‘Started Mid-Day on a wing and a prayer’

IN A rare kind of reception world cricketrsquos bestknown personalities open the pages of a justreleased memoir These blurbs or appreciationsmdashas titled in the bookmdashenumerate qualities reserved only for brilliance And yet Khalid AH Ansari the man being discussed uses selfdeprecation to shield himself from this praise ldquoJab upar wala meherbaan toh gadha pehelwaan When God smiles kindly the donkey thinks hersquos a wrestlerrdquo writes Ansari as he leads us into his extraordinary journey in Itrsquos A Wonderful Life A Memoir Rupa PublicationsHe was born in Mumbairsquos working class mill workers neighbourhood Madanpura which along with neighbouring Bhendi Bazaar in the 1930s was home to some of Mumbairsquos Urdu literary greats like Kaifi Azmi and Kamal AmrohiAnsarirsquos father Abdul Hamid Nizamuddin journalist educationist and freedom fighter was the foundereditor of Inquilab The Revolution Eightythree years later the newspaper continues to be Indiarsquos most widely read Urdu daily With 14 editions it is owned along with MidDay by Jagran Prakashan LimitedAnsari fought the disillusionment of growing up in a home with five halfsiblings and a stepmother who made ldquolife hell for merdquo with his pen The St Maryrsquos School and St Xavierrsquos College alumnus went on to secure a scholarship at Stanford University California only to return to start one of Indiarsquos leading sports magazine Sportsweek During his illustrious journalistic career Ansari remained committed to sports especially cricket which as Rahul Dravid puts it ldquohe was a great supporter ofrdquoWith Field Marshal SHFJ Manekshaw and athletics coach Jal Pardiwala centre at an All India Council of Sport event Khalid AH Ansari had shared the first copy of MidDay with Field Marshal Manekshaw during an event at the Taj Mahal Hotel Ballroom at which the latter was the chief guest PICS COURTESY Itrsquos A Wonderful Life A Memoir Rupa Publications Khalid AH AnsariAnd then he went on to establish the newspaper brand you hold in your handmdashMidDaymdashin June 1979 retiring as its founderchairman 33 years later in 2012At the time of his retirement Ansari who is a recipient of the Padma Shri 2001 was also the chairman of MC Media Ltd whose activities included FM Radio broadcastingmdasha joint venture with the BBC Londonmdashin eight Indian cities His memoir paints a vivid portrait of a life lived close to the field and off it In this excerpt he tells the extraordinary founding story of MidDayEdited excerpts from the bookIN hindsight the decision to start an afternoon paper was another exemplification of the allegory about the donkey thinking hersquos a wrestler In the early rsquo70s the unassuming Behram Contractor was fast becoming a legend of sorts among readers of Mumbairsquos afternoon newspaper the Evening News of India of the Times of India group because of his sharp wit and formulaic namedropping of the cityrsquos haute mondeI recall a chance meeting with Behram at a press conference We soon struck a warm friendship to the extent that I would be invited to all his parties and vice versa And he would mention me in his column to an embarrassing degree On such an occasion many hours into the night I was invited to a dinner at his Churchgate flat and as was our normal practice at each otherrsquos home stayed back after all guests had departed solving the worldrsquos problems as we would jokingly term itMany hours into the night I realized Behramrsquos light in the balcony facing the railway station was on I mentioned this to Behram who went lsquoblinkblinkrsquo as was his distinctive peculiarity stepped out and returned to inform me that it wasnrsquot his balcony light but the sun that was rising Such was our enjoyment of each otherrsquos companyIn fact even after Behram left MidDay to branch out on his own and start the rival Afternoon Despatch and Courier we resumed this practice at his Harkness Road flat without objection from his indulgent wife Farzana At one such dinner at my home for some international cricketers at which Farokh Engineer Imran Khan and Rohan Kanhai were present Behram stayed back after my wife Rukya had gone to bed For some reason our conversation veered to his job at the Evening News of IndiaSince we were now close friends I thought nothing of asking Behram if he was happy with his job to which he replied categorically lsquoIf you start a daily newspaper Irsquoll chuck up my present job and join you tomorrowrsquo in a manner that reminded me of Aziz Currimbhoy and Sportsweek the magazine which Ansari launched in 1968 We both laughed it off and Behram made his way homeRuminating over the previous eveningrsquos conversation over my morning cup of tea the next day an epiphany of sorts struck I picked up the phone and invited Behram to lunch to ask if he was serious about what he had said the previous evening To my astonishment he stonecold sober confirmed that he had And thereby hangs a taleTo be absolutely honest I was shocked out of my wits Although I had long nursed the desire to start a daily newspaper it had always been a fond hopemdashand nothing elsemdashfor the simple reason that I just didnrsquot possess or have access to any resources worth talking about My father had repeatedly warned me about the perils of partnershipAfter MidDay had established itself I was privileged to be invited by the likes of the feisty Ramnath Goenka owner of the