Vivek Shukla
Even as the media world is agog with the news that Radhika and Dr. Prannoy Roy have resigned as directors on the board of RRPR Holding Pvt. Ltd. with effect from November 29,I am transported back to 1984. Those were the days when India was still many years away from the din of private TV channels. Nobody knew that something like Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms would invade our world soon. Telecom revolution too was far away.
Those days I was a student of Delhi University and during the summer vacation, I was working in a huge TV showroom of my friend’s family in the then Archana Cinema shopping arcade in Greater Kailash-part I. That TV showroom belonged to Weston Company and it also had a huge video Library too. Those were the days of VCR. Movie buffs from across South and New Delhi used to throng there to take video cassettes on rent. While I was not involved with it even remotely, I used to see people coming there all the time.
That video library was handled by some employees of Kamal Vachani, son of Weston company’s founder Sunder Vachani. I vividly remember Kamal Vachani was a very polite guy and used to strike up a conversation with his customers. Among the regulars at the library was none other than Radhika and Prannoy Roy. They lived in a Greater Kailash barsaati and visit in their chocolate-colour Fiat car. While Radhika Roy was working for the Indian Express, Dr. Prannoy Roy was reaching in Delhi School of Economics.
That he was Dr. Prannoy Roy, I came to know only when he was handling perhaps the first live election coverage that India had seen in 1984. He was there with Vinod Dua. That election was taking place after the gory killing of Mrs. Indira Gandhi and subsequent anti-Sikh Riots. That 24×7 election coverage was mind-blowing experience for Indian TV viewers. By that time I had already quit Music Nest job even though respected Sunder Vachani has promised me to give key responsibilities in his Weston Company. It was Sunder Vachani who established Mayfair Garden, an upmarket residential area for Sindhis in South Delhi.
It goes with saying that the election coverage of 1984 had changed the face of Indian TV forever. Post 1984 election coverage, Prannoy Roy became a regular face on Doordarshan with his weekly show ‘The World this week.’ That show made a deep impact among the discerning viewers keen to know the major events of the world. With his very dignified and superb anchoring, Dr Prannoy Roy became a favourite TV personality in India. Even before NDTV was launched, his company was providing content to various channels.
In 1986, I had joined Hindustan Times group. Those were the days when the part of buzzing HT sports desk was converted as the office of Sports Apartments that was coming up in IP Extension in East Delhi. Veterans of HT like M. Madhavan, Vinod Varshney, Aroon Kumar, Dr. Kailash Papne used to work there after finishing their office work. And we sports lovers too dropped in often to discuss the latest in sports with giants like PC Nigam, CS Rao, Sandeep Nakai and others. Film critic and poet Anil Saari joined us often as HT Sunday room was next to HT Sports.
And one day as we were discussing some issue there, we saw Dr. Prannoy Roy standing there and talking to Vinod Varshney. Actually, he had come to hand over the quarterly instalment of his flat in Sports Apartments. That was late 80s and Dr. Prannoy Roy had already become a star of Indian TV news. Vinod Varshney had introduced all of us to him. He was with us for couple of minutes. We found him to be an extremely gracious gentleman. Even he had kadak chai of HT House with us. I remained him that I was working for Music Nest where he was regular visitor to take cassette of some Hollywood movie. We shared notes of those days briefly and then he left. But I used to see him from to time in HT house.
As Music Nest and HT House are a distant memory, I still think as to how the likes of Dr. Prannoy Roy grabbed the opportunities that came in their way and became a formidable name in India. He started his venture from the same place ( Archana Cinema complex) where he used to visit to take video cassettes, his preference being for thrillers. He became the owner of that huge complex which initially belonged to Atma Ram Chaddha, a big businessman of Delhi. Atmaram Sanatan Dharam College (ARSD) of Delhi University was named after him.
A few decades later, Dr. Prannoy and Radhika Roy have an empire worth hundreds of crores. They no longer lived in Barsaati and have also sold off their IP Extension flat. Finally, as NDTV is in the control of Gautam Adani, the richest Indian, one has to accept that both these gentlemen has one common thing: Both of them are first generation entrepreneur. Like Dr. Roy, Gautam Adani has also started his professional career in 1980s. And now he is the richest man of Asia and has the net worth of US $ 122.4 billion. He founded the Adani Group- a multinational conglomerate company involved in port development and operations in India. His group has also become a crucial player in oil and gas exploration, coal trading and coal mining, power generation and multi-modal logistics and now in media.
Finally, Adani has inducted Sanjay Pugalia & Senthil Sinniah Chengalvarayan in place of Roy couple in the board. Both are ace journalists. Adani Enterprises inducted Pugalia as the CEO and editor-in-chief to lead the Group’s media initiatives in 2021.Whereas Senthil Chengalvarayan is also a very formidable name in India’s business journalism. Chengalvarayan has also been the editor-in-chief of Network 18’s business newsroom.
Let us hope that under the new dispensation, NDTV would continue to do meaningful journalism.