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"MR
EDITOR, HOW CLOSE ARE YOU TO THE PM?" The Accidental EditorA roller-coaster ride into the portals of Indian journalism and politics, covering a quarter of the 'ultimate' launch man's writings. By Vir Sanghvi "MR EDITOR, HOW CLOSE ARE YOU TO THE
PM?" In the introduction to Mr Editor, how close are you to the PM?, Vinod Mehta quotes Martin Amis as describing "any random collection of journalism published between hard-covers as a junk sale". Mehta means to be self-deprecating but the truth is that most such collections are not just unreadable but are cunningly re-edited during compilation to present the editor as "a man of history", who was always in the right place at the right time and never got it wrong. What makes Mehta's book different -- despite the self-deprecation of the introduction -- is that his is an honest collection in which mistakes and misjudgments jostle for space along with triumphs and accurate predictions. Consider, for instance, this quote from a gloomily reflective 1994 piece about how good luck often eludes the deserving: "Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Here is the quintessential unlucky man... (he) is outstanding prime ministerial material but is trapped in a party he loathes and one which offers him no future." No future? Two years later the same party made Vajpayee prime minister. Most editors would have edited out this paragraph in a compilation; some would have deleted the piece altogether. It is to Mehta's credit that the article appears unedited. And indeed, there is a certain triumphant appropriateness to its inclusion. In 1994, when he wrote the piece, Mehta, like Vajpayee, was down and out. The successful seven-year stint at The Sunday Observer behind him, he had quickly joined, and just as quickly left, The Indian Post, The Independent and the Ambani-owned Observer. The Pioneer job -- which he got after two years in the wilderness -- was widely seen as his last chance. When the Thapars forced him out of their paper, many people thought his time was up. And yet, a year later, just as Vajpayee was defying the pundits to re-emerge as the bjp's unquestioned leader, Mehta bounced back with the Outlook. In 1994, he had written, "When people tell me that I am not a bad editor, I do not usually contradict them. But sometimes I wonder if I am a lucky editor." In 1995 he finally got the lasting break his talent had always deserved and since then he has never looked back. He has gone from being the brash 25-year-old who pushed his way into journalism by taking over the ailing Debonair ("an accidental editor", he says modestly, adding less accurately, "the youngest editor this country has ever produced") to becoming one of India's best-known media personalities. His columns are quoted, his views are respected and television producers beg him to appear on their shows. His contributions to Indian journalism are also now generally acknowledged: the first feature newspaper (The Sunday Observer predated The Telegraph by a year); the first full Arts Page (at the Indian Post); and the first paper to marry the energy of '80s Bombay journalism (as distinct from the incest of '90s Bombay journalism) with the substance of Delhi journalism (The Pioneer). While these are achievements that most of us would kill for, my favourite Vinod Mehta avatar is the one that is least known: Vinod the writer. When he wrote a column for the Sunday (I was the editor and Mehta was between jobs) we were constantly impressed by the clarity of his prose. Here was a man who would handle the big political issues of the day taking them apart in a conversational style that was compulsively readable. That avatar has been unfairly neglected. The strength of this compilation is that it captures Vinod the writer, not Vinod the celebrated editor. The autobiographical introduction alone is worth the price of the book. But there is much to read and enjoy here. From politics to cricket, from Rajiv Gandhi to Roger Moore and from Marilyn Monroe to Dara Singh -- Mehta has views on them all. And after all these years, the pieces are just as rewarding. NEW RELEASES Asia and Western Dominance 50 Years Struggle For Freedom South Asians and the Dowry Problem A Century of Hope Internet in the Scholarly Communication Process Love Never Faileth |
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