“So when can you join us?”, asked Prakash Kardaley, resident editor of Indian Express (Pune edition), as he showed me the pay scale that would be offered to me as a staff reporter. He pointed at the horizontal table of a pay scale applicable to a staff reporter in the Indian Express group of newspapers as per the Justice Palekar Wage award. (My resume was silent on the fact that I was a former general secretary of Goa Union of Journalists and so well-versed with the Palekar Award or the Working Journalists Act. ) Indeed, I was impressed with the offered pay scales, it was a big jump from the pay I was getting in Lokmat Times in Aurangabad. It was a leap from Rs 1200 per month to nearly Rs 2600 per month salary. A fortnight later, on November 1, 1989, I joined Indian Express at the Aurora Tower n Pune Camp as a staff reporter. On the same day, Kardaley also made an arrangement for my stay in Pune - a monthly cot basis Priya Lodge, located opposite Rupali and Vaishali hotels in Deccan Gymkhana. Avertino Miranda, an old friend from Goa, and now a reporter in Indian Express, was one of the companions there. The same cot and the room at the lodge, along with a teapoy and a cupboard, were to be my accommodation and assets for the next four years. Other Indian Express reporters Vishwanath Hiremath and Vishwas Kothari would soon join Miranda and me later at the same lodge.
Kardaley and I soon got on well. He was a different kind of a boss. After Anand Agashe left to join ‘Indian Post’, there was no designated chief reporter in Indian Express, all of us eight reporters were on par, just staff reporters and took orders from each others in rotation. Immediately after joining Indian Express, the first national newspaper for me, we reporters covered the December 1989 parliamentary election with zeal. I was excited to tour Kolhapur and Ichalkaranji Lok Sabha seats as Naren Karunakaran and other colleagues visited other constituencies in western Maharashtra. As the resident editor, Kardaley, all of us referred to him as मास्तर `Master', gave full freedom to us reporters and the news desk team. That is the difference when an editor has background of news desk or reporting section. Kardaley never even had a look at our news copies typed on an old typewriter which was shared by all of us reporters. He trusted professional abilities of reporters in his team and the news desk. Neither did he enjoy holding long sessions of meetings to give pep talks or share news ideas. Unless you made a blunder of asking him which is Mula and Mutha river in Pune or something about the Peth locations in Pune city.... Then the Master would make you seat before him as he, with a pen, would draw a map, and would go on explaining for, say, at least half an hour..
We young reporters - at 28 I was the eldest and Anosh Malekar the youngest among the lot - were left to learn ourselves or fend for ourselves. But it was fun and lots of excitement. Even after our work was over, some of us male reporters, all of whom were bachelors, kept chatting and smoking either at the M.G. Street in Pune Camp or at the Priya Lodge in Deccan Gymkhana till late night hours. After the working hours at night, Kardaley often dropped me by an autorickshaw or his Kinetic scooter at Priya Lodge as he proceeded from the BMCC Road to his residence in Patrakar Nagar. During those days, none of the editors or journalists in Pune had their own four-wheelers or chauffeur-driven office cars. Despite its name, our Priya Lodge which was a part of the Hotel Hill View and located near the IMDR, was strictly for male members with even female siblings or any female family members forbidden to climb steps of the two-storeyed building. Sometimes Kardaley would drop in at our place at very odd hours – around 8 am – causing much embarrassment to most of us Indian Express reporters who never went to sleep before 1 am and got up very late in the morning. Oh yes, who would forget Kardaley's characteristic call 'ए गाढवा ! ' ('Ae Donkey ..') that used to carry different undertones. Sometimes the tone of his 'ए गाढवा !' meant the Master was in a most cheerful and appreciative mood ! Otherwise, even the others in the room feared the worst.
