The obit writer
Some years ago, I was fortunate in publishing an anthology of 101 obituaries of prominent Indians from varied walks of life, which were written for two British newspapers over a two-decade period. This endeavour came about entirely by happenstance in the late 1980s, prompted by the passing away of Roy Axel-Khan, the enigmatic, but little-known, Indian diplomat who had become my good acquaintance in London.
This diminutive former Royal Indian Navy officer’s life story — encompassing calamity, pathos, adventure, glamour and success — demanded telling, and motivated me to call the Obituaries section of the nascent Independent newspaper. Louis Jebb, the taciturn but receptive Deputy Obituaries Editor, listened patiently, and immediately commissioned me to send in Axel’s obit, that was promptly published under my byline. The Indy’s practice of appending bylines to obituaries was an innovative feature for UK’s daily broadsheets at the time, having since become more commonplace.
Thereafter, over the next 19 years till 2007, I wrote 800-1,000 word obits of some 150 Indians — politicians, diplomats, soldiers, civil servants, intellectuals, actors, businessmen, journalists, cricketers, maharajahs, gangsters, and even a wrestler. Their lives spanned the 20th and early 21st centuries and without exception, were interestingly spent, as most existed in restive times. All 101 such subjects featured in ‘The Last Word’ had contributed in some form and measure in nurturing newly independent India into adolescence and adulthood, and were, to a person people of substance.
The sole guiding mantra was that the subject be captivating. Consequently, The Independent’s catholicity led to it carrying obits of personalities like Bollywood villain Ajit, JRD Tata, Pupul Jayakar, Kumar Gandharva, Victoria Cross recipient Umrao Singh and spymasters Atma Jayaram and Ram Nath Kao, among others. A few of these obituaries were written for UK’s Daily Telegraph. But the bulk were carried under the non de guerre ‘by The Independent’, whose print edition ceased publication in March 2016.
The Obit pages in leading British, Australian and US publications are without doubt the most widely read five days a week, particularly by older readers, for whom mortality looms. Conversely, these pages are also the most elegantly written as they enjoy a longer gestation period in their construction. All these papers have a generous bank of elegantly penned obituaries of eminent and stimulating subjects that are periodically updated and re-worked, and in some cases even approved by the subjects themselves.
Doubtless, the obits of the recently deceased Prince Phillip were such an instance, much like those of his narcissistic uncle Lord Louis Mountbatten, who reportedly spent an inordinate amount of time during his lifetime to ensure largely bespoke obits. For him, it was obviously important that he be remembered in the grand way he perceived himself, and he succeeded. Many obits also follow the dictum of not speaking ill of the dead but the liveliest ones, without doubt, remain those that are candid and salacious. After all, the aphorism that no one can libel the dead is in such cases, apposite.
The obvious question such an obit collection might legitimately provoke could be the motivation in gratuitously publicising the life stories of scores of people long dead, irrespective of their renown. My response is that this anthology is by no means a macabre celebration of their deaths, but a salutation to their quirky lives, escapades, vicissitudes and animated existences. In a sense, these obits strive to demystify death, simply by highlighting the sprightly tales that lie interned within each one of the subjects. Not writing about them would be a disservice to their existence, all of which, to use a clichéd phrase, adds up to a rudimentary draft of contemporary history.
Obituaries — derived from the Latin obitus, meaning death or the last day — also provide closure in times of uncertainty, anonymity and deracination. They offer the fading luxury of reminiscences, despite Internet’s supremacy: informality, nostalgia, irreverence, humour, sensitivity, and of course, long forgotten historical events. By transporting the reader to a bygone era, obits offer a transitory, but comforting reprieve from a dreary existence rife, amongst myriad other negatives, with disquieting technology and the equally bewildering and the de-humanising phenomenon of Twitter, Facebook and the like.
Of all the obits in the book, some of the subjects I knew well, others superficially, a handful by association and the remainder, not at all. But substantial portions were published before the Internet epidemic, necessitating extensive inquiry, meetings with relatives or friends and research in musty archives. All these years later, all I can say is that the entire exercise was a challenge and gratifying as my subjects’ lives revealed India’s depreciating human resource heritage.
After a certain age, many of us avidly scan newspaper death notices, not just to keep abreast of the declining scorecard of our acquaintances, but as a gratifying testament simply to being alive. In short, ‘The Last Word’ serves as a veiled lesson to us all: act now. After all, as the adage goes, life is not a dress rehearsal: make the show worthy of a racy obit.
