Remembering Behram Contractor

Of all the editors and senior journalists I have worked with, Behram "Busybee" Contractor is the one I loved and respected the most.

I began my journalistic career as a trainee sub-editor with Mid Day in June 1981 when Behram was the chief reporter (that was his official designation but everyone knew he was the person whose opinions mattered the most at the paper). Four years later, a bunch of us left Mid Day with Behram to launch a rival evening newspaper, The Afternoon Despatch & Courier. And in October 1988, I left The Afternoon to become the features editor of the Dubai-based Khaleej Times.

BEHRAM CONTRACTOR (SECOND FROM LEFT) PRESIDING OVER THE FESTIVITIES AT ONE OF HIS FAVOURITE HAUNTS AFTER A LONG DAY AT THE OFFICE.

I remained sporadically in touch with Behram and my former colleagues all through my stay abroad. Every time I visited Mumbai I made it a point to visit Afternoon House and spend some time sitting across Behram at his desk and making conversation, which, with Behram, was not always an easy thing. He was known, among other things, as the funny man of journalism thanks to his famous and popular "Busybee" column, but he was an intensely private individual who preferred to let his writing do the talking.

When he died in Mumbai on April 9, 2001, I was in Goa at a company event (I had joined TMG in Bangalore after my stint in Dubai came to an end). I received the sad news from my good friend Shashikant Jadhav, who was Behram's assistant as well as the nominal publisher of The Afternoon.

Many glowing tributes were paid to the man who had become synonymous with the city but none was more personal than the appreciation written by Mark Manuel, my dear friend and former colleague. Mark's tribute to Behram was carried as the lead story in The Afternoon with the masthead placed below it. "I wrote it in one shot at 5 a.m., after coming to work straight from the hospital where I had sat beside his body through the night," Mark says. "I don't like to think it is one of my best pieces of writing, but people (and total strangers, too) still connect me today with this obituary... it is as if Behram's hand was on my head even from beyond the grave."

Here is the tribute in its entirety:

Busybee is no more!

Afternoon House’s heartbeat has stopped…

By Mark Manuel

I’ve trained under the man and worked with him for 17 years, but there is one assignment Behram Contractor, better known as Busybee, never prepared me for. The heart-wrenching task of announcing his own death and writing his obituary in this newspaper. Yes, he is really no more. And something within me dies to bring you this terrible, tragic news. He passed away early this morning, round about 00.40 o’clock, as peacefully and gently as the summer rain that had fallen on the city in the dawn hour yesterday.

I was with him when he died. We were rushing him to Bombay Hospital in an ambulance, his wife Farzana Contractor, the CEO of this newspaper, a close family friend Rajesh Jain, and Drs. Aashish Sahukar and Anil Sharma. The doctors were massaging his heart and pumping oxygen into his lungs artificially. And Dr. B. K. Goyal, as big an institution in medicine as Busybee was in journalism, was driving behind us in his own car. It was a short drive, from Busybee’s residence on Malabar Hill to Bombay Hospital, six kilometres here or there. And with flashing lights and wailing siren, we covered it in minutes. But somewhere along Walkeshwar Road, we lost him. I like to think he quietly slipped away.

Since April last year, he had been suffering indifferent health. First, a definite weakening of the lungs caused by half a lifetime of smoking 60 cigarettes a day. Then, in September, a fracture in the lower spine brought about by a spasm of coughing. He was not bedridden, only advised bed rest, but Busybee got up in lesser time than it takes to cure a fever and did what he knew best… he started writing his column. It had been appearing sporadically due to his absences, and he was eager to resume it and go full steam ahead. And he would have, but for the fact that he was pushing 70 and age and his health had begun telling on him.

On January 18, after he did a tremendous cover story for Upper Crust (Farzana Contractor’s food, wine and lifestyle magazine) at the Taj Mahal Hotel over dinner, Busybee suffered a relapse of the old lung problem. That winter night, too, we thought we had lost him. But Dr. Goyal and Dr. Sharma worked on Busybee’s heart and lungs until dawn and got him fit again to do battle for another three months.

I think he might have pulled through yet again, for both Busybee and Behram were fighter and survivor, but he had been through a major shock earlier in the day that must have weakened him considerably. Farzana’s eldest brother, Capt. Ishrat Khan, had died tragically in a road accident near Panvel. And although Busybee usually kept his emotions in check, Farzana’s loss must have upset him. For by midnight, we were fighting to save his own life. Truly if God has been cruel and unjust with anybody, that person is Farzana Contractor. I’d like to see this same God give her the strength to go through two funerals today.