Kardaley soon introduced me to the bar culture in Pune Camp. The refreshing half an hour drinking sessions at the Ritz Hotel opposite Pune General Post Office (GPO) and Hotel Grand with their typically old fashioned architecture and furniture reminded me of taverns in Goa. Kardaley who smoked along with me never went beyond two small pegs of Vodka or a bottle of beer. Sometimes there would be larger gatherings of reporters. It was at one of such gatherings at Hotel Grand that we reporters and Kardaley had a brain storming session on a proposed weekly features supplement of Indian Express. Vinita Deshmukh who later joined Indian Express was in charge of the weekly supplement published on every Thursday. The weekly supplement was a precursor to the ‘Citizen’ magazine which was also looked after by Vinita Deshmukh. Our teleprinter operator R. G. R. (Many of us never knew his full name) typed the reporters’ copies again on the teleprinter to transmit them to our Mumbai-based desk. This teleprinter had a two-way traffic. Yes, that time, the news desk of Pune edition was based in Mumbai and Kardaley and we reporters communicated to M. J. Paul, Nasir Shaikh, Devendra Singh and others of the Pune desk in Mumbai only through the teleprinter and a hotline !
Like me, Kardaley too had began his professional career in Goa. He was in Goa when this territory was preparing to go for a historic referendum in January 1967 – the first and the only one in the history of an independent India - on the issue of whether to remain an independent entity or merge into neighbouring Maharashtra state. The tiny territory had then thankfully narrowly voted for an independent Union Territory status. Kardaley had worked in Goa, in Marathi daily Gomantak, just for a few months. Talking to me, he often recalled the days when ‘Estado da India’ or Portuguese India’ liberated in December 1961 was gradually learning to take a few steps in democratic India. He was amused to see that the new political leaders in Goa including ministers, legislators and other elected representatives needed coaching in electoral politics. Many ministers and legislators were also brought to Mumbai to witness State Assembly proceedings there ! It is even said that when a question was raised by a legislator in Goa Assembly, Goa’s first Chief Minister Dayanand Bandodkar without rising from his seat used to gesture with a finger to a bureaucrat, saying in Konkani "सांग रे त्येका ! " (“Reply to his question !” )
Originally hailing from Nagpur, Prakash Muralidhar Kardaley, joined Indian Express in Mumbai in 1967 and served the organisation for a record period of 40 years, his retirement in 2000 was followed by nearly seven-year long extension. Cartoonist R. K. Laxman who was with the Times of India (Bennett and Coleman Company) for over five decades perhaps holds the longest record of service with any newspaper in India. It was said that while he was posted in Mumbai, he had dug out many government files from the Mantralaya which helped Indian Express editor Arun Shourie to target the then Maharashtra Chief Minister Abdul Rehman Antulay. The Cement Scandal as the corruption came to be known forced Antulay – the first and the only Muslim chief minister of Maharashtra - to quit his post. Kardaley was posted in Pune in 1972. “I liked the city so much that I made it my home,” he has written. After serving as a chief reporter in Mumbai and also in New Delhi for a brief period, Kardarley returned to Pune to launch Pune edition of the Indian Express. That was the time in 1989 when I had joined this newspaper. Maharashtra Herald owned by Atur Sangtani was then leading English newspaper in Pune. Pune edition of Loksatta was also launched simultaneously with Anil Takalkar and Arun Khore leading the team.
Kardaley was closely associated with Indian Express Chief Editor Arun Shourie. I remember once I happened to pick up a landline call. “Arun here, Prakash, ” the voice on the other side said. “Sir, this is Camil Parkhe. Is there any message?” I said. “Camil, please tell Prakash that Arun had called,” he said and hung up. I was totally thrilled. Not because Chief Editor Arun Shourie had spoken to me. It was because it was for the first time outside Goa that someone had understood and pronounced my name correctly. Soon after that, Kardaley on behalf of Indian Express arranged Shourie’s talk at the Fergusson College’s Amphi Theatre. There was a tense atmosphere and heavy deployment of police personnel around the venue. That was because Shourie’s controversial book `Worshiping False Gods’ relating to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar was released recently. The years from 1989 to 1991 were a turbulent period in the history of independent India. It saw downfall of the Rajiv Gandhi government, short-lived prime ministerial tenures of Vishwanath Pratap Singh and Chandra Shekhar, arrival of the Mandal Commission era, Lal Krishna Advani’s controversial Rath Yatra, a mid-term poll and assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. All of us young reporters in Indian Express were given a free hand by Kardaley to cover these memorable events.
