Chennai: I was to see him at 4 pm on Tuesday. His son Sriram had explained over the phone the worrisome developments on the medical chart of the critical care unit in the Apollo Hospital where he had been admitted some days ago with breathing complications.
The fast-paced reports on Jayalalithaa’s last rites and the connected stories forced me to stay put at my desk at office, so I could not keep my promise to visit the great man as he lay there battling for life. Foolishly, I thought I could visit him the next morning.The dawn of Wednesday dropped a bombshell on my bed. My friend G.C. Shekhar was on the phone. ‘Cho passed away’, he said, his voice unsteady. ‘He suffered cardiac arrest at two in the morning. Doctors tried best to revive him. They finally declared him dead at about four’. I cried for two reasons — I had failed to keep my appointment to see him just the previous evening and I would not be able to see my guru ever again.
My association with Cho began in early 1980 when I was with The Week magazine reporting on the events in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. He was the most natural choice to lean on whenever I was attempting a political piece and his clarity of thought, analytical skills laced with pungent satire always made brilliant copy. The man’s foresight baffled me; as critics who scoffed at his statements and writings (in Thuglak) on future political prospects almost always ended up grudgingly accepting his genius.
When Cho asked me to contribute articles for Thuglak, I happily agreed though I could not write in Tamil. He was gracious enough to get his staff to translate my English pieces and even got them to replay them to me for approval. I felt terribly guilty when people from far and wide called me to compliment on my Thuglak articles.
And when I decided to sneak into Sri Lanka on a TELO boat in 1985 to report on the true ground situation in the battle-scarred Jaffna peninsula, I informed Cho and another good friend in Tindivanam Ramamurthy, a Congress senior. Only my wife Indu knew about the trip apart from the TELO leader Sri Sabaratnam who arranged it and a few of his trusted lieutenants. I had informed Cho and Ramamurthy because I thought they would help my wife get my body in case I got shot during that assignment.
I almost died on the return trip as the Sri Lankan navy shot at our boat and the boy sitting next to me got killed. Cho himself interviewed me on my return and had a 7-page spread in Thuglak in which he called me ‘pathrikai puli’ (newspaper tiger). After that, we became closer friends and I had the privilege of access to the great man whenever I needed his opinion on any issue of importance.
Cho was a true patriot. Nothing was more important to the man than the welfare of the nation and all his works — his political forays, journalism and stage plays — reflected that sacred responsibility. And that’s why even those whom he sharply criticised in his writings and speeches (such as M Karunanidhi) admired him. And that’s why thousands of people would descend on the hall when he held his Thuglak anniversary meeting to listen to the man they were convinced was one of the greatest thinkers of this century, a guru to them all. They came from all over TN and even from neighbouring states, paying for the travel and stay to fill up the hall. They would arrive hours before the meeting began just to get a seat and did not mind watching him on CCTV screens placed in the car park if they were unlucky in not being able to get inside.
It would be difficult to imagine Thuglak without Cho, as his Q&A and the editorial in the magazine were the USP of the magazine that had set the best example for fearless journalism sans the frills of sensationalism, sleaze and sex. I am praying the magazine would draw from the talents of journalists Cho had trained over the years and sustain its intelligent readership.
