At 72, The Lucknow Boy, Vinod Mehta, is no more. Can’t believe this larconic editor will not write again. I am sure a lot of us have reverence for his irreverence. I am not the one who will not break the rule of irreverence on his obituary because even Vinod Mehta may not like a panegyric in his memorium. If thou shalt not talk ill of the dead after they’re gone, thou shalt never get another opportunity. What is the legacy of this memorable editor to Indian Journalism?
To begin with, he spotted trends and swung to wherever momentum lie - whether it was the Congress-I for the most part, clinging to the Red Sari for as long as he could, later turning the javelins at BJP and paying left-handed compliments to them. Then endorsing AAP. He had his political leanings but never suppressed ideologies that questioned the ruling establishments. So he broke many taboos on whistle-blowing the mighty, taking on pan-Americana, backed the most candid surveys on sex that India has never done before (not even during the days of The Illustrated Weekly), explored the schisms and the patios separating and joining the business and polity.
He had his muses, mostly women, thankfully. And he backed them - Saba Naqvi, Neerja Choudhary, N Mahalaxmi, Shobhaa De and Arundhati Roy, considered the apple of his eye, churning out mammoth cover stories in Outlook Magazine on themes which had the most diabological feedback. Quite poetic, the most-loved and hated Indian Editor of recent times passed away on the day feminism is celebrated world-wide.
The publications he started, abandoned and got thrown out are all some of the greatest experiments in Indian English journalism. Debonair used to titiliate males before imports from America downed the market. Pioneer became a fierce voice in daily newspapers for as long as he served as editor. Sunday Observer became the most-awaited weekend newspaper for even lovers of good prose flung far out of Mumbai and Delhi. Then came the paper that created a great tradition of pointy and pithy journalism - The Independent, modelled on the lines of the famous British newspaper - it had epic articles and opinions (many of them still preserved by me) elegantly laid out on Surf Excel white paper. The paper’s death in the 90s became a much talked about chapter for students of Indian journalism. One of my closest friends who inspired me to write - Marcellus D Souza used to write for this paper. It was later that Outlook India was born. Even before Vinod took over the reins of the magazine and instilled his core team, epitaphs were written about his “short” tenure - people rubbished that this pesky and idiosyncratic editor will desert the Rahejas soon like other publications and vanish to his villa with his whiskey. The ask was also tough because Vinod Mehta and the publisher Raheja were taking on the No.1 weekly of the times -India Today and the formidable Aroon Purie. But Vinod Mehta played to his strengths in dishing out fearless, sensational and panoramic cover stories and articles giving a distinct flavour and taste of the finest writing to the Indian urban readers. Some of the world’s greatest living writers from Naipaul and Rushdie to Garcia and Gawande, from Ruskin Bond to Khushwant Singh were writing routine short stories, memoirs and opinions for the magazine. The success of Outlook changed the condescension of Aroon Purie forever and humbled his fledging print empire at New Delhi. For the next ten or fifteen years, Outlook India became the new new thing that was avidly read, collected and preserved - even if readers not always agreed with its choices of reading material. The centrepiece of the magazine is the most widely read reader’s mail acerbically aimed at the Editor - who took everything with characeristic poise and disdain, even celebration that readers were calling him so many names. Though the comments were edited, the original diatribes with the most vitriolic, vandalist vocabulary ever written were most eagerly read. You need a different gall to take comments like that on your chin - and Vinod Mehta was a master at it.
The success of Outlook made him take so many sister publications - Outlook Money (which absorbed “The Intelligent Investor” publication into itself), Outlook Business, Outlook Profit (now defunct) and Indian editions of popular foreign magazines like “MarieClaire” and “People”). Outlook Money, despite fall in standards is the superstar of personal finance magazines beating the pulp out of “Moneylife”, “MoneyToday” and “DalalStreet Journal”. What it has achieved is an unprecedented jump in financial literacy of millions of men and women in India used to administered savings rates on one side and snake-oil selling commission agents on the other side wayfaring them into dangerous territories of risk. Many of the scribes on Outlook Money have gone to set up desks in ET and other Personal Finance websites.
Then the many books Vinod Mehta wrote that stood the test of time - the most damning and revealing account of Sanjay Gandhi called ‘The Sanjay Story” and his own memoirs called “The Lucknow Boy” and more recently a collection of his reminiscences called “Editor Unplugged”. Vinod Mehta writes without apology or a missing apostrophe - his writing is so squeaky clean, racy, witty, crisp and refreshing. He mastered the art of story-telling, knew how to give every devil his due. His writings were read by all the Prime Ministers because it was irreverent yet professional prose. At the same time, his writing informs, entertains and regales us with the rarest of candour. We never know who really influenced his style of writing- is it Malcom Muggeridge or Henry Luce but whoever set his writing up, the literary trails left by Vinod Mehta will stand forever. Yes, he strode like a colossus in journalism and also plundered the riches that came with writing that got greased by the high and mighty. He had his loves, his loose ends and his moral strands plucked and tugged at will by the powers but he never bored us. He may have betrayed at times with his brand of journalism but he dared to do something different each time he manned a publication. And he opened the door for so many creatives in penmanship to flourish, without fear but lot of favour. We will miss Vinod Mehta as surely as the greats in Indian Journalism. For students and practitioners of it, his loss is irreparable. Can we bury his dogs with him so he can be as playful as ever?
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