BEHRAM AS SEEN BY ONE OF HIS CLOSEST FRIENDS, THE CARTOONIST MARIO MIRANDA.

For those who did not know him personally, Behram Contractor and Busybee was the son of the late Hirabai and Pirojshaw Contractor, and brother of Darius (UK) and Dadi (France). With his passing away, India has lost its only full-time genuine satirist, and easily the country’s most popular humorist. His column, "Round and About", began with the Evening News of India in 1966, went over to Mid Day in 1979, and came to stay with this newspaper in 1985. It is the longest-written column in this history of newspaper journalism and maybe Guinness will find space in its next edition to mention this.

But… you will read no more Busybee on the back page of this newspaper, no guides to eating out by him in the colour pages. And you will not come across Behram Contractor’s pithy, evocative essays on the edit page, nor find his poetic and fluid interviews of celebrities on Wednesday. His terse and laconic style of writing that had a rhythm in it which created an impression of deadpan comedy, is over. I have lost a colleague and a friend. But you have lost your favourite columnist. And I don’t know whose loss is greater. R.I.P.

• You can feast on the "Round and About" archives here: "Busybee Forever".

Also read:

• "Empty wooden chair", by Salil Tripathi in Tehelka

• "He was the soft spoken soul of Mumbai" — Pritish Nandy's tribute to Behram Contractor

• "My friend Behram", by Vinod Mehta, editorial chairman of the Outlook group

• "Busybee wrote every day for 36 years, beginning in 1955, and he died in 2001. He was one of the few Indian writers in English who had an individual style and that made him special. He was confident enough, and good enough, to develop it and stay with it for decades. Like Hemingway, he had found his writing voice early in life and did not change it." — Read Aakar Patel's heart-felt tribute to the journalism of Behram Contractor here.

Good grammar is important for everyone, not just journalists

There is a notion that it is important to have good writing skills, which would include a sound knowledge of the rules of grammar, only if one wants to become a journalist.

Here is a brilliant post on the Harvard Business Review website that puts paid to that notion. Titled "I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here's Why" and written by entrepreneur Kyle Wiens, who calls himself a grammar stickler, the piece will come as an eye-opener to many young people who have only a passing acquaintance with grammar. Wiens writes:

Everyone who applies for a position at either of my companies ... takes a mandatory grammar test. Extenuating circumstances aside (dyslexia, English language learners, etc.), if job hopefuls can't distinguish between "to" and "too," their applications go into the bin.

And then he explains, in words that warm the cockles of my heart, why good grammar is important for everyone:

[G]rammar is relevant for all companies. Yes, language is constantly changing, but that doesn't make grammar unimportant. Good grammar is credibility, especially on the internet. In blog posts, on Facebook statuses, in e-mails, and on company websites, your words are all you have. They are a projection of you in your physical absence. And, for better or worse, people judge you if you can't tell the difference between their, there, and they're.

Good grammar makes good business sense — and not just when it comes to hiring writers. Writing isn't in the official job description of most people in our office. Still, we give our grammar test to everybody, including our salespeople, our operations staff, and our programmers.

On the face of it, my zero tolerance approach to grammar errors might seem a little unfair. After all, grammar has nothing to do with job performance, or creativity, or intelligence, right?

Wrong. If it takes someone more than 20 years to notice how to properly use "it's," then that's not a learning curve I'm comfortable with. So, even in this hyper-competitive market, I will pass on a great programmer who cannot write.

Read the article in its entirety here.

ADDITIONAL READING: On Ragan's PR Daily, "12 unforgivable writing mistakes".

ALSO READ:

• "What's the point of an education if you remain illiterate?"

• "50 Facebook rants to make you think about bad English vs good English"

• "If you don't read, you can't write" 

• "A marketing whiz and the lessons she learned from journalism"

"A good copy editor is a reporter’s best friend"

The role of the copy editor in the newsroom remains an adversarial one. There’s no getting round that; copy editing requires critical analysis of other people’s work. It can lead to tension. Smart leaders try to defuse that tension and foster constructive relationships among groups of journalists. They correctly point out that a good copy editor is a reporter’s best friend — someone who will head off mistakes, is a trusted sounding board for risk-taking writing, and burnishes the reporter’s copy with headlines that invite the reader. Improving relationships between copy editors and the rest of the newsroom needs to be an important factor in our deliberations.