Having withdrawn from the nitty-gritty of the newspaper routine, Kardaley had now turned an ardent disciple of Osho. He used to frequently visit the Osho Ashram in Koregaon Park in the city. By that time, soon after his forced and humiliating return from the USA, Osho had stopped delivering speeches or even appearing in public. There were even many rumours about his ill health. Admission to the Osho Ashram was restricted only to those having HIV-free or AIDS-free certificates. All of us reporters were acquainted with Swamy Chaitanya Kirti and a few others managing the press relations for the Osho Ashram and who therefore frequently visited Indian Express office. Once Kirti informed Kardaley that Osho would appear before the devotees on Guru Purnima day. “I took my son (Amol, now based in Australia) along with me so that he may watch an historic figure,” Kardaley later wrote in his blog. To be frank, as a journalist and also as one who had studied philosophy for graduation and post-graduation degrees, how I had wished to meet or listen to this great, unconventional original thinker !
And then, one Sunday late evening, Kardaley stormed into the newspaper office to file a news report. All of us knew that Osho had died and we thought Kardaley would be a heartbroken man. He was not. This surprised me because my first editor, Bikram Vohra of The Navhind Times in Panjim, Goa, was unable to hold back his tears as we prepared a special afternoon newspaper bulletin, following assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984. Vohra, now living in the Gulf, has hailed from a family having two generations of senior ranking Army officers ! Kardaley asked one of the reporters to let him use the typewriter. And when while facing the wall he began typing, there was no pause for a second. That was the first time I had a glimpse of various qualities of a good reporter he had. Within a few minutes, Kardaley had filed the obit of Osho, Osho Rajnish, Bhagwan Rajnish, Acharya Rajnish or simply Chandra Mohan Jain, a philosophy teacher from Jabalpur University who later shook the whole world with his revolutionary thinking. Kardaley carried no notes with him as he filed the single spaced two typed sheets obit. He gave the typed copy to RGR to transmit it on teleprinter to Mumbai and for all editions of Indian Express. And he left nonchalantly for home, leaving all us too stunned. Apparently he believed in the now famous dictum : "Osho Never Born, Never Died Only visited this Planet Earth between December 11, 1931 - January 19, 1990 ."
Kardaley had always adorned the mantle of an activist journalist, a crusader. In keeping with the tradition of Indian Express, he was ready to take head on against the mighty and powerful. The issue of development on a hilltop at the Survey No. 44 at Erandwane in Pune was one such issue Kardaley raised in Indian Express. I even remember attending along with Kardaley a late night general body meeting of the Pune Municipal Corporation on this hot issue. Express Citizen Forum (ECF) was another issue which was close to Kardaley’s heart. He founded the ECF in 1990 to actively take up various civic issues, be it MSEB power mismanagement, potholes, tree felling or the deplorable drainage system. He had an army of some activists who were committed civic activists and faithfully attended meetings of the Express Citizen Forum, usually held at the Clover Centre, adjacent to Aurora Tower, where our newspaper was located. Netraprakash Bhog, Tara Warrior, advocate Aroona Nafday and Kalpana Gupte were some of the activists associated with the Express Citizen Forum. It was a rule that the discussion at the ECF meetings, though attended by less than two digit number persons, would be carried in at least four columns in Indian Express. And as an exception, this news copy was expected to be shown to Kardaley before forwarding it to the news desk. It was most likely that additions would be suggested or an enraged Kardaley would himself file another an in-depth story !
By the way, in keeping with the prevalent ethics and glorious tradition of English journalism, the name and photo of the editor (Kardaley) was not published in any news in Indian Express. To make matters easier for our photographer Milind Wadekar, ECF Convenor Kardaley, therefore, later agreed to sit at a corner on dais at all major ECF functions ! I remember we reporters including Madhav Gokhale, Vishwanath Hiremath, Naren Karunakaran, Shubha Gadkari, Sangeeta Jain- Jagirdar, Avertino Miranda and Anosh Malekar used to duck for cover whenever Kardaley would wonder aloud if there is any volunteer to cover the ECF meeting. Many times, the Master himself would volunteer to cover the meeting and a day later, there would be four to five columns news on various civic issues. We reporters always marvelled at his unending zeal and love for the civic issues.
“This (ECS) was the best phase of my life and this became the strength of my paper also,” Kardaley has stated in his blog. The Indian Express Group which gives the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards every year has instituted a civic journalism award in memory of Prakash Kardaley, It honours a print journalist 'whose sustained effort highlights a civic issue and forces the authorities to find a solution for it. The award aims to recognise pro-active local reporting that makes a difference in the lives of citizens.'' Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards are the most coveted awards in journalism in India. Incidentally, Radheshyam Jadhav, who had been my colleague in Maharashtra Herald in 2004-06 and later worked with Indian Express and The Times of India has won the Prakash Kardaley memorial award twice.
