...it's only words

Hard as it is to believe now, Tarun was my hero. Not just from his early Tehelka days when he took on the establishment fearlessly and showed us what journalism was all about but from 19 years back when he was the features editor of Financial Express and I was a nobody rookie reporter into my second newspaper job. My most vivid memory of Tarun (second only to him sprawled in the editor’s chair, his legs on the sacred editor’s table in his glass doored cabin, his laugh booming through office – which made me gasp in disbelief when I saw it for the first time); is of him coming to work in a blood stained shirt. He had just returned from taking a road accident victim to the hospital in the gypsy he used to drive. In my eyes, cold blooded, power hungry editors didn’t do those kind of things. But he did. But then, he was different. Fearless, idealistic, bold and brilliant. That was the Tarun we knew. There are other memories too. Of Tarun, standing behind your shoulder, telling you how a sentence could be rewritten to make greater impact; of him cold bloodedly taking the printed edition apart and analysing what had worked and what hadn't. Of him; taking us (his team of young boys and girls) home for dinner – macaroni and chicken cooked by his charming wife Geetan. Of him in his bookshelf lined sitting room, drink in hand, cracking jokes, pulling legs, prophesying where each of us would be 10 years from then. Of him standing at his door, an arm around Geetan, waving us off with a cheerful: “Don’t come back, you drunken buggers!”

For me, and most of us young reporters who joined him when he started the features section at FE, Tarun was the perfect boss. Not only could he write beautifully (he could; his India Today essays were legendary); he could pick the best stories, edit wonderfully, take a stand with the fearsome Prabhu Chawla, then editor, fight for salary raises (not just his but yours too), take on the management. And then stride in with your contract and fling it casually on the table with: “It’s done. Go work now”. He was the kind of journalist every young aspiring kid in journalism school dreams of becoming and hardly anybody ever does.

In his casual denim shirts rolled up at the arm, he walked tall. He strode through the corridors of Indian Express with an easy familiarity, he laughed without inhibition, his smile touched his eyes, his concern for people was genuine, he wore his intelligence lightly. From that first day when I knocked on his cabin door, biodata in hand, a nervous “Mr. Tejpal?” on my tongue; and he waved me in from where he was lazily leaning back in his swivel chair, arms clasped behind his head, with a: “Come on in. And call me Tarun;” he was the kind of person I wanted to be. He would sit in his cabin with his long legs on the table, discussing story ideas and special supplements; addressing guys with the crassest of expletives and they would be delighted with the familiarity. If you walked late for a meeting, stuttering over an apology, he would just grin wider and say: relax, pull a chair and tell us what you got. He would regale us with stories about the time he ran away from NDA (or was it IMA), he would share with us scandalous celebrity gossip; yes even about editors who had prepositioned young girls, about how Shobha De’s charm was far greater than her writing. He would send us for assignments with the warning: Don’t come back with wide eyed stories. Use your brains.

Once when I called a turbaned Sikh colleague I didn’t get along with Jodie Foster and the complaint reached Tarun; he called me to cabin. Rather severely he asked me what I had been calling the man since he was really upset. “Jodie Foster” I replied. “Why?’ he asked. “Because he has a judie,” I replied, wishing the earth would split and swallow me. A cut surd himself, Tarun burst into laughter and told me to get lost. “You guys make me feel like a school principal.”

Now when I hear of salt mining scandals in Goa and murky political deals and unbelievable fallen behavior in lifts; it shakes the belief of nearly 20 years. Tarun was an awesome guy or so I always believed. What he has done (and he apparently has since he has written that sick apology of a letter) is heart breaking for all of us who equated journalism of courage and conviction with him.

An ear splitting shriek pierces the mid afternoon stillness. The Aviator shades balanced on fufaji's long nose shudder delicately. Scowling darkly he opens his mouth and then shuts it again, relieved by the “let me handle this” look in fufuji’s eye. The SUV is deeply entrenched in the road chaos at Najibabad. Between the cacophony of guava sellers, peanut and gajak vendors, and mid traffic cows in yogic stances rubbing noses with cyclists; a huge man in a parrot green sweater is trying to shape shift his stomach and his motorcycle between the car and a truck parked bum to nose. Alongside, a rickshaw puller is trying to scratch an itch in some very personal places while two burkha clad women are disturbing his concentration by calling out to him from across the road. To cut a long story short, there is complete madness all around. A shriek is something that fufaji most certainly doesn’t need. He grits his teeth and grips the steering wheel harder.

Fufuji turns back bravely with a no nonsense “kya hua?” to catch Shaurya, all of 11, making a seemingly irresistible public offer. “Meri khushboo ka muft maza lo.” He is waving his armpit in his sister’s face. Little Suvira has pinched her nose with her fingers and is protesting on top of her shrill voice. Cousin Saransh, 12, gallantly jumps to her rescue. He uses his weight to pin the lanky Shaurya down while shoving his own armpit in his nose: “Le, tu mazaa le”.