multipleedition Indian Express the selfmade Dhirubhai Ambani whose spectacular rise from humble beginnings as a mere clerk in Aden Yemen to the richest man in India is the stuff of legendAlso by SP and Gopichand Hinduja of the multifaceted Hinduja empire and Vijay Mallya the highflying entrepreneur who later in life ran afoul of the lawmdashfor discussions over lunch or tea which were inevitably infructuous because of my fatherrsquos conviction about partnershipsIn my moments of idle conjecture I sometimes wonder what might have been had I decided to merge my familyrsquos humble publishing endeavours with any of those giants only to realize that that is a futile exercise Nor did I have a proper roof over my head no office premises printing capacity beyond what was required for the Inquilab human resource admin marketing production personnel editorial staff versed in the English language stock of newsprint worth talking about nothing nothing except fond hope on a wing and a prayerEven dreaming of starting an English newspaper under the circumstances was imbecility of the most egregious sort It must be said to Behramrsquos credit that he took my casual suggestion seriously promptly speaking to many of his colleagues as also friends and acquaintances in the profession and managing to rally the troops in a manner of speakingMalavika Sangghvi who put her hand up when Behram mooted the idea to her recalls ldquoBehram had NO idea about Khalid Ansarirsquos financial resources nor his management expertisemdashall he knew was that lsquohe was a nice young man with a pleasant personalityrsquordquoIn an interview to Society Behram Contractor said ldquoIn January 1979 the blueprint for MidDay was prepared in March we had set a date for kick off 27 June Four of my colleagues and myself resigned from our jobs at The Times of India and consequently lost our leave and other allowances for not giving adequate noticerdquoIn its issue of 12ndash25 July 1979 Businessworld wrote If an enthusiastic staff was Ansarirsquos greatest asset MidDayrsquos working environment and infrastructure were far from satisfactory It also quoted me as saying I was a little mad to put it mildly to attempt to bring out a daily newspaper and weekly magazine Sportsweek on our eightyearold antiquated Newsking twounit web offset equipment and there were several breakdowns And to add to the frustration of periodic machine breakdowns Ron Hendricks the deputy editor left after two months because he reportedly could not see eye to eye with Behram Contractor But despite these setbacks within six months MidDay had managed to break even and since its launch doubled its price from the initial 20 paise to 40 paise and revised its advertising rates from R6 per column centimetre contract and R8 casual to R26 and R29 respectivelyBehram said the following about his initial thoughts on the publicationldquoBrought up as I wasmdashjournalistically speakingmdashin a somewhat uppity newspaper atmosphere Sunday MidDayrsquos curious product mix of some wellknown and notsowell know names in different spheres was a little difficult for me to stomach in the beginning Yet despite my scepticism the formula proved to be right as was evident from the sales in the marketrdquoThe article went on ldquoSpurred by its success the MidDay team embarked upon their next venturemdashSunday MidDay a weekly that claims to give lsquovalue for moneyrsquowith regular columns on investments astrology homeopathy a beauty guide and even a true confessions column Since its launch Sunday MidDayrsquos sales graph has moved in one directionmdashupwards On 13th July 1980 when it hit the newsstand 50000 copies of the Sunday paper were printed of which 40000 copies were sold Since then despite revising its prices from 40 paise to 60 paise in a year Sunday MidDay commands a circulation of 84000 and a Thursday lsquodakrsquo early edition of 20000 which is sent to the countryrsquos major metropolitan citiesWhat accounts for the spectacular success of MidDay and its Sunday edition lsquoReadability and objective reportingrsquo says Contractor lsquoWe donrsquot believe in fighting for causes or carrying out campaigns on our pages We report the news and let the reader judge for himself We also believe in pictorial stories and therefore have three fulltime photographers on our staffrsquoNot that it has been smooth sailing all the way Until 1979 Sportsweek and MidDay were being printed on machinery that even Ansari admits is obsolescent lsquoThe tension was too muchrsquo reminisces Ansari lsquowhen the machines broke down which they did frequently the printing was held up and timeliness is very important in this business Even today colour pages have to be farmed out and until we acquired our own phototypesetting machines in 1980 typesetting had to be done elsewhere It required enormous patience and coordination to make sure everything went right In late 1979 we acquired one Orient Press unit manufactured indigenously and another one of the same brand last month And although this has helped our printing capacity lack of infrastructurehas hampered our growth considerablyrsquoIn a lighter mood with Sunil Gavaskar while giving his thumb impression after signing him on as editor of Sportsweek in 1988The working conditions too are far from perfect though Mid Dayrsquos staff which brought out the first edition of the paper despite a leaking roof and puddles bravely soldier on with promises of a brand new