was to become a powerful man later during the BJP reign. I told him the reference of a couple senior journalists in Kerala who were his friends.

He asked me a few questions which hastened my decision to book a ticket back home in Rajadhani itself.

“Have you read Cardus?” he asked, tucking his sleeveless, cotton pullover.

I said I hadn’t.

“John Arlott?”

No.

“Brian Johnston?”

No.

“Are you Sunil Gavaskar?”

I was offended. I looked at him.

“My boy, Mr Gavaskar is now reporting on cricket. And, you’d agree that none of us knows as much cricket as he knows. So do (Ravi) Shastri and (Bishen) Bedi. Who’d want to read what you write, you tell me?”

My heart cracked.

“You haven’t even read at least the biggest names in cricket writing. So how can you beat these former players and make people read what you write? You tell me.”

I had nothing to tell him. I had no intention to beat anyone.

My heart splintered.

I just wanted to get out of the house and ran into the street.

“Why don’t have something to eat?” I still don’t know whether the offer came from any largeness of his heart or from his obligation to his friends who sent me to him.

“You go back and read up all these writers and come back. I’ll place you somewhere.”

I just wanted to vanish.

I politely refused to eat from his house. I thought I’d never again have appetite in my life.

I hated Delhi. I hated the highhandedness of all the journalists. I took pity on my friend who was struggling, yet filing good stories.

Before I ran out of money, I booked myself on Rajadhani back to Trivandrum.

My friend has now made his mark as an investigative journalist and is high on the hunting list of all editors in the country. He has broken some of the noisiest stories that shook governments.

He has been shot at during the Kargil war; he has been to conflict areas where other journalists would dare to go only on well-guarded junkets; he has been handpicked by the best editors in the country, but he left each of them when more exciting doors showed up.

He was coming to the city to receive an award.

It was not difficult to pick him out from the crowd at the Arrival of the domestic terminal of Trivandrum Airport. He looked the same, except for a weather-hardened, hard-nosed look of a senior journalist. The slight stoop was there, the specs became more sophisticated, the down-to-earth approach still candid, and that uncanny knack of an investigative journalist to break the ice without much fuss still evident.

After his four vodkas and my three KFs, we drove up to the Thampanoor bus stand at one in the night. I had not been there so late in recent years. We piddled behind some hoardings, but with regret, repentance and a strong civic sense—there was no other way, and the bladder was threatening to burst like a bomb in a marketplace.
He wanted to go to his mother in Kollam, and got into a Super Fast that was going to Munnar. I drove back home high.

It was only when he called me from Delhi after a few days that I knew he hadn’t ended up in Munnar to dig something out for another sensational story.

And, I am back at my desk writing stories that’d interest no one and wouldn’t bring down any government.

Yes, I have read up Cardus, Arlott and other angels with same wings. I have chanced upon the Gavaskars and Shastris during my journey of no significance. I have shaken hands with the venerable old man of cricket, Richie Benaud. But they haven’t taken me anywhere. I am still by my desk, hoping to become a writer one day.

A writer who readers will read.