Remembering Prakash Kardaley…

July 30, 2016

Prakash Kardaley is not just remembered for being the Resident Editor of the Pune Edition of The Indian Express for 11 years, but also for his numerous contributions to society through the formidable citizen pressure group, Express Citizens’ Forum (ECF), the formation of the National War Memorial in 1998 and for being one of the participants in drafting the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

All through his 40-year journey with The Indian Express, he was known to be armed with a sharp news sense, an analytical mind and was a storehouse of information. At the age of 65, he breathed his last on July15, 2007. On the occasion of 10th Prakash Kardaley Memorial Lecture to be held at Yashada today (July 30), Pune365 spoke to some of his colleagues and friends who were happy to share fond memories of the veteran journalist…

Anand Agashe, senior journalist

It is important to get good teachers and guides in life but it is even more important to have excellent mentors. Prakash Kardaley was a three-in-one package for me in my journalistic career.

“Gaadhavaa!”, he used to yell at me from his chair when I worked as a junior in the Pune bureau of The Indian Express in the early 1980s. ‘Gaadhav’ is the Marathi synonym for a donkey. Coming from Kardaley’s mouth, it was shorn of all negative connotations. The peculiar greeting meant he was extremely pleased with something that one did. The innumerable chits he wrote to me in those pre-internet years always started with a ‘Gaadhavaa’ and ended with the hurriedly drawn famous phantom sign of a skull and two bones in place of his signature!

The teacher became a guide when I broke a number of investigative stories under his tutelage or on my own, in the true Indian Express style. At every single stage of an unfolding story, he would check the details, ask pertinent questions and provide answers if one was found wanting. When a powerful don stooped to unleashing overt and covert threats after a series of my stories exposed his fraudulent land deals around Pune, the guide-turned-mentor became a shield to ward off any possible danger.

Kardaley loved his beer but what really gave him a high were hidden openings for newsbreaks in the seemingly innocuous happenings around him. He was temperamental and therefore unpredictable. But what was absolutely certain was his impeccable professional integrity.

He was not happy when I decided to move from under his shadow to join The Times of India. However, he was quick to reconcile when I explained the rationale and in fact wished me the best. The long distance mentoring continued till Kardaley breathed his last.

Vinita Deshmukh, RTI activist, senior journalist and columnist

For him, his reporters were the ‘Infantry’ and the features section, the ‘Artillery’. The newsroom, for him was the war zone and his Editor’s Cabin, was from where the strategic warfare was fought. For the four decades of his journalism, which began in Goa as a cub reporter to being the most effective and reader-friendly Resident Editor and Senior Editor of The Indian Express, Pune, his journalism was all about military precision.

He knew no other activity in his life except for living in a jungle of words, 24×7 and using their potent power to make society a better place to live in. Once as a young journalist, when a photographer and I were travelling on the Pune-Bengaluru Highway for a story to a village, he suddenly snarled, “Oh my God! Oh my God! A journalist means your antenna should be up all the time. What kind of journalists are you that you have not even reacted to these huge potholes we are encountering on the highway that has been newly tarred?’’ He stopped the car; the photographer clicked the craters on the road and that became another story besides the one originally planned.

While Pune is known to have alert citizenry, he channelised their energies to take on the administration for poor public amenities through his Express Citizens’ Forum. He went beyond news columns and I would say, pioneered public journalism in India. For him, readers’ letters were the barometers of relevance and efficacy of his newspaper, which he led with aggressiveness peppered with a soft heart for readers’ issues.

He stung like a bee through his incisive writing and brutally frank language towards his editorial team who he addressed as ‘colleagues’. Very funnily, he considered himself as a medium and believed in ghosts. His favourite one being Lady Hudson, who was allegedly still kicking and alive and lived in a dilapidated building opposite a hotel in Camp. All editorialand marketing strategies to score over the rival newspapers were inspired with the bottle of beer, a weakness which he had countered and said was his ‘strength’.

He was an institution by himself – the best school to learn action-packed journalism. I am glad I was one of the students.

To conclude, he used to say that journalism should be relevant at any given point of time and that besides the pen, RTI is an ammunition that every journalist should use.

Shubha Gadkari, Editor, Quill Communications

How does one write a single anecdote about an editor one worked under when there are so many that come to mind?

I first met Prakash Kardaley, or Master, as we called him, as a student at the Savitribai Phule Pune University’s Department of Communication and Journalism where he taught us reporting.

He may have been an editor but for me he was always a teacher, who taught us reporting. His passion for certain topics was legendary and one of them was definitely the weather. We all learned about the vagaries of the monsoon thanks to him and the ‘weather beat’ became an official duty. Geography was a passion and I remember when he even told us to go and buy the third standard geography textbook to learn the basics of the state we lived in – Maharashtra.

His temper was legendary and I remember shivering with fear when he nearly hurled the typewriter at me for a mistake I had made. ‘Do your homework properly!’ was something he drilled into us.

He had a different side to him too. I remember him taking a colleague for a biryani dinner after he came back late from an assignment that was well done. I also remember how he came back from his first trip abroad with a souvenir for me because I had urged him to get over his fear of flying and not to miss the opportunity to visit Rome.

He was an editor but at heart he has always remained a true reporter and teacher.

Vijay Kumbhar, RTI activist

I still remember my first encounter with Prakash Kardaley Sir. Yes, I call it an encounter because before that I had heard a lot about his anger and rude way of talking to others. In the beginning of 2004, after reading a news story related to my RTI application, he called me. When I met him, he asked me a lot of questions, I guess he was judging me for my credentials. However, within the next few days, it was as if we knew each other for years together. I became one of his favourite “Gaadhavas”. He used to call me his favourite junior‘Gaadhav’ with love.

His way of looking at the things was so different that every time he would give a new dimensionon every subject. That’s why he was known as ‘masterjee’ amongst thousands all over India. He taught me how to think. He was so influenced by forming the RTI that he compelled me to organise the first ever convention of RTI activists, where around 135 activists from 24 states came together.

I still remember the days before the file noting agitation began in 2006. The government had decided to remove file noting from the purview of the RTI. We were all were worried about whether the central government will listen to common activists’ voice or not. One has to be determined and non-controversial to be taken seriously. At the time, Arvind Kejriwal used to meet Kardaley to discuss various subjects. Kejriwal, Kardaley, Veeresh Malik and I discussed various names to take the agitation further and finally Kardaley suggested Anna Hazare. Hazare then began to fast unto death and later the government bowed down. There are several such incidents.

My association with Kardaley Sir was hardly three to four years, but it was definitely purposeful and was a turning point in my life.

Shashikant Mehendale, war history scholar

I remember the day I went to the Indian Express office in 1995, Pune with a cheque of Rs 10,100 to contribute to the construction of the War Memorial. It was the first time I met Prakash Kardaley and he was shocked to see me, a civilian, coming in with this contribution and details about the memorial. He took me to his office and interviewed me. He asked me many questions and tested my knowledge about different wars and the Indian Army. The next day this was published in the Express as an interview and I received a letter that I am a member of the War Memorial Committee as a co-ordinator.

Many people had the wrong impression of him but he was a very courteous man and I am so happy that I was associated with him.