During this time, reporter colleague Shubha Gadkari introduced me to Asha Kardaley who used to then contribute to daily Loksatta. The short, soft-spoken woman is a reputed Marathi writer in her own right, known for her short stories, and has some acclaimed books to her credit including biographies of Kiran Bedi and Mother Teresa. After I joined Maharashtra Herald-Sakal Times , I often used to meet her when she visited Sakal library. She was pleased when once I told her that a chapter on Mother Teresa in my Marathi and English editions of ‘Contribution of Christian Missionaries in India’ was based wholly on her Mother Teresa’s biography !
I resigned from Indian Express within a year to continue as a freelance journalist. I regretted my folly three years later. With a large heart, Kardaley welcomed me back into Indian Express fold, albeit with voucher payment basis with salaries almost on par with other colleagues. When I rejoined, the premises areas of Indian Express -Loksatta in Aurota Towers were nearly doubled. More reporters including Raghunath, Anuradha Msacarenhas, Dnyanesh Jathar, Rachna Bisht, Davinder Kumar, Nanda Dabhole, Sujata Deshmukh, Satyajit Joshi, Prasanna Keskar, Abhijit Atre, Manish Umbrajkar and Vishwas Kothari had joined. Pune News desk from Mumbai too was shifted to Pune. This time I was entrusted with the job of Pimpri Chinchwad Newsline, Maharashtra regional news and editing his most favourite column – the Letters to the Editor. The letters – mostly written by senior citizens, retired defence personnel and civic activists – used to deal with issues of erratic water and power supply, pathetic Pune Municipal Transport (PMT) service and landline phone service. “I always liked to highlight the grass root problems and more fieldwork. My aim was to know more about knowing grievances faced by people not just writing about those Netas. I never had the fascination for the big names... To me there is no difference between reporting the proceedings of the Parliament and a Municipal Corporation,” Kardaley has written.
I remember the celebrations when Indian Express Pune edition overtook ‘Maharashtra Herald’ of Pune Camp in circulation of newspaper at around 18,000 copies. Indian Express was now the leading English newspaper in Pune. Around a decade later, Pune edition of The Times of India having reached a circulation of 1.17 lakh newspaper copies overtook Indian Express as the leading English newspaper in Pune and nearby areas. Yes, having joined The Times of India in 2000, I too was also a party to these celebrations organised by the TOI at a hotel on the Bhadarkar Road. Incidentally, I was the only common figure journalist at the launch of the three city English dailies in Pune in a span of three decades – Indian Express (1989), Times of India (2000) and the Maharashtra Herald- Sakal Times incarnation in the Sakal media group (2004). One of the major campaigns successfully launched by Kardaley was for erection of National War Memorial in Pune Cantonment area and dedicated to post-Independence war martyrs. Kardaley must have felt satisfied when Maharashtra Governor Dr. P. C. Alexander inaugurated the memorial in 1998.
In April 1999, Kardaley called me to say that due to the management’s cost cutting policy, now it was impossible for him to continue me on a voucher basis job. “Newspapers are not charity organisations, you see,” I remember his words even today as he advised me to look for another job. I did not realise then that Kardaley himself was to retire soon. However Kardaley continued my services with lesser responsibilities and with half of payment until I could secure a new job. ‘Subsistence allowance’, he said wryly. He had been a president of the Pune Union of Working Journalists (with Taher Shaikh as general secretary) and knew exactly what the term meant. I desperately hanged on with the thread of the small monthly payment for almost a year until I was offered a job in The Times of India. With a huge relief, I jumped for the job offer which came through an old friend, Abhay Vaidya. The Times of India was to launch its Pune edition in April 2000 and Abhay Vaidya who later became chief reporter wanted me to look after the state page in the national newspaper.