Nariman Point office on the horizon Incidentally we did move our Ad Sales department to Nariman Point a few years laterBut whatever other problems that he may have been confronted with recurrent labour agitation as is the norm in the newspaper industry has not been one of Ansarirsquos major headaches Not that Ansari has not had his share of troubles In July 1979 for the first time ever in the history of the company six members of the Inquilab staff struck work for a week demanding a revision of pay scalesRecently on MidDayrsquos second anniversary except for the editorial teams all production personnel of Inquilab MidDay and Sportsweek struck work for a daylsquoThough slightly taken aback by the first ever labour agitation on our hands we managed to devise a wage policy that was acceptable to both sides and within a week all employees were back at workrsquo says Ansari who is however reluctant to comment on the reasons that prompted Inquilab and MidDay publication employees to resort to strike action lsquoNegotiations for demands such as sickness leave etc are still going onrsquo admits AnsariWith the Indian hockey Olympic team at the Ansari home prior to their departure for the 1978 Buenos Aires World Cup Ashok Kumar extreme left Behram Contractor second from left hockey legend RS Gentle third from left editor of Sportsweek Sharad Kotnis fourth from right assistant editor of Sportsweek Gopi Baskaran third from right future sports editor of The Times of India Sunder Rajan second from right and racing correspondent of The Times of India Cecil Hendricks extreme right Daughter Tehzeeb and son Tarique seated on floorHis trials and tribulations notwithstanding Ansari has a number of new projects up his sleeve Already working on the launch of an edition of MidDay from Bangalore and Delhi the journalistic grapevine is humming with rumours of Ansarirsquos attempts to acquire Bombayrsquos ailing morning dailymdashthe Free Press Journal circulation 40000lsquoMy dream is to start a morning dailyrsquo says Ansari enigmatically and adds lsquoI hope to retire at the age of 50 and do something quite differentmdashfarming for instancersquoWith seven years to go the chances are that the man who has surprised the press barons with his smooth entry into the big league of Indian journalism may do it againmdashlaunch a successful morning daily before he makes for the green fieldsrdquobull bull bullAmong some superstitious people in India there is a belief that rain on an important occasion can portend either extreme calamity or unmitigated good luck Be that as it may in the case of MidDay it rained torrentially from the previous night right through the day and into the next nightOn the morning of the launch to the flash of lightning and clap of thunder we made our way to our officeprinting press premises at a lowlying Tardeo junction which is prone to kneedeep flooding to be greeted by the heartbreaking sight of our drenched newsprint rolls stacked in the passageway for lack of indoor space The makeshift ceiling below the porous roof of the leaking dilapidated superstructure was drip drip dripping as editorial and other staff took their seats above their typewriters umbrellas in handIf all that wasnrsquot bad enough the antiquated studio and prepress departments were ankledeep in water with staff valiantly trying to drain the water out At around presstime 1130 am the electric supply failed and came back only at around 1 pm when word came in that the obsolescent printing press was refusing to respond to the print foremanrsquos commandsThe edition had been ldquoput to bedrdquo according to schedule at 12 noon but there was no sign of the press starting Precious minutes turned to agonizing hours and the hawkers in anticipation of the new paper touted as lsquobright new excitingrsquo were getting resigned to seeing a stillbornWith witless optimismmdashand bravado as I see it in hindsightmdashI had decided to be installed the same day as president of the Rotary Club of Bombay MidTown at 7 pm at the Taj Mahal Hotel Ballroom at which Field Marshal Manekshaw had very kindly agreed to be chief guest Apologizing profusely to my staff at a hurriedly called meeting I rushed off home at 4 pmmdashegg all over my facemdashto try and look respectable and unfazed for the inaugural function I had left word at the press for the first copy of the newspaper to be rushed to the function in a sealed envelope for my eyes onlyWith tennis ace Leander Paes winner of 18 doubles Grand Slam titles menrsquos singles semifinalist at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 and one of the greatest doubles players in tennis historyWith one eye at the entrance I was getting increasingly apprehensive as the function got under way with no envelope in sight at 830 pm Imagine my mixed emotions when the envelope was finally at hand I slipped it under the head table at which we were seated sneaked a surreptitious look at the contents to ensure it wasnrsquot blank or totally black and hands trembling handed the copy to the field marshallsquoHere we are sirmdashmy first copy of MidDayrsquoThe field marshal unmindful of the large audience unfolded the copy looked at his watch then at me smiled and said with an expression that I can only describe as one expressing beatitude lsquoCall it bloody ldquoMidnightrdquo KhalidrsquoExcerpted with permission from Itrsquos A Wonderful World A Memoir by Khalid AH Ansari published by Rupa Publications