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South, north or just pan-Indian?

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Subir Roy
Last Updated : Jun 15 2013 | 12:29 AM IST
The newsroom in the Delhi Statesman, circa 1971, was an enviable place to be in for a young man relocating out of his hometown for the first time on his first job. There was George, always meticulously dressed, carefully getting over his stutter every time he spoke. Ronny, quite contrary to what his name suggested, was not an Anglicised Indian gentleman but a good, profusely paan-chewing north Indian.

By far the most impressive was Sam, suave to the tip of his French beard, gliding in and out with as much grace as quiet. Ramanna, the chief at the head of the big table, was easily the most formidable, despite his slight stature. He knew how to quietly wield authority, tolerating no hanky-panky, as a chief subeditor must so that the edition came out on time.

Makkar Saheb, if I remember his name correctly, just touched elegantly on the foibles of regional speech by lamenting that south Indians and Bengalis had done Urdu a bad turn by mispronouncing "gharibi" as "garibi" in Mrs Gandhi's then freshly coined slogan that sought to "hatao" whatever it was. The only person who ever uttered anything parochial in the months I was there was (well, let's not name him) whoever who jocularly took a dig at me and said, "Bangal to kangal hai". Refugees were then pouring into West Bengal from East Pakistan and calls for help went out of Kolkata every hour. He was totally without malice, of course.

In that long room, India lived with all its variety, flavoured with dour humour and blunt no-nonsense put-downs of celebrities. It was a great country to belong to and an equally great organisation to work for, I thought. Thereafter, in all my relocations across the country, I never got a chance to put on regional blinkers.

I was in Bhubaneswar not much later, landing up in a bank that was less stylish in its ways but equally pan-Indian (none other than State Bank of India), when a silly remark by a Kolkata paper spread some panic and created a minor exodus. The important thing was that absolutely nothing happened, although tension persisted in the mind. My abiding memory is of a smiling Mr Patnaik, the accountant, escorting home the Bengali-speaking branch manager after the day's work, as a measure of abundant caution. He was bearing the good name of his folks on his shoulders and loving it.

Memories of Shillong thereafter, are, I am sorry, a bit hazy as that was my condition most of the time. The Bengali matrons of Laimukhra were worried that I was staying in Upper Malki, which was known for its inebriated young men. The kakiat that the matrons there brewed at home was out of this world.

The next cherished milestone was running into Mr Lakshmikantappa early in my stay in Bangalore. There never was - never will be - a more helpful neighbour. If the city seems flooded with outsiders, sometimes creating a bit of local angst, then the blame for that lies squarely with the locals. You can hardly expect outsiders to run away when you pamper them so.

Then when we moved into another house, I ran straight into Mr Vijay, a laid-back landlord - if there ever was one - with whom I got along famously from day one. He could never forget how, when he was posted in Kolkata with ITI as a young man and was down with flu for a couple of days, some of his colleagues actually landed up at his boarding lodge to find out what had happened to him. You are our guest and we must know you are all right, they explained.

Of course, local resentments have been there, if for no other reason than as a legacy of the Raj. Bengalis and Tamilians, who prospered in colonial service, were resented by others in their respective regions for taking away most of the good jobs. But, as I have repeatedly found out, at the personal level - not to speak of animosity - it is mostly geniality that has prevailed. Our son, who now lives in Chennai, has, in fact, a different kind of complaint. It is getting as costly and flashy as Delhi, he says unhappily.

So it was really upsetting when the embattled head of Indian cricket till the other day in his acute paranoia saw himself as a victim of an "anti-south lobby", not at the impersonal public level but among fellow cricket bigwigs. Weren't they in it together till the other day! India will survive; hopefully, he will not in the position he has so tarnished.

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First Published: Jun 14 2013 | 9:46 PM IST

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