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The Hindu Business Line
Wednesday, June 2, 2004
Wednesday, Jun 02, 2004
Watering hole with a history
P. Devarajan
By some healthy convention, drinks at the Club are the cheapest in Mumbai and the bills can wait to be paid some other day, as newsmen cannot afford to be prompt about payment. |
LATE evenings, scribes from the media stroll into the Press Club, Mumbai, steady as an uncorked bottle of Old Monk rum. In the night, as they stumble out of the premises, they are about as light as an empty bottle of Old Monk rum. In a couple of hours, the old monk turns a heathen. A long time ago, a sports writer dubbed the place as the "watering hole for newsmen," of which they could be proud of; at least this writer is proud being a member, with the membership number being 51.
That in brief is the Press Club, Mumbai, which has an unwritten history of 30 and more years, and one has grown with this premier institution of the city's media. One has visited the press clubs at Kolkata, New Delhi, Chennai and Alappuzha, apart from having had drinks at other private clubs in Mumbai.
Recently, Vishy of The Hindu was quite upset that the city had no open space for an evening drink, as in Sydney or South Africa where cricket and sports in general have an appreciative audience. "There is nothing like that in India," he said, and he should know.
Being a journalist who has spent his life walking between V.T. and Nariman Point, the Club, for this writer, is the lone, cheap and best alternative. By some healthy convention, drinks at the Club are the cheapest in Mumbai and the bills can wait to be paid some other day, as newsmen cannot afford to be prompt about payment.
There is a history to the place, with the first general secretary (if one is not entirely wrong) being Olga Tellis, now working at The Asian Age. Since 18, she has been a journo and has covered probably everything from Mihir Sen's swim of the seven seas to politics and business. If she decides to sit down in front of her computer, she could produce readable pieces on Mumbai, its journalists, its businessmen and its politicians.
When the Press Club was started, it could not offer drinks to its members as there was strict prohibition. The rush started when the State's politicians decided to give Mumbaikars the option of buying themselves a drink. Yet, sometimes on a Saturday afternoon, one has shared a bottle of country liquor with dear old Joe Crasto, in the corner room where the computer centre is at present located. Some of the best journalists like Leyland, Joe, John (all of The Times of India) and Ron Hendricks of The Indian Express used to drop in regularly, and one has shared drinks with them. One was then a raw business correspondent (not much has changed over the years), but they never wore a superior air. One learnt to enjoy games like hockey and football. They knew their sports, wrote easily and never had pretensions to being a foreigner writing in some London newspaper.
Business journalists like Gururaj, Murali Kumar, M.L. Kamath and many others mixed well with the sportswriters. In those days, the top editors would never deign to visit the Club; most of them had wealthy friends to buy them drinks or they walked around with foreign newspapers and free books in their brown suitcases. When in the chat mode, they would praise their own editorials and its influence on policy-making by governments. Even today, top editors rarely visit the place.
Over the years, new managements run by journalists have tried to alter the "watering hole." Efforts are on to put up a high-tech structure where the existing shack-like outfit offers a cosy, comfy feeling. The club has a neat garden abutting the Azad Maidan. On a rainy afternoon, when the Club is empty, one can watch the rains smudge the Bombay Gym at the far end of the Maidan and, while sipping a gin and tonic, hear the raindrops making their way into the surrounding silence. My friends Kurup, Giri, Govardhan, Paul and Krishna, with whom one has spent some of the best hours at the Club, are against change.
There are probably more PROs than journalists at the Club. There are film shows and exhibitions. Annual elections are fought more bitterly than the general elections. The innocence of the first days will probably go to accommodate the needs of a modern generation, flaunting by-lines and scoops.
What could remain unchanged is the young army of waiters under the charge of Mohammad, who came into the Club in the early '70s from PTI. Most of them are well up on the habits of the members and are about the best in the city. It is now time for my friends Varam and Dilip Raote, the resident intellectuals of the Club, to bend their fingers to jointly put down the history of the Club on the computer as that could be the history of English journalism in Mumbai.
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