It was a farewell full of stories. Almost everyone who turned up to bid adieu to Vinod Dua at his funeral in Delhi had a tale or two to relate about his irresistible persona that at once was that of a riveting narrator, singer, a foodie and an uncompromising practitioner of the art of journalism. Among the hundreds of mourners were journalists who had learnt the ropes of broadcasting from the man who groomed young talent, making them sit not at his feet but on a seat next to him. If after the late Jasdev Singh, the legendary hockey commentator, there was a stickler for the purity of language, it was the self-taught Vinod, who spoke extempore in times when teleprompters were a rarity. It was befitting, for Vinod despised being prompted or tutored about how or what to talk to his audience. Vinod was a synonym for irreverence for authority.
I’m personally aware that he quit a well-paid assignment he managed after a spell of joblessness in his final years, simply because the proprietor of the television channel wanted him to go soft on the party in power. “I’m nobody’s loud hailer,” he told me with a non-negotiable finality one doesn’t get to see in this age of conformism and compromises – marked by a rat race for getting into the government’s good books.
As a self-made person who rose to prominence from a refugee colony in north Delhi, so possessive was Vinod of his freedoms that he didn’t think twice before putting at risk or walking out of lucrative jobs that required him to submit to his employers’ whims. While working for a media group that had an in-house salutation code, he persisted with the traditional namaskar. The management let him have his way as the channel needed him to shore up its dwindling TRPs. The resultant peace didn’t last for long.
What made Vinod doubly special was his ready wit, his sense of humour and deep knowledge with easy recall of Urdu poetry and sufiana kalams that were his staple since his early television days when he became a household name through programmes like ‘Yuva Manch’, ‘Aap ke Liye’ and ‘Janvani’. My own first appearance on television was in his show ‘Parakh’, while I was visiting India during my posting for Hindustan Times in Islamabad.
Talking of Pakistan, I cannot but recall his encounter with Pervez Musharraf at the latter’s presidential residence when he hosted a delegation of Indian MPs in 2003. The visit set the stage for A.B. Vajpayee’s 2004 memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Pakistan president against export of terror to India.
“The tricolour looks good on you general,” said Vinod, on seeing an angvastram Musharraf carelessly carried atop his ceremonial military gear. The sacred stole was given to him minutes earlier (as a belated birthday gift) by Congress leader Margaret Alva as he met his guests lined in a square in a chandeliered hall of Aiwan-e-Sadr. The remark stumped the dictator, leaving him speechless and red in the face.
Vinod could think on his feet like none of his peers. We were together at the India International Centre on the day his name was among the list of Padma recipients in 2008. Talking to a TV crew that turned up unannounced at the Centre, he delivered impromptu what he called his “acceptance” speech. When the camera turned to me, my first reaction was that the honour was well-deserved as Vinod indeed was the “Republic of Indian Television” who grew with the medium on his own terms, guided by the idea of the people’s right to be heard; that they have to be told the truth and nothing but the truth.
Vinod applied the principle as much to his own conduct. Once he asked me to sit on the jury for a students’ debate in the Modern school. I agreed. A couple of days later, we met by chance and he asked how did the debate go. I said a girl named Bakul stood out among the rest. He smiled, declaring after a brief pause: “Main uska baap hoon. [I am her father.]” I hadn’t met Bakul before and Vinod chose not to tell me in advance that his daughter was among the participants. He believed in winning debates, not rigging them.
On another occasion, he arrived in his newly acquired Mercedes early in the morning from his Civil Lines bungalow to my residence in Mayur Vihar to take me along for a breakfast of bhedwi sabzi at a particular shop in Old Delhi. Himself at the wheels, he suddenly slipped in the past to when his dad was alive. “Life has been kind to me. As a child, I used to wear shorts tailored out of my father’s trousers,” he said. I could see a trace of mist in his eye on that wintry morning.
The Seraiki language he inherited from his parents, who came as refugees from Pakistan’s Dera Ismail Khan, made him a keen student of Baba Farid and Bulley Shah. He sang their sufiana kalams with as much ease as he sang Bollywood classics such as ‘Mein pyaar ka rahi hun’ with his radiologist wife Chinna (Padmavati). Theirs was a made for each other union that broke a few weeks ahead of Vinod’s own last breath.
He was extremely close to our common friend Imtiaz Alam, as he too hailed from the Seraiki speaking southern Punjab of Pakistan. At times, when they were together, Vinod would make naughty comments about Imtiaz, asking him to retaliate with the choicest expletives in Seraiki. The banter was a salutation of sorts to Dera Ismail Khan, his father’s place of birth which, by some quirk of fate, he couldn’t visit during his many trips to Pakistan.
The past year was Vinod’s worst and also his best. He was ecstatic on becoming a grandfather when Bakul gave birth and earned a case law in his name by contesting and winning in the Supreme Court against the sedition charges brought against him, for which he was grateful to his lawyer Vikas Singh.
He has now joined his parents and wife in the heavens. If there’s a government up there, it better watch out!
Note: This essay was first published on Vinod Sharma’s Facebook page. It has been republished with permission and has been edited slightly for style and clarity.