Kardaley relieved me of my duties in Indian Express the very moment I informed him of my appointment in the rival newspaper. I knew he shared in equal measures my joy in getting a job with an attractive package. By keeping me on the exit list for nearly a year, Kardaley had enabled me to find a gainful employment with a pay scale, Provident Fund, long paid holidays and all other benefits. First in the Times of India and later for 16-year-long service in Maharashtra Herald- Sakal Times of the Sakal Media Group and then a graceful exit from journalism service of 40 years during the present Corona Lockdown..... Oh,, these have been really great years with not many regrets...!!! And gratitude towards so many people who made it happen...!!! During my service in Indian Express, I was never a blue eyed boy or the Man Friday of Kardaley. Nonetheless, Kardaley the Master had unwittingly been my mentor and a godfather at one stage – nearly a decade - of my life and career.
And that was also the last day we saw each other. --
Kardaley and I soon got on well. He was a different kind of a boss. After Anand Agashe left to join ‘Indian Post’, there was no designated chief reporter in Indian Express, all of us eight reporters were on par, just staff reporters and took orders from each others in rotation. Immediately after joining Indian Express, the first national newspaper for me, we reporters covered the December 1989 parliamentary election with zeal. I was excited to tour Kolhapur and Ichalkaranji Lok Sabha seats as Naren Karunakaran and other colleagues visited other constituencies in western Maharashtra. As the resident editor, Kardaley, all of us referred to him as मास्तर `Master', gave full freedom to us reporters and the news desk team. That is the difference when an editor has background of news desk or reporting section. Kardaley never even had a look at our news copies typed on an old typewriter which was shared by all of us reporters. He trusted professional abilities of reporters in his team and the news desk. Neither did he enjoy holding long sessions of meetings to give pep talks or share news ideas. Unless you made a blunder of asking him which is Mula and Mutha river in Pune or something about the Peth locations in Pune city.... Then the Master would make you seat before him as he, with a pen, would draw a map, and would go on explaining for, say, at least half an hour..
We young reporters - at 28 I was the eldest and Anosh Malekar the youngest among the lot - were left to learn ourselves or fend for ourselves. But it was fun and lots of excitement. Even after our work was over, some of us male reporters, all of whom were bachelors, kept chatting and smoking either at the M.G. Street in Pune Camp or at the Priya Lodge in Deccan Gymkhana till late night hours. After the working hours at night, Kardaley often dropped me by an autorickshaw or his Kinetic scooter at Priya Lodge as he proceeded from the BMCC Road to his residence in Patrakar Nagar. During those days, none of the editors or journalists in Pune had their own four-wheelers or chauffeur-driven office cars. Despite its name, our Priya Lodge which was a part of the Hotel Hill View and located near the IMDR, was strictly for male members with even female siblings or any female family members forbidden to climb steps of the two-storeyed building. Sometimes Kardaley would drop in at our place at very odd hours – around 8 am – causing much embarrassment to most of us Indian Express reporters who never went to sleep before 1 am and got up very late in the morning. Oh yes, who would forget Kardaley's characteristic call 'ए गाढवा ! ' ('Ae Donkey ..') that used to carry different undertones. Sometimes the tone of his 'ए गाढवा !' meant the Master was in a most cheerful and appreciative mood ! Otherwise, even the others in the room feared the worst.
Kardaley soon introduced me to the bar culture in Pune Camp. The refreshing half an hour drinking sessions at the Ritz Hotel opposite Pune General Post Office (GPO) and Hotel Grand with their typically old fashioned architecture and furniture reminded me of taverns in Goa. Kardaley who smoked along with me never went beyond two small pegs of Vodka or a bottle of beer. Sometimes there would be larger gatherings of reporters. It was at one of such gatherings at Hotel Grand that we reporters and Kardaley had a brain storming session on a proposed weekly features supplement of Indian Express. Vinita Deshmukh who later joined Indian Express was in charge of the weekly supplement published on every Thursday. The weekly supplement was a precursor to the ‘Citizen’ magazine which was also looked after by Vinita Deshmukh. Our teleprinter operator R. G. R. (Many of us never knew his full name) typed the reporters’ copies again on the teleprinter to transmit them to our Mumbai-based desk. This teleprinter had a two-way traffic. Yes, that time, the news desk of Pune edition was based in Mumbai and Kardaley and we reporters communicated to M. J. Paul, Nasir Shaikh, Devendra Singh and others of the Pune desk in Mumbai only through the teleprinter and a hotline !
