Some months ago, I had shot-off a piece in Mid Day on the continued persecution of Tehelka, on how the avenging state machinery had sucked them dry. In response, I received an unmarked envelope from an anonymous reader, that contained a thousand rupees in cash, and a request that I hand over the amount to Tarun when I meet him next. The reader said this was all he/she could afford.
Dear Anon Soul, hope you are reading this piece. Tarun says a heartfelt thanks. He knows the power of unconditional faith so many people of India have reposed in him. Faith, that I sincerely hope, he will never misuse.
I meet Tarun immediately after his press conference at the Press Club in south Mumbai. I see a group of young reporters from the vernacular press, eagerly surround him, excited questions on their lips, stars in their eyes. I quite understand. Its not everyday you meet an Indian journo who has made a difference.
Congrats on the upcoming Tehelka weekly. Will you be messing with the government all over again?
We will be unafraid to do the stories we have been doing in the past. Thats not messing with the government its aligning ourselves with basic principles, and sticking by them.
You will do the sting operations, surely.
Oh, absolutely. But I dont see the Tehelka paper devoted only to sting journalism.
Yeah, but the brand has become synonymous with sting.
Today, our connection with people is not because we exposed corruption, its solely because weve taken the punishment. We havent sold out, we havent run away, we havent cut a deal, we havent begged for mercy. In India, people are so used to everyone bolting for cover at the first sign of trouble, that itself sets us apart (laughs).
Still, you are best known for your defence expose. People expect more such.
We will, but I dont want Tehelka to be a bomb factory that explodes something every three months. I see Tehelka as a very responsible, constructive media platform, without losing its daring-do. The image I have in mind for the brand is a beautiful hammer. Very aesthetic to look at, good to read, but its purpose is to drive home the nails.
But why a parallel print format did you lose faith in the power of the Net?
We will continue to be on the Net, but the weapon of war in India will be the paper. Let me tell you, even if I had a paper that sold just 10,000 copies, we would not have been done so badly against, as we have been. So we needed that platform. The Net is just a derivative of this tool of war.
How different will the weekly be from other weeklies like Outlook and India Today, both of whom you have worked for?
One reason I didnt go into the magazine format, is that I didnt want to pour my energies into marketing and branding. I want to put Tehelkas energies into journalism.
Also, I dont see Tehelka as a recap paper, which is the whole metabolism of magazines. We want to be a pro-active paper.
Finance. The industrialists refused to help you, didnt they?
For the first two years, everyone said they loved us, were proud of us, but didnt want a formal alliance. In November last year, I got two large offers to fund the paper, upwards of Rs 10 crore each. But both seemed too keen to exploit the goodwill we enjoyed, so I walked out of both deals.
Who were these people?
I wouldnt tell you the names.
Why not? You guys are Tehelka always ready to expose people.
This is personal.
Personal? An offer to invest in a company is a professional deal.
I would have talked about it had the deal happened. Anyway, to go on, nine months ago we aligned ourselves to a Bangalore-based consultancy called Erehwon, to help with the new (advance subscriptions) strategy. Similarly, O&Ms Ranjan Kapur and Piyush Pandey said theyd do the advertising for us, and when the money comes in, I could pay them.
Oh, we thought O&Ms doing it gratis for you.
Theyre expecting some money, yeah. I am hoping theyll take very little, even less than they have asked for. So bit-by-bit, with the help of other individuals and advisors, things began to fall in place. We then decided on a mass campaign in eight cities, asking people to subscribe to the paper. But even that effort needed money. Which is when we came up with the idea of a Tehelka collegium of founder-subscribers. We aim to get together a group of 250-300 such people, and we ask each of them to give us a lakh of rupees. Thats gone astonishingly well.
How many people have signed up?
Ninety-six. Which is whats funding the whole campaign.
And what about subscriptions? Whats the target?
About 50,000.
That wont even generate enough revenue to pay part of your costs.
(Abruptly.) Weve done our numbers.
Even at a net of as high as Rs 15 per copy, you are talking of a revenue per month of about Rs 20 lakh. And from that, you need to recover all costs including salaries, production, legal etc. Doesnt sound like a terribly lucrative venture.
No, but (hesitates) but well also get advertising
Exactly. Which means the paper isnt purely funded by the readers. Dont you think a section of the advertisers would be wary of being associated with Tehelka?
I dont think so at all. These are fears that go away bit by bit. Whatever reluctance is there should be gone once they see the list of our founder-subscribers, the board of advisers.
What if the government asks big advertisers to stay away from you?
Id love to see that happen. If they are brazen enough to reach that point, its incredible.
Well, you have been persecuted all along why does this sound incredible?
See, I cant worry about things that I have no control over.
Are you ready to piss-off key advertisers? Do stories against them?
