Sunday Snippets
By Venkatesh Raghavan*
Today, I am off cricket for a break. I choose to narrate an interesting set of anecdotes in the early years of my reporting career. It was December 7, 1992. I had reported to duty and my chief reporter (late) Glen D’Souza was ready with the assignments for the day. Glen asked me to get the reactions from the Muslim community for demolition of the Babri mosque.
My mind immediately raced to the group of Muslim builders I had interacted with, to get their side of the story when the then Deputy Municipal Commissioner GR Khairnar was busy demolishing illegal structures. Soon as I reached Masjid Bunder, one of them who had turned into a friend owing to previous interaction, guided me to where the local corporator Bashir Patel was likely to be available.
Bashir was not in the spot. However, I got to meet Aziz Patni and I spoke to him at length about the happenings of December 6 and also briefed him that my chief reporter wanted reactions from the Muslim community over the demolition. Our conversation lasted for nearly 10 minutes. In those days, there were no mobiles or pagers. My chief reporter had asked me to give the reactions over the phone and carry on to the next location. Fortunately, Aziz bhai who was sitting in an air-conditioned enclosure asked me to go to the next room that looked like a lobby and had a telephone. I immediately rang up my office and gave the reactions. I will not reproduce it here, for there were a lot of unparliamentary words used. However, while on the telephone, I reproduced the exact words that he used as I felt, it was left to the desk people if they choose to censor any part of it.
Subsequently, I returned to the air-conditioned enclosure and asked Aziz bhai, how much should I pay you for the call? He refused to take any payment. We chatted for some more time and he asked me whether I would like to watch the BBC coverage. I told him I have several more spots to cover, bade him bye and passed on.
Two days later, curfew had set in. Glen asked me to go and explore the minority areas and find out what was happening. I along with my reporter colleague, Khetan Shetty walked into by now what was a very familiar locality for me. We both had curfew passes. There were two constables hanging around and they intercepted us. I told them we are journalists and also showed my curfew pass. The cop then asked me “Who do you want to meet?” I said, “I want to get in touch with Bashir Patel.” The cop responded, saying, “Bashir has gone to distribute milk in the curfew areas. He won’t be available for now.”
I immediately told the cop, “I would like to meet Aziz Patni.” The cop stared at me incredulously. “Are you mad? He will gun you down.” Now I was aware that Patni was a part of the mafia. I dare not tell the cop that Patni is my acquaintance. I turned docile in my behavior. The cop then directed me and Khetan to walk through the main road till we reach the Crawford market area. This road used to be jam-packed and difficult to walk comfortably during normal times. On that day, it was totally deserted. The sound of a piece of paper rustling came loudly and it almost created a scare.
A little later, a military van passed by with people on the back of the van pointing their gun at us. Having our face to the wall both of us put our hands up and continued walking at a steady pace. Fortunately, it ended uneventfully as the van disappeared out of sight. As we almost came to the end of the stretch, I saw some welcome relief. A hotel was open and we both bit into our omelet pav snack, putting a period to our harrowing time.
*The writer is the author of bestseller thriller, Operation Drug Mafia (Times Group Books)