Like me, Kardaley too had began his professional career in Goa. He was in Goa when this territory was preparing to go for a historic referendum in January 1967 – the first and the only one in the history of an independent India - on the issue of whether to remain an independent entity or merge into neighbouring Maharashtra state. The tiny territory had then thankfully narrowly voted for an independent Union Territory status. Kardaley had worked in Goa, in Marathi daily Gomantak, just for a few months. Talking to me, he often recalled the days when ‘Estado da India’ or Portuguese India’ liberated in December 1961 was gradually learning to take a few steps in democratic India. He was amused to see that the new political leaders in Goa including ministers, legislators and other elected representatives needed coaching in electoral politics. Many ministers and legislators were also brought to Mumbai to witness State Assembly proceedings there ! It is even said that when a question was raised by a legislator in Goa Assembly, Goa’s first Chief Minister Dayanand Bandodkar without rising from his seat used to gesture with a finger to a bureaucrat, saying in Konkani "सांग रे त्येका ! " (“Reply to his question !” )
Originally hailing from Nagpur, Prakash Muralidhar Kardaley, joined Indian Express in Mumbai in 1967 and served the organisation for a record period of 40 years, his retirement in 2000 was followed by nearly seven-year long extension. Cartoonist R. K. Laxman who was with the Times of India (Bennett and Coleman Company) for over five decades perhaps holds the longest record of service with any newspaper in India. It was said that while he was posted in Mumbai, he had dug out many government files from the Mantralaya which helped Indian Express editor Arun Shourie to target the then Maharashtra Chief Minister Abdul Rehman Antulay. The Cement Scandal as the corruption came to be known forced Antulay – the first and the only Muslim chief minister of Maharashtra - to quit his post. Kardaley was posted in Pune in 1972. “I liked the city so much that I made it my home,” he has written. After serving as a chief reporter in Mumbai and also in New Delhi for a brief period, Kardarley returned to Pune to launch Pune edition of the Indian Express. That was the time in 1989 when I had joined this newspaper. Maharashtra Herald owned by Atur Sangtani was then leading English newspaper in Pune. Pune edition of Loksatta was also launched simultaneously with Anil Takalkar and Arun Khore leading the team.
Kardaley was closely associated with Indian Express Chief Editor Arun Shourie. I remember once I happened to pick up a landline call. “Arun here, Prakash, ” the voice on the other side said. “Sir, this is Camil Parkhe. Is there any message?” I said. “Camil, please tell Prakash that Arun had called,” he said and hung up. I was totally thrilled. Not because Chief Editor Arun Shourie had spoken to me. It was because it was for the first time outside Goa that someone had understood and pronounced my name correctly. Soon after that, Kardaley on behalf of Indian Express arranged Shourie’s talk at the Fergusson College’s Amphi Theatre. There was a tense atmosphere and heavy deployment of police personnel around the venue. That was because Shourie’s controversial book `Worshiping False Gods’ relating to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar was released recently. The years from 1989 to 1991 were a turbulent period in the history of independent India. It saw downfall of the Rajiv Gandhi government, short-lived prime ministerial tenures of Vishwanath Pratap Singh and Chandra Shekhar, arrival of the Mandal Commission era, Lal Krishna Advani’s controversial Rath Yatra, a mid-term poll and assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. All of us young reporters in Indian Express were given a free hand by Kardaley to cover these memorable events.
Having withdrawn from the nitty-gritty of the newspaper routine, Kardaley had now turned an ardent disciple of Osho. He used to frequently visit the Osho Ashram in Koregaon Park in the city. By that time, soon after his forced and humiliating return from the USA, Osho had stopped delivering speeches or even appearing in public. There were even many rumours about his ill health. Admission to the Osho Ashram was restricted only to those having HIV-free or AIDS-free certificates. All of us reporters were acquainted with Swamy Chaitanya Kirti and a few others managing the press relations for the Osho Ashram and who therefore frequently visited Indian Express office. Once Kirti informed Kardaley that Osho would appear before the devotees on Guru Purnima day. “I took my son (Amol, now based in Australia) along with me so that he may watch an historic figure,” Kardaley later wrote in his blog. To be frank, as a journalist and also as one who had studied philosophy for graduation and post-graduation degrees, how I had wished to meet or listen to this great, unconventional original thinker !
