Tough love was Sachi sir’s middle name. He never thought twice before kicking young reporters into the deep end of the pool. And when one made it back to land after much kicking and screaming, he would be waiting there with a drink, a cheeky grin, and generous praise. Most of all, he was an amazing storyteller, adept with both ink and inflection. So, let me remember him through memorable stories.
The Hay Festival trap
In November 2010, THE WEEK hosted the inaugural Hay Festival in Thiruvananthapuram. Being the hosts, we were on our feet the whole day and the evening found us in one of the city hotels for the customary cocktail party. Deputy Chief of Bureau Mandira Nayar, former colleague Nikita Doval and I were sitting in a corner nursing drinks when Sachi descended on us breathing fire. “You are the hosts and you are relaxing? Up, up, go talk to the guests,” he flogged us to our feet.
I was a young senior subeditor and I made the mistake of telling him that I did not know any of the big names there, so what was I supposed to speak to them about? He suddenly became sweet, put an arm around my shoulder and asked me about my favourite session of the day. I said it was the one featuring Hay Festival founder Peter Florence and historian Simon Schama. Sachi scanned the crowd and there was Schama, towering over the crowd.
Sachi dragged me to him all the while promising me that I would not have to say a word. “I’ll handle it,” he said. Once we had reached Schama, he introduced us and sprang his trap, “Mathew was most impressed by your session this afternoon and is bursting with questions.” Schama directed his brilliant smile at me and said, “Shoot!”
Sachi slipped away and I was left solo with this brilliant mind. Contrary to expectations, what followed was an unforgettable conversation for me about the Dutch masters and one of my favourite paintings, Jan Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. Schama told me why he calls her Girl in the Blue Turban, because the “pearl” might not have been a pearl at all.
Later that evening I got another tongue-lashing from Sachi for not carrying my business cards with me. Ever since, big names do not faze me and my business cards are always within reach.
Keeping it personal
In the media industry, the stars are in the field and the desks are usually unsung. But not so with Sachi. When he visited Kochi, it was a joy to see him work the newsroom from one end to the other. Every chair was visited, with his trademark smile and banter. Then he would go down to the Malayala Manorama daily’s desk and do the same. The joke was that while he made sure that he knew the Union ministers, he made doubly sure that he knew their personal staff and often even the gardener!
His personal touch reaped dividends, of course. A Janata Dal leader used to ride his pillion every Sunday during his Bangalore days, and two would go to breakfast. Later, H.D. Deve Gowda would become chief minister and prime minister. How many of us can claim to have ferried a prime minister around on a scooter?
He would remember personal details about everyone. Sachi’s nickname for my wife, Jan, was Mathew Positioning System. He knew I often called her when I was on the road. He could not make it to my housewarming, but he visited us when he was in Kochi next—with a bouquet for Jan and a warm hug for me.
The details man
He had given up smoking long ago, but made an exception for “palaces and residences of heads of states”. A few years ago, a friend was having a housewarming and offered him a cigar. He politely refused stating his rule. The friend shot back saying, “This is my palace. I declare this a palace!” That was the last time Sachi smoked, I think. He then added a clarification to his rule—the palaces had to be more than X square feet!
On July 29, he sent me a stinging barb after a news item about an earthquake in Arunachal Pradesh popped up on theweek.in’s Hot and Happening scroll after 48 hours. It was a technical glitch. “Even earthquakes go cold,” he said. Almost a year into retirement, he still loved THE WEEK so dearly and missed no detail.
A heart that never aged
For a while, his favourite song was Britney Spears’s Baby One More Time. And, I remember a breezy evening on the lawns of the Taj Gateway in Kochi, when former colleague N. Bhanutej and Sachi serenaded former colleague Rabi Banerjee with songs from the Kannada film Sandhya Raga (1977)—all because Rabi was getting married to Sandhya.
When journalists descended on the West Indies for a Commonwealth Heads of Government summit, the local press club organised a cricket day. Liquor was banned on the pitch. A little bird told me that Sachi was the umpire, with a generous tot of rum in his can of Coke. Apparently, only the other umpire knew the secret—former Trinidadian right-hand bat Daren Ganga!
You will be missed, sir. But I would rather see you go in peace than live in discomfort. We loved you too much for that, you see.