— From "Copy Editors: Journalism’s Interior Linemen", a tribute by Gene Foreman, who was the deputy editor and vice president of the Philadelphia Inquirer when he wrote this piece for Poynter.org in August 2002.

• Also read: "What it means to be a newspaper sub" and "Why subs are the lifeblood of a news organisation".

A tribute to journalists who have left us a rich legacy

Outlook editor in chief Krishna Prasad's blog "sans serif" is the go-to site for, as he puts it, "the news, the views, the juice".

Yesterday, KP, as he is popularly known, blogged about a remembrance ad in The Indian Express for a reporter who was killed in a blast in Uttar Pradesh two years ago. In the same post, KP has also provided links to obituaries of well-known journalists, many of whom were legends in their lifetime and whose careers we would do well to emulate. (The only person on the list who is not a media professional is T.N. Shanbag, the founder-proprietor of Strand Book Stall in Mumbai, who is hailed by KP as "the man who educated Bombay journalists".)

Here is the list in its entirety:

Alfred D’Cruz: ToI’s first Indian sub-editor

Tarun Sehrwat, 22 and killed in the line of duty

• Also read: "A tribute to the courage and commitment of a Tehelka photojournalist".

Chari, a lens legend at The Hindu

Harishchandra Lachke: A pioneering cartoonist 

T.N. Shanbag: Man who educated Bombay journos

Rajan Bala: cricket writer of cricket writers

• I knew Rajan Bala as both journalist and friend. I first met him in Dubai in 1991 — I was working with the Khaleej Times then and he had come over to cover the Sharjah cricket tournament for an Indian newspaper (I think it was The Indian Express). I accompanied him to a couple of games and I have to say it was a great privilege to sit in the press box alongside Rajan as he pronounced judgment on some of the greatest cricketers the subcontinent has produced. Waqar Younis was a rookie then, but I remember Rajan telling me after watching him bowl to Sachin and Co. that Waqar would soon be hailed as one of the world's best pacemen. We spent a lot of time together in Bangalore afterwards talking about cricket, books, and the English language. Rajan was a character and a phenomenon and the tributes to him are  richly deserved.

Jyoti Sanyal: The language terrorist and teacher

• Jyoti Sanyal's book, Indlish: The Book for Every English-Speaking Indian, is one I recommend to all my students. Read about it here: "The book you must read to rid your English of Indlish. In other words, read this book to learn to write plain English."

Russy Karanjia: The bulldog of an editor

Sabina Sehgal Saikia: The resident food writer

M.G. Moinuddin: The self-taught newspaper designer

Naresh Chandra Rajkhowa: Journo who broke Dalai Lama story 

J. Dey: When eagles are silent, parrots jabber

E. Raghavan: Ex-ET, TOI, Vijaya Karnataka editor

Prakash Kardaley: When god cries when the best arrive

Pratima Puri: India’s first TV news reader passes away

Tejeshwar Singh: A baritone falls silent watching the cacophony

N.S. Jagannathan: Ex-editor of Indian Express

K.M. Mathew: chief of editor of Malayala Manorama

Amita Malik: the ‘first lady of Indian media’

K.R. Prahlad: In the end, death becomes a one-liner

M.R. Shivanna: A 24×7 journalist is no more

C.P. Chinnappa: A song for an unsung hero

V.N. Subba Rao: a ‘shishya’ remembers his Guru 

Dicky Rutnagur, an ekdum first-class dikra

• ALSO READ: "Remembering Behram Contractor".

• ADDITIONAL READING: Krishna Prasad's recommendations — "WHAT TO READ" if you want to become a journalist or want to know more about journalism or if you simply want to become a better writer.

UPDATE (July 20, 2013): From The New York Times — "Helen Thomas, Who Broke Down Barriers as White House Reporter, Is Dead at 92".

The most sensible comment I have read on the Guwahati molestation issue

R. Sukumar, the editor of Mint, a newspaper I like and respect, has devoted his regular column to what is now being referred to as "the shame of Guwahati".

Given the controversy over the possible involvement of a journalist in the case, Sukumar makes it clear that his opinion of this incident "is clouded by the journalist’s behaviour in the video clip" he saw.

