An editor on his life and craft
Vinod Mehta's latest memoirs are deceptively lightweight. On a closer reading, they are packed with musings on journalism, personalities and the key events of his own life,
says MANNIKA CHOPRA.
Editor Unplugged
Pages: 281
Publisher: Penguin Viking
Price: 599
It’s official: Vinod Mehta at 71 is on a literary selfie spree. Having written Lucknow Boy in 2011, he has most recently authored a sequel, Editor Unplugged. The earlier book looked at childhood memories, his migration from Bombay to Delhi and many editorships. It had a language of optimism, a biopic starring the almost-cocky, self-taught outsider taking on the establishment.
But this is 2014. Times have changed. Mehta, after 17 years as editor-in-chief of Outlook, a weekly known for its irreverence and crusading zeal, is now the editorial chairman of the media group, becoming, as he repeatedly says, “A harlot exercising power without responsibility.”
At first glance, Editor Unplugged lacks a certain edginess and boldness you expect of an Alpha editor. The chapter sequences are a little erratic and chronologically incoherent because they deal with issues in a patchwork essay format rather than in a tidier linear timeline. But nevertheless there is something oddly compelling and charming about Mehta’s latest approach.
Outpourings of his inner voice rub shoulders with hard-nosed insights. So you have the book’s initial chapter devoted to Mehta’s walk into the professional sunset followed by a detailed scrutiny of establishment broker, Niira Radia, and the art of lobbying. He examines his decision to run with the controversial, and sensational, Radia tapes, as a cover story fully aware of the consequences. As it happens, the consequences bookend his career as an active editor.
Mehta admits he is kicked upstairs when he is designated editorial chairman by proprietor Rajan Raheja. One reason for this upward trajectory is his irrevocable distancing from the Tata business empire which costs Outlook not only the goodwill of corporate supremo Ratan Tata but, much more hurtful, advertising from 90-odd Tata companies.
For the media historian and the researcher of the State of the Indian Media, the book is indispensable. Mostly, the narratives have value. Some parts of it are brutally honest, others, like the extensive jokes in the chapter on how Indians lack humour, ought to have been edited. Snuggled in the pages are the presence of Great Editors who are Great Bores; hostile turbo editors with “egos as big as footballs,” raring to get Rajya Sabha seats; splices of delightful insider dialogues -- yes, the Tata story dominates -- and gold seams of gossip, all with begin quotes and end quotes.
Journalism history cannot possibly overlook this nugget. Mehta, before the onset of the Emergency, is editing the vaguely erotic, slutty Debonair, and asks Girilal Jain, editor of the Times of India, “who wrote only for two people in the country -- the PM and one other person” how to write on politics. “To write on politics, declares Jain, “one has first to understand the grammar of politics.” Over a four-decade career span, Mehta has never fathomed what that little gem meant.
In a way, Mehta is the antithesis of Girilal Jain. The non-intellectual editor, the no-brand -- an editor without an agenda to change the nation’s agenda or any agenda for that matter. He is the editor who doesn’t believe in manifesto writing but has complete faith in the 5Ws and the power of the expose. Neither is he the activist-journalist despite publishing Arundhati Roy’s 20,000-word thesis on the Naxals, ‘Walking with the Comrades’’, and his initial passionate advocacy of Arvind Kejriwal, which he later regrets.
Never off-stage, he has a Zen-like faith in the present. It is what it is. Which is why, though he continues to be a “Congress chamcha” and while his faith in secularism remains unshaken, he understands the present mood and climate of the nation and its support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Strangely, Mehta comes across as insecure. Even though the Radia tapes become part of the national conversation on his run, there is a niggling sense of self-doubt that permeates. This vulnerability has nothing to do with his shuttling from publication to publication as an editor. Over four decades he has edited Debonair, the Pioneer, the Sunday Observer, Indian Post, the Independent and Outlook.
Destined for career instability, he is clearly seen by managements as being extremely bankable. By his own account and according to the grapevine, Mehta is also a gifted team leader, giving space, time and money (management willing), for reporters to pursue stories. In his day-to-day dealings he is affable rather than aggressive, loved rather than feared. The newsroom is his natural habitat.
So if there is this inexplicable lack of self-confidence, it’s about his craft. He is self-deprecating to a fault about his writing and his own thought processes. He has delusions about editorial blocks, even the choice of subject matter. Juxtapose this anxiety with the apparent ease with which he unspools his intimate life: the regretful absence of that one great love affair, and the presence of many lusty interludes. Here are endearing Mad Men moments. And lurking in the foreground is the comforting presence of his whisky soda which earns him a Twitter handle of @DrunkVinodMehta when he is caught taking a sip of his favourite tipple during one of his 500-odd TV appearances.
Like other recent memoirs penned by other leading editors -- Kuldip Nayar’s Believe It or Not, S. Nihal Singh’s Ink in my Veins, and B.G. Verghese’s First Draft, Mehta’s book also talks about dwindling media standards, the erosion of public trust, corruption in the Fourth Estate and radically changing media organizations. In an almost unintended subtext, the book exposes the ‘maleness’ of editors. Perhaps this volume will light a spark for a greater bonfire -- memoirs by India’s all too few women editors.
The book has a light touch; it seems to weigh nothing yet, despite some retold stories and recycled thoughts, it ends up being meaningful. You know where the story is heading but you’re still glad you are there for the ride. Mehta insists that there will not be a sequel to the sequel. But after 40 odd years of being a hard-boiled editor, it’s unlikely that there won’t be another follow-up.
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