By now, fufaji has also turned back with a dangerous growl. In a second the boys snake arms around each other. Shaurya, whose evil fragrance has wafted all the way to the front seat, is a clear winner. Though obviously not a crowd favourite. Fufuji is muttering darkly that the winning candidate will take a bath the moment they reach Kotdwar. There is a screech of protest from Shaurya who grumbles that his scent is “beshkimti” and wasting it would amount to his “beizzati" and “science ka nuksaan”. Scientists have offered to buy his “khushboo” which is like what the lions use to mark their territory, he declares proudly. Saransh looks on in grudging admiration. “Fufuji, fufuji, fufuji! Shaurya bhaiya do din se nahaye nahin hain,” little Suvira pipes in getting a quick hair tug from her brother. She pinches him back. Shaurya brushes it off with a: “Main mard hun aur mard ko kabhi dard nahi hota.”
“Boys! One more word and both of you will walk to Kotdwar.” Fufaji growls in his best military voice and for a while pin drop silence reigns, interrupted only by Suvi’s satisfied sniffling.

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“Mamma, I need a hair.” Before fufuji can figure out the request, Saransh has pulled some strands off her head.  Suvi is squealing again because Shaurya is tugging at her pony tail. The boys are holding the hair stretched across their fingers like razor blades and using them to snip at the other hair. “Teri mamma ka baal phir haar gaya,”  Shaurya roars in victory. Suvira is holding her head down obligingly so that Shaurya can pull out another hair. “I eat an egg every day. It has protein which is good for hair,” she says, proudly. The car Olympics come to an abrupt end when fufuji vindictively decides that both the boys will have to study for an hour everyday in Kotdwar. Saransh frowns unhappily while Shaurya stares glumly out of the window. For all of 10 minutes.

“OK let’s see whose hair is saltier,” Shaurya says. “Fufuji we’ll just use the pieces lying here,” he quickly adds, catching the warning look in his aunt’s eye. Shaurya has rolled up a trouser leg and is stroking his hairy leg proudly. “Mamma how come he has hair on his legs and I don’t” Saransh asks miserably. “Kyunki main mard hun, aur mard ko kabhi dard nahin hota. Samjhe!” Shaurya says. To prove it he asks Saransh to pull out a hair from his leg. Both the boys taste it and declare that it is quite salty. By this time fufaji has slowed the car down and told the boys that he is going to throw them out. Silence reigns. Another half hour of drive across the monkey filled forest of Najibabad, the boys count the number of stray dogs that have been reduced to carpet meat on the highway and make each other offers to eat it. They are ignored by the rest of the crowd. In another half hour the caravan reaches Kotdwar.

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The car cruises into Nanaji’s driveway and Scooby the part Doberman, part anybody’s-guess leaps at the windows in delight. He licks the kids and does a few quick celebratory laps of the garden, destroying some freshly planted saplings in the process. He then troops behind the children into the sitting room and rolls on his back, waiting for snacks to be brought in. Nanaji and Nani are delighted with the little guests who do a quick round of feet touching and then want to know if Nani has kept any chips for them. She has. “Nani have you made kulfi?” Saransh wants to know. She has. The sound of loud crunching and slurping dominates. A loudly protesting Shaurya is sent off to bathe while everyone else sits down for lunch. Post lunch when fufuji saunters across to the kitchen garden to revive her memories of the rubber tree under which she got married many years back, she is horrified to see that the boys have put up the garden ladder against the neighbours’ wall and are plucking out large unripe chakotras (sort of oranges) from a tree laden with the fruit. They are using the handball sized fruit as balls to play cricket, whipping them around with their bat. “Fufuji I’m also in their team now. Hai naa Saransh bhaiya,” says Suvi proudly as Saransh ignores her completely. A chakotra comes and smashes at her feet, spraying her face and curls with its juice. “If you cry we'll throw you out of our team,” Saransh warns her coldly. Shaurya comes closer to watch for tears. Suvi blinks them away bravely and gets back in position as wicket keeper.

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The next morning the boys decide that besides the Rs 500 each that Nanaji has given them they need to earn some extra money to buy bombs. Fufaji makes them a business offer of Rs 10 per fly they swat. “If you do it with a fly swatter, you’ll get Rs 5, but if you do it with your hand then the price goes up to Rs 10,” he says, raising the stakes. “I will need a body line up to make sure you are not recirculating the same flies. And I need to see blood on your hand to prove you hand swatted them. Now come back to me in one hour and NOT before that otherwise you get disqualified. Now disapperar!” he says. The boys get down to work while the family uses this time to grab an afternoon siesta. Fufaji changes the lens of his camera and goes around doing some macro photography that is his current obsession.

And this is how the three day holiday goes by. The children make a trip in a shared auto to the market at Jhanda Chowk to buy crackers (Saransh gets to sit with the driver); they eat hot alu ki tikkis from a roadside cart vendor who is frying them crisp in sizzling oil; they buy fresh veggies for Nani from the sabzi mandi and get green Made in China light strings to hang around the house. They even help fufuji in making a marathon rangoli with suji dyed in different shades after tying up a protesting Scooby in Nanaji’s bedroom. They drink lots of Pepsi, eat lots of Maggi and watch lots of movies on Nani’s TV.  They giggle a lot, fight a lot and eat a lot of butter chicken with butter naan that Nanaji orders for them from Relish restaurant down the road. They feed the bones to Scooby, climb the mango tree and potter around in the muddy garden patches. The three days zip by in a flash and soon it’s time to go back home with long faces and promises to return soon. Nanaji, Nani and Scooby see them off at the gate cheerfully looking forward to some peace and quiet till the caravan returns in the next school break.