[H]e was shoving a mike at the terrified girl’s face, trying to get her to speak even as the camera repeatedly tried to get a glimpse of her face. At a time when he should have been offering succour, he seemed to be more interested in a sound-bite for his channel. That’s the kind of thing that gives journalism and journalists a bad name.

Sukumar also refers to an NDTV report that said the reporter came across the incident, started recording it on his mobile phone, and called the office for a camera team. Sukumar writes:

It isn’t clear from this report whether he did this after calling the police or if at all he did so. A few tweets on my timeline say he did call the police, even tried to intervene, but then retreated when the mob turned on him. I haven’t been able to verify this either but if true, this is probably the best way he could have reacted.

In incidents of this nature, Sukumar asserts — and I agree with him — the journalist at the scene is the best person to take a call on what will work and what he or she is comfortable doing.

His conclusion especially leaves us in no doubt of his views which every right-thinking journalist would do well to consider seriously. Read the column in its entirety here: "Doing the right thing".

• Also read: "Moral Policing, India’s Ugly New 'Reality TV'", a thought-provoking post on India Ink, the New York Times's India-centric blog.

Headlines that hum

Hats off to the sub who came up with this headline for a feature in The Times of India Crest Edition (June 30) on the Sania Mirza-Leander Paes-Mahesh Bhupathi controversy:

NEW BALLS PLEASE

***

Hats off to the DNA sub who came up with this headline for the news report of the Wimbledon men's singles final match between Roger Federer and Andy Murray:

GREAT BEATS BRITON

ADDITIONAL READING:

• Headline headaches and other bloopers

• DNA's headline blooper

• For subs everywhere, the Obama-Osama headline conundrum

• A question of illiteracy

• And, finally, from the Daily Writing Tips blog: 7 Types of Headline Headaches

Thought-provoking definitions of maturity

Maturity is gratification delayed,
Self-confidence conveyed,
Opportunity parlayed,
Risk delayed,
Self-esteem displayed,
And self-denial repaid.

This quotation by Dr. Marlene Caroselli was judged the winner of the "Maturity Quotations Contest" organised by Dr. Mardy Grothe, about whom I have written before in The Reading Room.

Dr. Caroselli, who lives in New York, is an educator, speaker, trainer, and the author of over 60 books, including The Critical Thinking Tool Kit and Principled Persuasion. She will receive an autographed and personally inscribed copy of Dr. Grothe's 2011 book: Neverisms: A Quotation Lover's Guide to Things You Should Never Do, Never Say, or Never Forget.

The Silver Medal in the competition went to Jura Zymantas of Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain, who wrote:

Maturity is recognising your limitations
but not allowing them to limit your aspirations.

And the Bronze Medal went to Charles Rose of New Paltz, New York, who wrote:

Maturity is understanding that most of the hours in your life
are spent alone and you're not lonely.

The following quotations all received an "Honourable Mention" in the competition (there is an entry from India, too):

Maturity is ripening without rotting.
          Mary E. Armstrong (Colorado Springs, Colorado)

Maturity is recognizing not that one can BE wrong
but that one IS wrong.
          Will Aston-Reese (Staten Island, New York)

Maturity is when you don't lose your cool on having to suffer a fool.
          Dr. Nandini Bahri (Jamnagar, Gujarat, India)

Maturity is when you parent your parent successfully.
          Heather Chandler (Douglassville, Pennsylvania)

Maturity is recalling the outrageous things
your former spouse did to upset you,
then turning over and going to sleep.
          Eileen Dight (Harrisonburg, Virginia)

Maturity is teaching our big, grown-up, know-it-all adult self
how to nurture the child within.
          Robert Dixon (Emerald Hills, California)

Maturity is when your perspective changes
from being the sun around which everything revolves
to being a small planet in an infinite universe.
          Linda Donaldson (Hatfield, Pennsylvania)

A small part of maturity
is learning the difference between wants and needs.
A large part of maturity is acting on that knowledge.
          Bill Emmons (Houston, Texas)

Maturity is aging . . . while paying attention.
          Carl Henning (Phoenix, Arizona)

Maturity is when you handle the tasks of life without being ordered to,
and without whining.
          Dee Dee Longenecker (Austin, Texas)

Maturity is looking in the mirror and seeing the pilot of your destiny.
          Jean Lutz (Ponchatoula, Louisiana)

