30/01/2016
Before television journalism stooped to become the playing field of the megalomaniacs, shamelessly embracing sleaze and sensationalism, T.N. Gopakumar — TNG as he was known — had held a mirror to the Kerala society for a good many years.
His weekly program, Kannadi, in Asianet had been a saving grace for Malayalam television journalism. His burning eyes seared through the layers of our society and picked out the vagaries of the downtrodden and the voiceless. His punchlines punched hard at our collective conscience.
In TNG’s passing away this morning at the age of 58 after a prolonged illness, we have lost a journalist who had not failed to feel the fret and fever of the common man even in an age of popularity journalism.
In his thirty-odd years of mainstream journalism in New Delhi and Kerala, and through his many travels across the country, he had made many friends among his colleagues and helped many young journalists cut their teeth in reporting ‘life as it is.’ TNG had written extensively for a number of newspapers, authored many books, and directed a movie and a television serial.
TNG was one of the first generation journalists who made a smooth and effective switch from print to visual media. Through his involvement in Asianet right from its inception, he had shown us that it was not the medium that mattered, but the story and its humane approach.
My earliest memories of TNG were his morning lectures at the Institute of Journalism in Thiruvananthapuram. His eyes were still blood-shot and his breath reeked of the last night’s drink. Journalism can never be taught. And, TNG never taught us anything, but he inspired many of us to fall in love with a profession which may never make one rich or famous. From TNG, we learned that journalism is a passion—a way of life—rather than a job.
When I decided to go to Delhi, like all aspiring journalists did, TNG was ready with recommendations. All those whom I met on his recommendation received me well, and it showed how they valued and respected TNG. Years later, I handled his weekly dispatches from Kerala when I was at the desk of a Middle-East daily. My last meeting with him was a couple of years ago here in Thiruvananthapuram. He had thinned down, but his eyes still burned intensely.
He had always stood by what he had written. Harish P. Kadayaprath, a journalist, remembers an incident: “My early memories of TNG bring to my mind the bundles of letters piled up at the India Today’s Chennai office. It was early 90s. TNG was a Principal Correspondent at India Today then, and I was joining its Malayalam edition as a sub-editor. The letters were reactions to an article TNG had written about Mata Amritanandamayi. The article had some controversial remarks, which infuriated her followers. TNG stood by what he had written and subsequently quit India Today.”
Kadayaprath says TNG never compromised on details. “I again had an opportunity to work with him in Asianet. Kannadi had just started. Whenever TNG came across an interesting bit of news in daily bulletins, he would jump at it and would have it developed further for Kannadi. He used to chase us even at midnight for clarifying the minutest details.”
Newsroom administration is most journalists’ waterloo. But TNG had struck a fine balance, keeping the right distance, and keeping a clear head, even when he was Editor-in-Chief of Asianet News.
We may occasionally remember his fiction and columns, but we will never forget the stark realities of life we saw on the mirror he had held to us. It was a weekly reminder of the decay in us, the presence of the less-privileged among us. Through the Kannadi Fund, TNG tried to help those in dire needs. A realm where most journalists hardly step into.
TNG is gone. And, there is no promise of Kannadi next week.