And then, one Sunday late evening, Kardaley stormed into the newspaper office to file a news report. All of us knew that Osho had died and we thought Kardaley would be a heartbroken man. He was not. This surprised me because my first editor, Bikram Vohra of The Navhind Times in Panjim, Goa, was unable to hold back his tears as we prepared a special afternoon newspaper bulletin, following assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984. Vohra, now living in the Gulf, has hailed from a family having two generations of senior ranking Army officers ! Kardaley asked one of the reporters to let him use the typewriter. And when while facing the wall he began typing, there was no pause for a second. That was the first time I had a glimpse of various qualities of a good reporter he had. Within a few minutes, Kardaley had filed the obit of Osho, Osho Rajnish, Bhagwan Rajnish, Acharya Rajnish or simply Chandra Mohan Jain, a philosophy teacher from Jabalpur University who later shook the whole world with his revolutionary thinking. Kardaley carried no notes with him as he filed the single spaced two typed sheets obit. He gave the typed copy to RGR to transmit it on teleprinter to Mumbai and for all editions of Indian Express. And he left nonchalantly for home, leaving all us too stunned. Apparently he believed in the now famous dictum : "Osho Never Born, Never Died Only visited this Planet Earth between December 11, 1931 - January 19, 1990 ."
Kardaley had always adorned the mantle of an activist journalist, a crusader. In keeping with the tradition of Indian Express, he was ready to take head on against the mighty and powerful. The issue of development on a hilltop at the Survey No. 44 at Erandwane in Pune was one such issue Kardaley raised in Indian Express. I even remember attending along with Kardaley a late night general body meeting of the Pune Municipal Corporation on this hot issue. Express Citizen Forum (ECF) was another issue which was close to Kardaley’s heart. He founded the ECF in 1990 to actively take up various civic issues, be it MSEB power mismanagement, potholes, tree felling or the deplorable drainage system. He had an army of some activists who were committed civic activists and faithfully attended meetings of the Express Citizen Forum, usually held at the Clover Centre, adjacent to Aurora Tower, where our newspaper was located. Netraprakash Bhog, Tara Warrior, advocate Aroona Nafday and Kalpana Gupte were some of the activists associated with the Express Citizen Forum. It was a rule that the discussion at the ECF meetings, though attended by less than two digit number persons, would be carried in at least four columns in Indian Express. And as an exception, this news copy was expected to be shown to Kardaley before forwarding it to the news desk. It was most likely that additions would be suggested or an enraged Kardaley would himself file another an in-depth story !
By the way, in keeping with the prevalent ethics and glorious tradition of English journalism, the name and photo of the editor (Kardaley) was not published in any news in Indian Express. To make matters easier for our photographer Milind Wadekar, ECF Convenor Kardaley, therefore, later agreed to sit at a corner on dais at all major ECF functions ! I remember we reporters including Madhav Gokhale, Vishwanath Hiremath, Naren Karunakaran, Shubha Gadkari, Sangeeta Jain- Jagirdar, Avertino Miranda and Anosh Malekar used to duck for cover whenever Kardaley would wonder aloud if there is any volunteer to cover the ECF meeting. Many times, the Master himself would volunteer to cover the meeting and a day later, there would be four to five columns news on various civic issues. We reporters always marvelled at his unending zeal and love for the civic issues.
“This (ECS) was the best phase of my life and this became the strength of my paper also,” Kardaley has stated in his blog. The Indian Express Group which gives the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards every year has instituted a civic journalism award in memory of Prakash Kardaley, It honours a print journalist 'whose sustained effort highlights a civic issue and forces the authorities to find a solution for it. The award aims to recognise pro-active local reporting that makes a difference in the lives of citizens.'' Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards are the most coveted awards in journalism in India. Incidentally, Radheshyam Jadhav, who had been my colleague in Maharashtra Herald in 2004-06 and later worked with Indian Express and The Times of India has won the Prakash Kardaley memorial award twice.
During this time, reporter colleague Shubha Gadkari introduced me to Asha Kardaley who used to then contribute to daily Loksatta. The short, soft-spoken woman is a reputed Marathi writer in her own right, known for her short stories, and has some acclaimed books to her credit including biographies of Kiran Bedi and Mother Teresa. After I joined Maharashtra Herald-Sakal Times , I often used to meet her when she visited Sakal library. She was pleased when once I told her that a chapter on Mother Teresa in my Marathi and English editions of ‘Contribution of Christian Missionaries in India’ was based wholly on her Mother Teresa’s biography !
