The importance of being Vir Sanghvi

In a fairly substandard movie called Shagird 2011 directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia reporters from Aaj Tak New York Times and a veteran journalist called Mr Jindal get abducted by a terror group although they were separately promised an exclusive interviewAccusing lsquoMr Jindalrsquo of having been paid off by multiple political parties the Aaj Tak TV reporter says ldquoI know you think of yourself as an intellectual and write about Biharrsquos poverty and Italian cuisine with equal lovemdashyoursquove been called to write about quick terrorist recipesrdquoNow whatever the hell that means itrsquos clear the terrible jibe is directed at journalist Vir Sanghvimdashon whom most Indian readers of English publications might have some view or the otherMy spot surveys reveal oneword descriptions from ldquosmugrdquo ldquoentitledrdquo ldquoindifferentrdquo to ldquoinsightfulrdquo Although Irsquoll go with a trueblue ldquochillerrdquo meaning it as the greatest compliment I knowBesides spotting a cockroach in his companyowned accommodation and therefore having to shift to The Grand Hotel in Calcutta insteadmdashthe hardships in the journalism of Sanghvi 65 narrated in his riveting memoir A Rude Life involves being shoved into backeconomy seat of the Prime Minister of Indiarsquos planeentourage Or not being at the high table of the Presidentrsquos banquets for visiting heads of statesThe journalistrsquos memoir A Rude LifeAt 19 Sanghvi became editor of a magazine called Bombay modelled on New York from the stable of India Today modelled on Time Right after returning from Oxford barely in his early 20s he editorially headed a publishing group that included a magazine called ImprintWhat follows is a life thatrsquos seemingly either about going or being taken out for lunchesmdashalong with media barons often times to meet a politician or an industrialist There are breakfasts he abhors and dinners too These are oldfashioned folk calling in on someonemdashto physically establishwiden networks Yoursquoll sense no envy because that emotion is reserved for equalsSanghvi landed his first job as he puts it because the businesshead running the show was his friendrsquos mom The second job because the publisherowner was his late dadrsquos buddyEither way it appears up until the rsquo90s an OxfordCambridge Oxbridge degree almost guaranteed getting airdropped into top editorial positions in Indian journalism The elite Arnab Goswami is both Ox amp Bridge went to both by the way Its current equivalent who knows might well be a superexpensive masterrsquos degree from Columbia School of JournalismBut thatrsquos just a head start and I know itrsquos allimportant What emerges from that first jobrsquos still gotta be you And privilege might have an opposing effectBasically itrsquos about what you do with itmdashespecially in media newsjournalism included where a degree in the long run isnrsquot worth the paper itrsquos written on Beyond a point how do you teach someone to ask the right question or make a coherent argumentBut access is the axis on which so much journalism is centred At the top in any case it feels like the celebrity is a class of its ownmdashbigwigs of sports mediaartsentertainment industry politics are simply BFFs regardlessmdashwith such little in common otherwiseYou get even more of it in certain autobiographiesmdashhaving first sensed it with Salman Rushdiersquos Joseph Anton As if those who make it so to say memorialisetag along none of their childhoodcollege buddies who may be regularJoe type bankers wankers teachers preachers Do those just disappearSanghvi is someone you could call an access journalistmdashmultiple Prime Ministers onwards Modi years are mysteriously missing And I mean that in no way as derision Although the Radia Tapes were indeed the only visible spot in his otherwise glorious careermdashhe hardly gets into its details beyond the tested claim that the tapes were altogether doctored This is a quasiconfessional opportunity missedRadia looks like pocket change though if not a stringent purity test compared to a series of open scandals within Indian news media that have followed sincemdashone involving Arnab and BARC that people have forgotten alreadyGiven 46 years as a multimedia professional much before it became a thingmdashas newspapermagazine editor political commentator TV figure chat show host lifestyle connoisseurcolumnistmdashwhat you canrsquot miss is the level of access that mustrsquove been earnedBecause those at the top are likely to be your admiring consumers as wellmdashon a staggering range of subjects that too Including developing the foodrestaurant beat that a Delhi top editor will take seriouslymdashonly if they donrsquot take themselves too seriously This is rarest of the rare Doesnrsquot matter so much anymore who all his fatherrsquos friends wereIt helps more as you can also tell from Sanghvirsquos 416page breeziest read for a memoir that hersquos blessed with prose that flows With a way of putting across arguments gently on screen as well Both qualities getting extinct as we speakNot shying away still from takedown observations that make nonfiction delightfulmdashwhether itrsquos him mimicking selfcentred writing styles of Khushwant Singh Dom Moraes calling Narasimha Rao a small time manipulator or taking a dig at Satyajit Rayrsquos ldquoOxfordonHooghlyrdquo accentTherersquos more on his former ABP ownerboss Aveek Sarkar Enough to justify the bookrsquos title A Rude Lifemdashalthough comparing it to the subsequent state of his profession wouldrsquove called his A Good Life insteadMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper