The Editor is no more…
By Daanish Bin Nabi
Published by National Herald on June 17th 2018
“Why did you leave without telling me? Eid is two days away.
What are we going to do now?” These were the last words, over the phone, of
Shujaat Bukhari for me at around 1:30 pm on June 14. How was I to know that
this would be the last call that I would receive from my Editor?
I got associated with Shujaat Bukhari and Rising Kashmir in
2013. Within a span of only a few months, I got promoted as Online Editor of
Rising Kashmir, besides being the Oped Editor of the paper.
Heading the online section got me even closer to Shujaat
Bukhari. He would treat me like his son than an employee. Whenever there was
some development regarding Kashmir, he would ring me up, saying, “Listen, this
should go live within the next two minutes”. I had only two minutes to check,
cross-check and then upload the news. He always wanted us to break the news
first come what may. He would always say to me, “Daanish raftaar tumhey sona
bana degi”. He was a professional par excellence.
He was a disciplined editor. He literally drank, ate and
walked journalism. At the time he was shot dead outside his office chambers, he
had the hard copies of The Indian Express, The Hindustan Times and a book about
the conflict in his hand. Being a voracious reader, even at the time of death
he was engrossed in his reading of happenings all over the place.
He was a man of love and compassion. I have observed this
during the deadly floods of 2014 in Kashmir. He first gathered few volunteers
of whom I was one. And then, he went to people, who were stuck, with food and
medicines. We rescued around 500 people from different parts of Srinagar city.
There is this important anecdote which I want to share with
the readers. There was an aged Kashmiri Pandit lady stuck in her home on
Exchange Road in the Lal Chowk area. After much difficulty, we took her out
from her home. Like all Kashmiris, she was reluctant to leave her home.
However, after hectic deliberations, we managed to get her out of the home.
Shujaat took her to his own place for the night. He arranged an air ticket in
that chaos when there was not even basic amenities available and sent her to
New Delhi to his daughter’s place the next day. I do remember that night when
Shujaat fought with many officials over the phone for a ticket to Delhi. There
were a number of such occasions in his life when something always snapped
within him and he would go for that extra mile to help others.
There are uncountable qualities he had as an editor. One
such quality was how he made reporters and interns comfortable around him. He
was a down-to-earth editor. I am sure reporters and interns at our office would
feel the absence of his aura around them.
He had the same relationship with his sub-editors. He loved
them all. When in rage over our silly mistakes in the paper, he would often
murmur in Kashmiri, “Tue chev ne kehein (You people are good for nothing)”. We
would often repeat the mistakes and he would often repeat this famous line. But
not even for a second, he would think of firing any of us. He would scold us,
be angry at us, throw tantrums but at the end of the day, he would behave like
a father figure.
The freedom about writing in the newspaper (on certain issues)
under him was total. Hardly, he meddled with copies of reporters.
In February 2015, I wrote a feature story on Sheikh Muhammad
Abdullah. It was a lengthy reportage of over 5000 words. I had toiled hard for
the story for months, talking to people, taking interviews, joining the dots in
jotting down the political life of Sheikh Abdullah.
Finally after, three months of hectic work, I filed the
story to the editor’s desk, Shujaat being one in the mailing list. I was so
happy for the hard work I had put in the piece. However, that happiness was
short lived when I got a response back from the editor. The story had to be
held over for some time.
That “some time” turned into months. I failed to understand
what was lacking in the story. It was only after nine months that the story was
published in Rising Kashmir. It took a full page.
Days after the piece was published, at a social gathering, I
mustered courage and asked my Editor, “Sir, what was wrong with the story?”
He smiled and said there was nothing wrong with the feature.
It was a beautifully woven story on the enigma of Sheikh, he said. Perturbed, I
asked again that then why did it take nine months for such a story to get
published? He again smiled and said, “Son, it was only that I wanted you to be
patient and not over-joyous as it can spoil your career.” I still remember
those words: “Patience is the key son.”