 |
I joined the company in 1979. I used to work as a peon then. The team then had Ajay Kumar of Sportsworld, S.P. Singh of the Hindi Ravivar and M.J. Akbar of Sunday magazine.
I worked here from 8am and studied at an art college in the evening. I used to get Re 1 per hour but I used to work a 14-hour shift, so that I could earn more. I used to eat at the canteen here and the bathrooms then had a shower cubicle so I practically lived here.
I was jack of all trades: except for writing, I did everything. I remember making a photo library (I wasn’t a photographer then). Actually, Boss (Akbar) did not like a picture being used twice. When The Telegraph started we used bromide pictures behind which we would write single column or double column, whatever we needed, and I used to keep all of them.
Planning for the launch of The Telegraph started a long time before its publication. For three months, the pages were being made. I remember Shekhar Bhatia, S.P. Singh and Ajay Kumar as part of the team. I used to work for all of them and do all sorts of odd jobs. And Boss was there, from 11am to 4am. I also worked for him. I didn’t have a home then. I used to stay with my grandfather and I only went home to sleep.
All of us used to work till early in the morning those three months. There used to be food coming in for everyone, sometimes from Amber, sometimes from Chung Wah. It was a regular practice to have a cup of tea in the morning before going home.
On July 6, the night that the first edition of The Telegraph went to print, it seemed like we were getting our daughter married off! There was a grand feast in the office. Pages were readied early and released on time. Once the pages were released we all trooped to the printing press, which was then housed in the building across the street where we later had the motor vehicles department.
I remember running around all the time. Someone said ‘This one has no headline’, someone else was missing a logo, someone had dropped a comma, it was a madhouse....
I had got my break thanks to the proof system — people used to write by hand which was then typed out and then proofed. Usually no one came in on Sundays, but I did to file pictures and read the newspapers. One Sunday, there were some proofs that needed to be checked and I tried my hand at it. Boss came in around 4pm and asked me what I was doing and then told me to carry the proofs to his room. He checked them and told me to reach them downstairs. After he left, I went and checked what he had done about the proofs, whether I had made any mistakes. I saw that he hadn’t changed anything, he had just signed them!
So, soon after The Telegraph was launched, Boss made me a proof-reader.
But I continued to do all my previous duties as well. I filed photographs and stories that people used to cut out of the paper and keep, because we were not allowed to carry things out from the library. I used to file them in brown paper packets according to subjects — news, sports, etc. I even used to make these boxes where I kept headlines, body... so that if by chance there was some error we could cut them out and paste them. During those times work was all manual. You had to be on your toes constantly.
Then, one day, I got a camera from one of the senior photographers and experimented with taking pictures. I used to take passport photographs of 90 per cent of The Telegraph employees. I also used to take pictures of things that were not there in the photo library. The pictures often got carried in the paper.
I remember when Tiger Pataudi was the editor of Sportsworld, I used to take pictures for the magazine too. One day I went to take Pataudi’s picture and he told me that Nikhilda, Nikhil Bhattacharya, the legend in sports photography, already had a picture of his, so why did I need to click him? Andy O’Brien, who was then with Sportsworld, told him that I was taking pictures regularly and so I should take a shot. That photograph came out as a half-pager in Weekend. The next time he came down, Pataudi wanted the picture because he really liked it.
I remember Amitabh Bachchan coming to The Telegraph Debate. I took a couple of pictures of Amitabh at the Oberoi Grand and then I requested him to stand up for a picture. He told me, “I won’t fit in your camera if I stand!” I used to have a Nikomat camera then. But he did pose for me and I still have the picture somewhere.
Then as things became computerised, I did not need to do the things I used to before. And my photography had taken off at full speed. I was still a proof-reader but I was even travelling as a photographer. I wasn’t even a designated photographer when I took pictures of Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai when they became Miss India and Miss World. I became a photographer only in 2006.
When Metro was launched I used to take pictures for the Goodlife page — food, fashion, music.
Just like I have seen the party life in Calcutta grow through the various assignments I have done over the years — new pubs, new restaurants, lounges — I have seen The Telegraph grow from 12 pages to 16 and then to 24 pages. Now it has become like this big banyan tree with many branches. The paper goes to so many places, there are so many editions, splits, and then there is t2, for which I still enjoy slogging night and day.
Wherever I go now there are people I know who have been with The Telegraph before. It is like a school. It has taught us all so much.
And for all of them, I am Rashu (or now, Rashu-da).
