Today let me share a few of my experiences during Indo-china and Indo-Pak war .!
China was , is and will ever be a fascinating study. only reasons differ.
When i was in Deccan Herald , The Chinese invasion took place. shortlived though it was there was panic in the country.
In the intervening period between the incursion and the ceasefire the newspaper carried an article that china never entertained imperial designs on any country.
how wrong the writer was!
Behind the ceasefire lay the threat of American intervention and J.F.kennedy’s ready response to Jawaharlal Nehru’s appeal for help.
Russia at that time was ideologically closer to china.
Then there was a battle between the two communist giants .
One of the charming things of newspaper work those days was the access to news as it came.
The ceasefire announcement came around the time the newspaper pages were laid to bed.
The edition was delayed and we carried the news. the edition was delayed and we carried the news.
Those were the days when most newspapers had three editions. one was early dock, finalised around 6pm and sent to distant parts of the state.another was around 11pm , the van edition as it was called.
it was meant to be carried to distant cities with a fixed deadline.
the newspaper laden vans would race at breakneck speeds .
the empty space , if any, would accommodate a few passengers ,they would wait on the outskirts to be picked up.
the city edition would be put together in the early hours,say 2am,to reach the stalls early in the morning.
My second brush with war and excitement was 1965,when i had moved on to Indian Express.
The war ended when superpowers prevailed upon India and peace talks were arranged at Tashkent .
Agreement was the big news of the day and the journalists sighed with relief.
But that was not to be.!
For,a few hours later Lalbahadur Shastri under whose leadership the war was fought died.
Tashkent was a laid back town and the girls at the telephone exchange hardly knew english.
That was when gen Kumara mangalam who was part of the Indian delegation walked in.
"He asked the girls to contact army hq where there would be a duty officer and before the girl could announce herself took the phone and spoke to the officer. i am gen Kumaramangalam speaking from Tashkent . the officer who was habituated to prank calls remarked , if you are gen Kumara mangalam i am queen of Sheba."
the swear words that greeted him dispelled all doubts
and the message was conveyed to the slumbering bosses in Delhi.
Deccan Herald which had a stake in UNI was alerted. Express was ignored.
But as luck would have it the news reached the time office of Express thru an alert driver and the editor was alerted.
In a jiffy the editorial team as well as the lino unit returned to their duties .
And the newspaper came out with a eight column banner announcing the tragedy.
In madras Ramnath Goenka went to Andhra Prabha section where some of the staff would sleep .
One of them was woken up and asked to do the revised edition.
He had a rich reward, by way of three increments.
Over 50,000 copies had been printed in vijayawada with the old news when the latest twist reached there.
The editor junked the entire lot and prepared the new edition.
Of such stuff was journalism made.!
Happy to share more of such encounters
Share your comments and opinion below.
Have a great time
Journomurthy..!!
