Farewell, boss

Sandeep Sinha

The first time I heard of KJ Singh was when I met the then Editor-in-Chief of The Tribune, Mr HK Dua. I was then working for Hindustan Times in Delhi and had appeared in an interview for a job with The Tribune. I received a call from Mr Dua’s office asking me to meet him at the India International Centre (IIC) in Delhi. 

Over a breakfast of vada-sambhar, Mr Dua told me it had been decided to hire me. He then asked me about my expected salary. “My problem is that the CNE, Mr KJ Singh, gets this much, so I will have to keep it less,” he said. I mumbled my agreement.

It was KJ Singh as the CNE that the Bathinda edaition of The Tribune was launched. I did not work with him in the Newsroom at Chandigarh but he helped wherever required.

Before leaving for Bathinda, he asked me to meet everyone in the Newsroom, especially Devinder Bir Kaur, who then headed the Punjab Desk and with whom I was to interact frequently.  “Do you make your own page?” he asked.  “I also do it,” he said.

He sent me the style sheet saying I had too much influence of my previous organisation on me and would keep telling me to retain good stories for the local pages as the edition needed a boost.

Surrounded by a bunch of young enthusiastic greenhorn reporters who saw me as their passport to the Punjab pages in the main paper, he sensed my predicament. “Tell them not to push their stories.”

The gentle but firm message had its effect.  

He would be abreast of developments calling me up once early in the day to say there had been a canal breach in Bathinda. Was I aware? Certainly not sir!

KJ was a stickler for deadline. Copies were expected by 7.30 pm. Early in 2008, there was a tragedy at Chuhar Chak village in Moga district where a train had rammed into a school bus in the early winter morning fog at an unmanned crossing.

I accompanied the reporters to the spot. In the evening, noodle burgers in hand, we sat down in a cyber café to file the copies. I called up KJ Singh. “We have taken agency copies,” he said pointedly. I was astounded. It was only 6 o clock in the evening. I told him the reporters had slogged hard. He then drove home the point, “Will the copies come in by 7.30?” Needless to say, they were sent.

Outside of work, he was full of warmth on the few occasions that I met him, never refusing me leave, and always replying to my Diwali greetings with, “Have a blast.”

My last interaction with him was on Facebook where on Gandhi Jayanti day in 2015, I posed a question, “Majboori Ka Naam Mahatma Gandhi Kyun Hai?”

In reply, he sent me a brilliant blog that analysed why it was so:  How Gandhi was helpless when Partition took place, why when all options fail, Gandhi remains the best bet, how Gandhi overcame all majbooris (difficulties) in life, how currency notes have an imprint of Gandhi because majboori emanates from money or lack of it, and relying on Gandhi was everyone’s majboori as there was no one else.

It was sad and shocking to hear of his death, even more so the manner of it. But his warmth and friendliness, I am sure, will continue to ring a bell.