PTI memories

I was watching a movie last night. The plot and glare of the screen delayed the arrival of sleep. The slumber, fractured by the early break of dawn ended up with a headache. The discomfort disappeared as I came across a snap shared by my friend and comrade Prem Udayabhanu . It transported me back quarter of a century. 

It was originally posted on the social media by another good friend Shrikanth Varadhachari many moons ago. We used to share banters at PTI's  Scan Desk, a precursor of sorts to today's Tweets. 

We all were given copies of the snap at the end of our training at PTI Delhi in December 1995. There was no social distancing obligation to fulfil then. Instead, camaraderie and cosying up were the norms of those days. 

We were four Bongs from Bengal, then branded in Delhi as the "lousie Commies". An energetic Supratik Sengupta, a cucumber-cool Nirmalya Nag and a charismatic Amitava Roy are still closest to my heart as are all the men and women on their feet in the snap. Life would have been poorer and with less charm without being their friend. 

The folks who left for PTI Mumbai after three months were lodged at PTI's guest house at Delhi's posh Jangpura. We four were in Delhi for nearly 18 months, breathing the political storm that came our way first with the Hawala Scandal unveiled by PV Narasimha Rao, then the instability that followed his defeat and unceremonious exit from power. 

Atal Behari Vajpayee-led 13-day government relinquished power with one of the best prime ministerial speeches in the history of India's parliamentary democracy. Sonia Gandhi made her arrival in the world of "real-politic". HD Devegowda got the prime ministerial position on a platter and lost it. It was just before the departure of IK Gujral that we were transported to PTI Kolkata.

Since then I have met only a few of my comrades, our  emotional engagement is relentless though, often in the relm of our many conversations in silence. The early period of my London-life was marked by the couple of weeks Gopakumar Warrier and Easwaran spent in London as part of their Bridge News training. 

The member of the group with the maximum number of proverbial Commi-chromosomes, Vinu and the darling of many hearts Jacinta Dsouza have since settled down as life partners. Our hour-long tryst at the Strand Continental Hotel in the upmarket vicinity of Central London a few years back is still etched in memory. While Vinu remained mostly quiet, Jacinta was the articulate self as we were reminiscing the good old days. 

Memory they say is a state of mind, and probably with a hypnotic effect. Today's state of mind is another testimony of the fact that PTI memories haven't lost an iota of their power to hypnotise.

14 May, 2020