Wednesday, 08 September 2021 | Mriganka Bhowmick
Mriganka Bhowmick
One after another priceless memoirs are getting published after the sudden demise of Dr Chandan Mitra, the Editor in Chief of The Pioneer. The hues and dynamism of the life of celebrated journalist Dr Chandan Mitra were not only experienced by his journalist friends and peers but also touched a management professional like me as at that time I was not writing regularly.
I happened to get the responsibility of managing The Pioneer, Dehradun edition some years ago. I was thrilled to get an additional responsibility to manage a newspaper along with my investment banking profile. Very soon, I realised that it was a tough job as I might be good at investment management, but not so good at managing high and mighty journalists and a business that operates 24 X 7. A lot of issues were piling up to get resolved from Delhi desk and the water became troubled day by day.
One day I was scheduled to meet Dr Mitra at The Pioneer office, then at Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, Delhi. That time he was a regular face on television debates and was an MP too. Though I was feeling thrilled inside, my problems at hand failed to calm me down. Sitting with his half jacket, he stared at me sharply and asked, “You Mriganka, you Bengali?” I affirmed. He started enquiring about issues and ordered tea. In the middle of the discussion, he asked “do you smoke?” I affirmed. To my surprise, he lit his cigarette and offered me one while pushing the astray towards me. I took one but was hesitant before him. He was resolving my edition’s issues one after another by calling the responsible people at the desk. The meeting ended and he said, “Keep in touch and do come to me whenever you have an issue.” I came out of the meeting and became a fan of Dr Mitra.
He did not let me feel that I was a novice in the media business, but rather took me seriously and acted like a leader to understand me diligently and resolved my problem then and there. After reaching a high position in life, it’s a very rare virtue. After that day I kept in regular touch with him.
Over the years, I became ambitious with the Dehradun edition. Once we decided that we would publish special pages “Valley Vivacity” from Dehradun every Friday, completely managed by us, not by Delhi desk. The Doon desk communicated that to Delhi desk. But at the eleventh hour, around 6.30 pm when our pages were about to be scheduled, Dr Mitra turned down the page publication. It was a tense situation as we were blank as how to fill those two pages, if we failed to get approval for those special pages. I rushed to meet him and waited for him until his editorial meeting got over. I met him at 8.30 pm and he asked me in annoyance, “What does your Doon team wish to do with these special pages?” I replied, “They wish to stand by their own to show that they can publish special pages single handedly.” We debated for one hour and eventually he cleared the pages at 9.30 pm. I thanked him profoundly and he replied with a broad smile, “Going forward you should only come and explain me all these crazy ideas.” That was Chandan for me, always sensitive and a guardian to a junior like me.
I was exceptionally fortunate as I got his support on every occasion, be it team restructuring, special pages or advertisement campaign. I feel that he was somewhere overindulgent to my demands. My colleague teased me by saying that he was easy going with you due to the Bong connection. As he was assuring, I could become forthcoming in experiments.
Last time I met him was after his surgery. The editor was fragile in health and reeling under multiple pressures of the organisation. I was not a part of The Pioneer at that time. But he met me with utmost affection and was sharing many issues like a close one. While we parted he said in his habitual way, “Keep in touch and do come.” I was not able to visit back since then. As I cross forty, I realise that many parts of my world have started setting in the horizon of time, which will never come back. I bid adieu to you, Chandan. I will always remember you affectionately for making me capable with your loving indulgence.
(A former managing editor of The Pioneer, Dehradun edition, the author is an investment banker and consulting editor of IPA News)