Maturity:
Doing what needs to be done
When it needs to be done
Whether you want to do it or not.
          Matt Murray (Charlottesville, Virginia)

Maturity is that quality without which we know everything —
including what maturity is."
          Alan Mynall (Oxford, England)

Maturity rises out of the smoke and ashes of an internal rebellion.
          Sharon Nakagawa (no location determined)

Maturity is doing what you have to do, when it ought to be done,
without complaint.
          Mike O'Rourke (Port Allen, Louisiana)

Maturity is when you can say no to yourself and yes to another.
          Hart Pomerantz (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)

Maturity is the belief in experience
coupled with the experience of belief.
          Jonathan Rose (Miami Beach, Florida)

Maturity is when you realise how essential the injustices you bore
were to who you became.
          Ron Simoncini (Ridgewood, New Jersey)

You know you've reached maturity when you finally realise it's best to
go ahead and buy that 12-pack of toilet paper instead of a roll or two.
          Mark Towns (Los Angeles, California)

Maturity is being on a stage whose immature curtains
are constantly limiting its performance.
          Lloyd Williams (Travelers Rest, South Carolina)

• This post is adapted from the weekly newsletter sent out by Dr. Mardy Grothe.

"U" vs "You"

OCCASIONAL RANT NO. 6:

Didn't I tell u it's a charmed life?

That's a sentence from the "Letter from the Editor" in the July 4 issue of Filmfare.

I am aghast that the editor, Jitesh Pillaai, has resorted to using SMS lingo. But this is Filmfare, so perhaps I should not be surprised.

How to boost your self-confidence

When you are about to embark on a new enterprise — for instance, if you have enrolled at Commits for the two-year full-time M.A. degree course in Mass Communications — you may feel anxious, nervous, antsy during the first few weeks.

Of course, this jitteriness is temporary. But, perhaps, that is no consolation in those overwrought early days. So is there something you can do to calm those nerves and restore your self-confidence? Yes, says Mary Mitchell, the founder of a U.S.-based executive training consultancy. Mitchell, who is the author of the "Modern Etiquette" column for Reuters, offers a list of five simple steps that you can take to up your confidence quotient:

1. Move.
2. Take a look at what you are wearing.
3. Breathe.
4. Be disciplined.
5. Give and receive.

Mitchell elaborates on each of these steps here: "Five suggestions for greater self-confidence".

Yesterday I sent out the link to Mitchell's column to our new students, whose Commits journey began just four days ago. Here are two responses I received soon after:

• These suggestions are indeed extremely useful and I will use all of them to increase my efficiency. I just loved the quotation with which the piece ended and I will definitely apply in my work what I have learnt from it. — DIYOTIMA ROY SINHA

• This article was really very helpful and motivating... and it is sure to help us in the long run. — NINNITA SAHA

Outstanding Indian women journalists who are also excellent role models

Shahnaz Anklesaria Aiyar Sreerekha B. Sheela Barse Sheela Bhatt Nilanjana Bose Tiamerenla Monalisa Changkija Neerja Chowdhury Sucheta Dalal Vinita Deshmukh Barkha Dutt Sabeena Gadihoke Charu Gargi Shohini Ghosh Pushpa Girimaji Rehana Hakim Bano Haralu Devaki Jain Sonu Jain Shikha Jhingan Shalini Joshi Sabina Kidwai Vasavi Kiro Madhu Purnima Kishwar Manimala Ranjani Mazumdar Patricia Mukhim Disha Mullick Rupashree Nanda Sunita Narain Sakuntala Narasimhan Sevanti Ninan Pamela Philipose Anita Pratap Alka Raghuvanshi Usha Rai Teesta Setalvad Kalpana Sharma Shubha Singh Tavleen Singh Priti Soni Chitra Subramaniam Annam Suresh Ratna Bharali Talukdar Shikha Trivedy Homai Vyarawalla

In addition to having worked on stories that have had an impact — and made a difference — all 46 women journalists in this list have one thing in common: They are all winners of The Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Women Mediapersons.

That is not all. Their stories of reportage have now been compiled in a book edited by veteran media professionals Latika Padgaonkar and Shubha Singh. Making News, Breaking News, Her Own Way is highly recommended reading for not only journalists, but also media students, especially young women, who aspire to be journalists.

• I have already bought a copy for the Commits library. But this is a book that you need to buy, place on your bookshelf, and read every time you need a fresh burst of inspiration.