Pritish Nandy passes away: Meher Marfatia pays tribute to the fearless editor

Loss sharpens gratitude The passing of Pritish Nandy takes me ndash and dozens of colleagues under his editorship of The Illustrated Weekly of India ndash back to the 1980sFresh from college and hungry for journalism we lucked out with this helmsman Who brought politics and poetry to the post in good measure Who called a spade a spade no matter the consequences Who believed enough in the youngest team members sending them to confidently interact with the most famous and fearless If he broke candid interviews with every reigning public figure he as generously trusted us with those we held in gawping awe typical of journos wet behind the earsI trod with trepidation filing a first halfpager on Aubrey Menen whose Rama Retold was among the earliest books banned in the country Followed by a detailed profile of Pranab Mukherjee on becoming Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha after his finance minister tenure ldquoWhatrsquos to worry Ace it Just get your facts damn rightrdquo Nandy said emboldening rookie reporter mePritish Nandy during a book launch in Mumbai in 2011 File picWhen Wole Soyinka won the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature I was assigned a salutary story His editorial brief suggested I go with the idea the Swedish Academy cored in its statement ldquoIn a wide cultural perspective with poetic overtones Soyinka fashions the drama of existencerdquo He loved my title to the piece ldquoThe Maverickrdquo After all wasnrsquot that quintessential Nandy tooThat was the time I handled the copy for Maneka Gandhirsquos column called ldquoHeads amp Tailsrdquo I enjoyed the fire and ire with which she championed animal rights Yet quaked to the tips of my Kolhapuris when she strode into the magazinersquos fourthfloor office unannounced one morning ldquoto meet the person producing my pagerdquo I neednrsquot have shivered Standing beside my table in a crisp blue chikan kurta she said ldquoNicerdquoExpectations ran high at the Weekly desk Parallel with the insistence on rigour of thought and expression Nandy with deputies Sailesh Kottary Sherna Gandhy and Nikhil Lakshman dinned into us the vital importance of thinking visually Nothing available online even chunky box computers hadnrsquot made an appearance We scurried to the reference library for pictures Alongside brilliant photo essays were commissioned by lensmen and women of the international ilk of Ram Rahman and Jaywant Ullal A very young Dayanita Singh would quietly visit Not to mention our edrsquos several painter friends led by Husain himselfSo we surrendered writersrsquo darlings with ease Till today seldom will Illustrated Weekly proteges get huffy about cutting their own text in order to fit a fine photo or other artistic image We wound text compatibly around the creativity of inhouse illustrators and caricaturists Equality over ego Rare in subsequent editorial and art departments we worked with Thinking visually is a lasting lesson Also essential to being a Weeklyite was another quality exhortation think laterally Out of the box Kaafi hatke Hersquod say ldquoThink laterallyrdquo at the start of each gathering in his cabin to plot the next weekrsquos pages A fat 72 of them Packed with inspiration Replete with exposes of crooked chief ministers fake godmen and similar holy cows Conceived by a man in his brave prime thenNo doubt certain later exposes slanted towards personal ambition and controversial scoops Wersquore able to separate the debate and questions surrounding some of his editorial policies to appreciate much else Mainly how he had every writerrsquos back The readiness with which he granted carte blanche to feature writers and investigative reporters helped critique innumerable establishment excessesNever did we dare submit sloppily dashedoff opinionated pieces ldquoWhat are you really saying hererdquo hersquod storm The rage was undeniably there But as strong came the compliments on a job well doneIt was great learning all the way Mere months before the death of AFS ldquoBobbyrdquo Talyarkhan in July 1990 I panicked Nandy had slotted me to write a 10page cover story on the legendary commentator at the Cricket Club of India over a series of Sunday afternoons ldquoI know little about sport especially this gamerdquo I pleaded ldquoExactly why you should be doing itrdquo he respondedTouche Thank you man of many surprises and mentor to more than you realised