Absolutely, rest assured about that. If Tehelka cannot do what it set out to do, Id rather it die.
I recall how Zee went all out to provide you with a platform then suddenly backed out.
Thats a complicated story. These things happen. There are no guarantees.
Any learnings from past mistakes?
I can write volumes on that (smiles).
Prostitutes. Would you use them again in a sting?
I said even earlier, I would not, but you have to see that in the context that it happened. The Tehelka that we have now will be infinitely more refined than what it was. We made our mistakes, but the trick is to focus on what we did right, not what we did wrong.
What, no erotic stuff either? Like your site used to have in abundance?
That was a great triumph of the website, I hope I can do it again. But the paper itself, I would not like to distract it from its core agenda.
You were harangued because of it in the courts. They made you read from a story from Tehelka.com that went something like, I love to be masturbated.
That f***ing bloody (trails off). those guys who were caught guilty, their lawyers were asking these questions someone read it and asked if this was from our site, I said yes, so big deal, yaar.
So youll get away from all that?
Its not high on the agenda. If theres a gay rights movement tomorrow, and if Tehelka feels the need to align itself with that, it will. But no, we wont get our rocks off through voyeuristic stuff.
Nothing eventually came out of all your exposes, life is back to usual. Fernandes is okay, Bangaru is biding his time only, you got rogered. Do you ever feel it was all a waste?
There have been terrible downsides, but there are two ways to look at that. I can either say they trashed my life and destroyed it. Or I can say I have been given a terrific opportunity to create something of enduring societal value. I chose to believe in the latter. I am fuelled by both, the moral outrage that we were punished for what we did, and also by the goodwill we have generated. For me, the fact that 96 people have written out a cheque of a lakh of rupees is extraordinary. Some of these are people I have never met in my life! That sort of faith really energises you. After all, how many of us are given a chance in our lives to do something extraordinary? You know, I hate addressing the rich, asking for money, but I have done enough of even that in the last nine months. Because I know the reasons I am doing this, are greater than me.
What keeps you going?
The need to come back. You know, people have approached me from Bollywood to film the Tehelka story. Javed Akhtar said we must do a film on Tehelka, and I told him, Tehelkas film should be made only after the first copy is out. There cant be another story of good guys losing, yaar. This cannot be another f***ing story where you let your life be run by a bunch of hoodlums. Thats what drives me. To keep the voice of dissent alive. Weve become a bad example right now, because we got screwed. And I am determined to make us a good example.
The way forward for journalism in India?
I think the agenda needs to be established on what is the true moral role of the media. Unfortunately, the agenda is the other way round right now the dominant driver for media seems to be commercialism, like everything else. Somebody has set that agenda, and everybody else has seized it. I am asking, can we change that agenda? Can we bring back the strong moral to journalism? If you can, then what you do yourself, will be less important than what you can trigger off. In any sphere of life, when d***heads and ***holes seize the agenda, s*** happens. Look at the quality of public leadership in the world its become so terrible, you take out Nelson Mandela, you dont have one leader of caliber in the whole world. Look at America, a nation of great creativity and individuals. But look at official America, its a moronic set-up.
Why arent your star reporters, Bahal and Samuel, with you on the new project?
Well, we all want to do certain kinds of things in life. We have all recognised that we have different agendas that we want to follow in our lives. Just because you have been partners once, it doesnt mean you have to be partners for the rest of your life.
Aniruddha Bahals made a windfall on his Bunker 13. I didnt see his name in your list of, what you call, founder-subscribers.
Hes given his life for the paper, yaar, what more can he do?
Put in a badly needed lakh of rupees in the company he helped found. Have you read his book?
(Laughs.) Lets not talk about the book.
Have you read his book?
No, its not the kind of book I read, I didnt read that kind of stuff when I was a schoolboy. I only read desperately boring things like literary fiction. But Im happy for him.
You must be a totally broke man, personally.
My personal debt is huge. I borrow money every month. My friends come over for dinner, and quietly leave a cheque behind on the mantelpiece. About two years ago, I was so desperate, I called up Arundhati Roy and asked for Rs 10 lakh rupees and she wrote me the cheque.
Hows the response been in Bombay, to your new venture?
Fantastic. Many people have signed up Dilip DSouza, Mahesh Mathai, Srila Mathai, Alyque Padamsee, Shyam Benegal, Shobhaa De, Mahesh Bhatt
No Amitabh Bachchan?
No.
Wasnt he on your board when you started out?
Well, what can I say? In fact, I did drop him a letter.
You must be surprised by his reaction.
I am extremely surprised. One of the true misfortunes of India is that the great and grand iconic public figures, they just dont speak up for all the right things.
Dear Reader: You have two choices. One, subscribe to the Tehelka weekly call 9622001001, sms yes to 3636, or visit Tehelka.com. Two, do a Bachchan on them. Its up to you.
