A recent fireside chat with former senior journalist and media consultant Krishnan Sriram provided some fascinating glimpses into his eventful career and once-in-a-lifetime events covered by him for leading national dailies in the national capital.
A recent fireside chat with former senior journalist and media consultant Krishnan Sriram provided some fascinating glimpses into his eventful career and once-in-a-lifetime events covered by him for leading national dailies in the national capital.
Born a couple of years after Independence to K.S. Krishnan and Meenakshi Krishnan, Sriram spent over five decades in the national capital before moving to the South, first to Bangalore and then to Coimbatore.. His mother was a home maker besides being an excellent carnatic music singer who was often featured in AIR, Delhi. Krishnan was an entomologist with the National Malaria Eradication Program (NMEP) that had at one time virtually got malaria eradicated in the country, before it bounced back in a virulent form. This mosquito expert used to be on tour most of the year, travelling to places as distant as the Andamans and the North East.
After passing out of Madrasi Education Association (MEA) School, Sriram switched from the science stream to graduate in English Literature from Delhi University’s prestigious Hindu College. This was followed by a postgraduate program in Journalism from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. His forays in journalism began in the final year of college itself a wall magazine called ‘Reflector’ and freelance writing for the magazine sections of The Hindustan Times in on subjects of concern to the youth. He also got appointed as a part time Youth Correspondent of AIR. He had also done a lot of work with Yuva Vani of AIR, involved as he was with the planning of programs, brainstorming, etc.
While covering a lot of sports events he did the first live running commentary for the Delhi University final cricket match between traditional rivals St Stephen’s and the Hindu College. During his freelance stint he alos wrote for the weekly Delhi Diary and The Evening News. Initially, he would write by hand and would get it typed outside. Subsequently, he bought a portable second-hand Baby Hermes typewriter for all his freelance work.
“I must say that I was fortunate to be at the right place at the right time. My hanging out in AIR helped me get a number of radio programmes. I also did a radio feature on ‘Youth’s Reaction to Organized Religion’. In AIR the script had to have short sentences; short words which were crisp and straight. This was to help me greatly in my career later. I was the first to interview Sunil Gavaskar in the studios of AIR when he had returned from his triumphant debut in the West Indies. I used this interview to write a feature article for The Hindustan Times Sunday Magazine. Perhaps, I was early to spot Gavaskar's public speaking skills. I can recall my rather prophetic opening sentence of that piece: He wields the mike as well as he does his bat…” chuckles Sriram.
Among some of the historic events covered by him in his early career with The Hindustan Times, Sriram remembers reporting the dramatic arrest of Indira Gandhi during the Janata regime. “It was surreal to see her sitting on the culvert of a road and demanding that she not be taken out of Delhi even as her sons, Rajiv and Sanjay and their band of young men, began creating a scene by the road-side in full view of the small group of journalists following the police vehicles.
A few years earlier, he had covered three different events in one single day, May 31, 1973, the day that’s forever etched in his memory: Starting with the interview of a school topper interview in the afternoon, to covering a glamorous fashion show at Ashoka Hotel in the evening and finally to rushing to cover the crash of an Indian Airlines flight short of Delhi Airport in the night that killed 97 persons on board, including Central Minister Mohan Kumaramangalam. Following this, he was assigned to cover the month-long Sachar inquiry commission that probed the air-crash and concluded it was due to pilot error. The pilot and the co-pilot had survived the crash along with 15 others.
His consistent daily coverage of the commission’s proceedings earned him the assignment to cover the historic deposition of Indira Gandhi at the Allahabad High Court in the election petition that she lost and led to the imposition of the national emergency months later. Shanthi Bhushan as the lawyer for politician Raj Narain had cross examined Indira Gandhi over two days and Sriram was one of the youngest journalists to cover this major event.
Meanwhile, Sriram married Gita in 1975 and the couple got blessed with Pooja and Aarti. Now they have four grandchildren, all of whom are living in Singapore. “We were married in May and the national emergency was declared a month later”, he jokes.
After his stint with The Hindustan Times, Sriram moved to The Tribune in Chandigarh as Assistant Editor, Features. He used to write weekly interview-features on a common man eking out a living. It was about ordinary people living extraordinary lives. Besides all this, he used to rewrite several district diary pieces each month. These pieces came from reporters in the district and their copy needed to be made fit to read. Besides this, he helped the editor of the paper to bring out the popular weekly column, ‘Chandigarh Calling'.
Later Sriram joined Indian Express in Chennai as the Assistant Editor in charge of its editorial page. He was entrusted with the responsibility of launching of 5PM, the evening paper for Indian Express. His Delhi experiences helped him to plan and prepare the launch of 5PM in the tabloid format. It took five months to prepare the dummy and bring on board various freelancers on board, besides creating a strong editorial team. Many of those who began writing for 5PM have since then become well-known columnists and writers in their own right. Unfortunately, 5PM had to be shut down and shortly thereafter Sriram worked as the Editor-in-Charge of the Indian Express edition in Ahmedabad.
While he was working in Ahmedabad, his former Hindustan Times editor, B. G. Varghese, had joined Indian Express. He had managed to persuade the management to station staffers in the capitals of the neighbouring countries. Given the choice between Kathmandu and Colombo, Sriram chose the latter. He began by covering the 1982 presidential elections of the island nation that elected J. R. Jayawardane of UNP as the Sri Lankan, President. During this assignment, he managed to arrange a house for his family’s stay. As the foreign correspondent of Indian Express in Colombo, he was able to cover a series of political developments that finally culminated in the week-long anti-Tamil riots in July 1983. During the rioting, the Sriram family was sheltered by the Sinhalese landlady. Sending his family back home, he continued to stay on in Sri Lanka and report events for the paper. One of the memorable events of that time he recalls is of an interview that President Jayawardene was giving to him and couple of other journalists.
“There was a phone call from Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to President J. R. Jayawardane. She wanted to send senior diplomat G. Parthasarathy as here interlocutor for negotiations and a reluctant Jayawardane had to agree. In fact, Jayawardane took the phone call from Indira Gandhi right in front of us. He had to be coaxed by her. She eventually had her way. I returned to join the Indian Express New Delhi Bureau shortly thereafter in October 1983.”
Here he covered the various rounds of talks that the Indian government had held with different Tamil militant groups to persuade them to join the mainstream of Sri Lankan politics. As one who had developed contacts in the leadership of many of these groups, he was able to get the inside story of the talks on several occasions. He recalls seeing the much-feared LTTE leader Prabhakaran along with his group on the lawns of a hotel where they had been lodged by the Indian government.
Sriram continued with the world of journalism for a lot more years---returning to The Hindustan Times as Editor Evening News and Features Editor, and to The Tribune as its New Delhi Bureau Chief--- before becoming a Media Consultant. He moved to Bangalore and now, this recent Coimbatorean lives in the serene foothills of Marudhamalai in the company of greenery and spirituality.