Of Jholawalas and Bhukawalas (Olga Tellis)

[Frederick Noronha]

Of Jholawalas and Bhukawalas

---

Olga Tellis

From the days when journalists were known as jholawalas as they carried cloth bags slung over their shoulders, to the suited and booted journalists of today, the media has had a heady travel. In the '60s journalists were called all sorts of names. For instance when there was a press conference at the Taj, the waiters would say `Aaj bhukawala ka meeting hai'. (Today, the hungry ones have their meeting here.) Because, believe it or not, they would fill their plates with mini mountains of food. Journalists were poorly paid in those days. I started on Rs 300 a month. Then came the pink papers, The Economic Times from the Times group and the Business Standard which was run by a professional. When the Ambanis entered the media, they upped salaries and the rest had to follow.

Items published were mostly tame press handouts. Since it was the era of Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), companies were generous in dishing out packets with cash as travel money. They also gave journalists shares of their new company in order to get favourable coverage. It was literally handout journalism.

But to get back to my brief, on Goans in the media, it's serendipitous that I took my first few steps into what was to be a 53–year eventful career, with the weekly Goan Tribune, founded by the multi-faceted Lambert Mascarenhas. He passed away in Dona Paula, Goa, last year at the age of 107.

It was a period when Goa was occupied by the Portuguese and Mascarenhas, as an avid freedom fighter, started the weekly propagating the freedom of Goa. He was a prolific writer and his most famous book is Sorrowing Lies my Land. Among the many awards he received was a Padma Shri.

Mascarenhas was a friend of my father's and he assigned me to profile well known Goan women, which I did for a while. He then told me there was a vacancy in The Onlooker magazine, which at that time was owned by a Scotsman and was billed as India's only society magazine. It was printed on Swiss glazed paper and covered high society parties and sports like golf. I covered these parties.

As most things happened for me by chance, though it was my dream to be in public life, I met a Bengali journalist, Shalil Ghosh, of the Ananda Bazar Patrika group of Calcutta. He was a lovable, eccentric character. He told me that the group had never employed a woman in the organisation except for those writing on food, shopping, etc. He said I could come to the office and start working. The English-language paper of the group was called the Hindusthan Standard, which later became the Business Standard.

Since I wanted to be a journalist I promptly took up his offer and started working. I had no formal training in journalism but being young and supremely confident I started working. Male journalists from organizations like PTI (Naik) and The Hindu (Tiwari) were very helpful in teaching me to write political stories.

Journalism was male-dominated in those bygone days. I was the first woman to write on politics and business. The late '60s and '70s were exciting times. In the Cold War, the US vs the Soviet Union divide spawned the Left Vs Right movement in different countries including India. The trade union movement was vibrant and saw the rise of Communist and Marxist leaders like S.A. Dange, B.T. Randive and others and Socialists like Madhu Dandavate and George Fernandes (who could speak 14 languages). They were later overshadowed by Datta Samant, a doctor turned militant trade unionist who changed the face of trade unionism and the fortunes of workers. He operated mostly in the Thane-Belapur region where new industries were coming up. He got workers wage rises of Rs 1,000 and above against the pittance of Rs 10 and Rs 20 that the Communists fought for.

Covering these events was exciting and demanding. There was never a dull moment.

In the '70s, Maharashtra went through several years of drought and famine and one reported on the conditions in the affected areas and how the government was coping with it. I was lucky to accompany Communist and Socialist leaders like Ahilya Rangekar and Mrinal Gore, who was known as Panibai as she took up water scarcity issues. In fact I was very fortunate to be working with the ABP Group as they gave me total freedom to write on whatever I thought was newsworthy. We were the first newspaper group to send reporters to cover news stories outside their city. My first assignment was to report Mihir Sen's swim from Talaimanar in the southernmost tip of India to Sri Lanka.

Later the ABP group brought out Sunday magazine edited by the youngest editor ever, M.J. Akbar. He was a super editor who knew exactly what people wanted and Sunday soon became a household name. He too gave me complete freedom and opportunity to do investigative stories.

I also did a column `Garibi Hatao' for Blitz, under a pseudonym as one could not write for other papers while employed in one publication. The column was a takeoff on then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's slogan `Garibi Hatao' and exposed the exploitation and poverty of migrant workers, construction labourers, the growth of slums, etc. The adivasis and tribals were so neglected that they killed sparrows for food.

This knowledge helped when then Chief Minister A.R.Antulay decided to send all pavement dwellers of Bombay (now Mumbai) back to their villages. I wrote a letter to the Supreme Court about this development, stating that people come to Bombay in search of jobs as their villages and hometowns were not developed and lacked basic facilities like schools, hospitals etc. This letter was converted into a petition and became the first public interest petition, a concept that was conceived by Justice Bhagwati. The case, known as Olga Tellis vs Bombay Municipal Corporation, enlarged the scope of the Right to Life to include the Right to Livelihood.

Then came the Sharad Joshi farmers' movement, that demanded remunerative prices for farmers' produce. It remains a hot button issue till today. I covered this and spent a month on the Kolhapur-Bengaluru highway where Joshi organised a blockade.

One also covered elections in Madhya Pradesh, and Goa, where I met Mário Cabral e Sá, a renowned journalist and author from whom I learned a lot. He was erudite and well informed. I had quite a problem with food in Goa. Cabral would order crab, his favourite, and I'm vegetarian.

Covering events outside Bombay (Mumbai) and Maharashtra was an awesome learning experience that reporters should undergo. One has to be prepared to work hard, have a curious mind and commitment to doing one's best, The secret of success is to compete with oneself if one wants to be among the best.

There are quite a number of Goan journalists and the tallest among them was Frank Moraes, who was editor of newspapers like The Times of India and The Indian Express. Blitz editor, the fearless Russy Karanjia, said of Moraes, that God broke the mould after he created Frank. His son Dom Moraes was equally illustrious as a poet.

There are a lot of Goan sports journalists like the Crasto brothers. A Goan I met recently, a mediaperson turned advocate, is Dr. Olav Albuqueque. In fact he has worked for a host of newspapers, starting with The Times of India whilst he was still studying law. He still does a column for The Free Press Journal, to keep in touch with journalism. He says Journalism and Law are two sides of a coin as they both require investigation and are people-centric.

My favourite Goan journalist was Flaviano Dias, who was a reporter for PTI and later settled down in Goa. He introduced me to Yoga.

Another Goan is Ronita Torcato who interned with The Times of India and later joined The Daily. She also had a stint with Doordarshan Kendra's English News Department.

Jane Borges, who is from Karwar, has Goan roots through her dad's mother.

Olga Tellis is a legend in journalism; few mediapersons can dream of a court judgement named after them. The 1985 Supreme Court ruling — Olga Tellis & Ors. vs. Bombay Municipal Corporation & Ors — is considered a `landmark case' that established the right to livelihood as an integral part of the right to life.

--

FN * +91-9822122436 * 784 Saligao 403511 Bardez Goa 

[Mohan Vaidya]

Good. Still remember Olga.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "GoaJourno" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to goajourno+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goajourno/CAMCR53JH75ks8ufCbdPFM23pAidJTL3pqxXHEcQmaLHK9%2BsG%2BQ%40mail.gmail.com.