Exercising Judgement
It has been a bad year for two of the country’s four estates. Both were perceived with some justification as being the nation’s last bastion to keep democracy alive and keep the dreams of our founding fathers within reach. The media and the judiciary have taken body blows, suffering in the process a profound credibility crisis, the implications of which are potentially catastrophic. Thankfully, in the media we see some introspection with efforts being made to win back public trust. Most of the journalists involved have come around to acknowledging that they are guilty of misconduct or misjudgement or gullibility or duplicity. Speaking on the telephone, the lifeblood of reporting, is now undertaken with a degree of caution bordering on paranoia. One estate is fighting back.
I wish I could say the same for the judiciary. Till now, the country has consoled itself with the fond belief that the higher judiciary is mostly clean and competent. All the bad apples were supposed to exist in the lower courts. What we are witnessing now is a reversal. Most of the bad apples seem to exist in the high/supreme courts, while the lower courts are packed with clean and conscientious judges.
Two former chief justices of the highest court in the land, Y.K. Sabharwal and K.G. Balakrishnan, have brazenly looted the country in a manner which makes telecom Raja’s escapades seem like small change. Yet, while the occasional anxiety (“something needs to be done”) is heard, our honorable judges and their acolytes are in denial, with the two former chief justices themselves biding their time, convinced the storm will soon blow over. And they will live happily ever after. The record of the “dirty” judges in office is horrendous: they were not one-time but serial offenders. It is amazing they found any time to do their official duties, so embroiled were they in making money.
Corrective action? Punishment? Our not-so-clean politicians are itching to take on the task, but in their hands the cure would be worse than the disease. Any suggestions?
Writing in Flashback
I have been working sporadically on my autobiography (memoirs sounds rather pompous) which is being published by Penguin. For starters, the prospect of composing 90,000 words scared the hell out of me. Like most hacks, my limit is 800 to 900 words for a single piece. Anything longer, say 1,500 words, requires a Himalayan effort. My other fear was memory. I first became editor in 1974 and many incidents, events, quarrels, anecdotes belonging to my Debonair days were a hazy memory. I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to recollect anything at all. I do not keep a cuttings file, I don’t write a diary everyday, I am hopeless at keeping records or filing letters. For instance, I could not lay my hands on a single copy of The Independent (1989), the daily I launched for The Times of India group. Neither could I find a copy of The Indian Post (1988) which I edited for Vijaypat Singhania.
Happily, when I put pen to paper, a sort of miracle occurred. It all came back. And came back with some precision. As the Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov noted, memory plays strange tricks. You forget what you believe is unimportant and you retain what you think is important. Moreover, along with names, dates, places what also returns is the feel and flavour of people, their appearances, their eccentricities and their lies.
Consider my first day at The Sunday Observer office in May 1981. It began unpromisingly with my going to a stationery shop in Kala Ghoda and buying a pad, a pen and a red plastic wastepaper basket. Thus equipped, I was ready to begin work on India’s first Sunday paper. I even remembered I had keema-pav for lunch on that May morning. The name of the joint was The Original Light of Asia.
Toilet Humour
Around the late ’70s, I came across this lovely story. Our charge d’affaires in Beijing, Lakhan Mehrotra, walked out along with his wife from a banquet hosted by the Chinese vice-premier in honour of Pakistan prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. The Chinese leader had raised the issue of self-determination for Kashmiris and endorsed the idea. Mr Bhutto mischievously told the Indian diplomat’s wife later that he thought she and her husband did not walk out of the banquet but “had gone to the lavatory”. To which Mrs Mehrotra replied, “Mr Prime Minister, we never go at the same time.”
Stray Thoughts
Daisy and Bhola, the two strays we look after, needed respite from the cold. With the Thadanis upstairs, we built a kennel and placed it next to the watchman’s cubicle. We threw in a blanket and some newspapers. Editor, alas, does not approve. He sniffs suspiciously around the kennel and barks at the peacefully sleeping Bhola, who is otherwise his pal. Frequently, Editor goes and naps in the kennel to establish his proprietorship. The problem is getting out of hand.