I resigned from Indian Express within a year to continue as a freelance journalist. I regretted my folly three years later. With a large heart, Kardaley welcomed me back into Indian Express fold, albeit with voucher payment basis with salaries almost on par with other colleagues. When I rejoined, the premises areas of Indian Express -Loksatta in Aurota Towers were nearly doubled. More reporters including Raghunath, Anuradha Msacarenhas, Dnyanesh Jathar, Rachna Bisht, Davinder Kumar, Nanda Dabhole, Sujata Deshmukh, Satyajit Joshi, Prasanna Keskar, Abhijit Atre, Manish Umbrajkar and Vishwas Kothari had joined. Pune News desk from Mumbai too was shifted to Pune. This time I was entrusted with the job of Pimpri Chinchwad Newsline, Maharashtra regional news and editing his most favourite column – the Letters to the Editor. The letters – mostly written by senior citizens, retired defence personnel and civic activists – used to deal with issues of erratic water and power supply, pathetic Pune Municipal Transport (PMT) service and landline phone service. “I always liked to highlight the grass root problems and more fieldwork. My aim was to know more about knowing grievances faced by people not just writing about those Netas. I never had the fascination for the big names... To me there is no difference between reporting the proceedings of the Parliament and a Municipal Corporation,” Kardaley has written.
I remember the celebrations when Indian Express Pune edition overtook ‘Maharashtra Herald’ of Pune Camp in circulation of newspaper at around 18,000 copies. Indian Express was now the leading English newspaper in Pune. Around a decade later, Pune edition of The Times of India having reached a circulation of 1.17 lakh newspaper copies overtook Indian Express as the leading English newspaper in Pune and nearby areas. Yes, having joined The Times of India in 2000, I too was also a party to these celebrations organised by the TOI at a hotel on the Bhadarkar Road. Incidentally, I was the only common figure journalist at the launch of the three city English dailies in Pune in a span of three decades – Indian Express (1989), Times of India (2000) and the Maharashtra Herald- Sakal Times incarnation in the Sakal media group (2004). One of the major campaigns successfully launched by Kardaley was for erection of National War Memorial in Pune Cantonment area and dedicated to post-Independence war martyrs. Kardaley must have felt satisfied when Maharashtra Governor Dr. P. C. Alexander inaugurated the memorial in 1998.
In April 1999, Kardaley called me to say that due to the management’s cost cutting policy, now it was impossible for him to continue me on a voucher basis job. “Newspapers are not charity organisations, you see,” I remember his words even today as he advised me to look for another job. I did not realise then that Kardaley himself was to retire soon. However Kardaley continued my services with lesser responsibilities and with half of payment until I could secure a new job. ‘Subsistence allowance’, he said wryly. He had been a president of the Pune Union of Working Journalists (with Taher Shaikh as general secretary) and knew exactly what the term meant. I desperately hanged on with the thread of the small monthly payment for almost a year until I was offered a job in The Times of India. With a huge relief, I jumped for the job offer which came through an old friend, Abhay Vaidya. The Times of India was to launch its Pune edition in April 2000 and Abhay Vaidya who later became chief reporter wanted me to look after the state page in the national newspaper.
Kardaley relieved me of my duties in Indian Express the very moment I informed him of my appointment in the rival newspaper. I knew he shared in equal measures my joy in getting a job with an attractive package. By keeping me on the exit list for nearly a year, Kardaley had enabled me to find a gainful employment with a pay scale, Provident Fund, long paid holidays and all other benefits. First in the Times of India and later for 16-year-long service in Maharashtra Herald- Sakal Times of the Sakal Media Group and then a graceful exit from journalism service of 40 years during the present Corona Lockdown..... Oh,, these have been really great years with not many regrets...!!! And gratitude towards so many people who made it happen...!!! During my service in Indian Express, I was never a blue eyed boy or the Man Friday of Kardaley. Nonetheless, Kardaley the Master had unwittingly been my mentor and a godfather at one stage – nearly a decade - of my life and career.
And that was also the last day we saw each other. --
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