The Editor is no more…

“Why did you leave without telling me? Eid is two days away. What are we going to do now?” These were the last words, over the phone, of Shujaat Bukhari for me at around 1:30 pm on June 14. How was I to know that this would be the last call that I would receive from my Editor?

I got associated with Shujaat Bukhari and Rising Kashmir in 2013. Within a span of only a few months, I got promoted as Online Editor of Rising Kashmir, besides being the Oped Editor of the paper.

Heading the online section got me even closer to Shujaat Bukhari. He would treat me like his son than an employee. Whenever there was some development regarding Kashmir, he would ring me up, saying, “Listen, this should go live within the next two minutes”. I had only two minutes to check, cross-check and then upload the news. He always wanted us to break the news first come what may. He would always say to me, “Daanish raftaar tumhey sona bana degi”. He was a professional par excellence.

He was a disciplined editor. He literally drank, ate and walked journalism. At the time he was shot dead outside his office chambers, he had the hard copies of The Indian Express, The Hindustan Times and a book about the conflict in his hand. Being a voracious reader, even at the time of death he was engrossed in his reading of happenings all over the place.

He was a man of love and compassion. I have observed this during the deadly floods of 2014 in Kashmir. He first gathered few volunteers of whom I was one. And then, he went to people, who were stuck, with food and medicines. We rescued around 500 people from different parts of Srinagar city.

There is this important anecdote which I want to share with the readers. There was an aged Kashmiri Pandit lady stuck in her home on Exchange Road in the Lal Chowk area. After much difficulty, we took her out from her home. Like all Kashmiris, she was reluctant to leave her home. However, after hectic deliberations, we managed to get her out of the home. Shujaat took her to his own place for the night. He arranged an air ticket in that chaos when there was not even basic amenities available and sent her to New Delhi to his daughter’s place the next day. I do remember that night when Shujaat fought with many officials over the phone for a ticket to Delhi. There were a number of such occasions in his life when something always snapped within him and he would go for that extra mile to help others.

There are uncountable qualities he had as an editor. One such quality was how he made reporters and interns comfortable around him. He was a down-to-earth editor. I am sure reporters and interns at our office would feel the absence of his aura around them.

He had the same relationship with his sub-editors. He loved them all. When in rage over our silly mistakes in the paper, he would often murmur in Kashmiri, “Tue chev ne kehein (You people are good for nothing)”. We would often repeat the mistakes and he would often repeat this famous line. But not even for a second, he would think of firing any of us. He would scold us, be angry at us, throw tantrums but at the end of the day, he would behave like a father figure.

The freedom about writing in the newspaper (on certain issues) under him was total. Hardly, he meddled with copies of reporters.

In February 2015, I wrote a feature story on Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah. It was a lengthy reportage of over 5000 words. I had toiled hard for the story for months, talking to people, taking interviews, joining the dots in jotting down the political life of Sheikh Abdullah.

Finally after, three months of hectic work, I filed the story to the editor’s desk, Shujaat being one in the mailing list. I was so happy for the hard work I had put in the piece. However, that happiness was short lived when I got a response back from the editor. The story had to be held over for some time.

That “some time” turned into months. I failed to understand what was lacking in the story. It was only after nine months that the story was published in Rising Kashmir. It took a full page.

Days after the piece was published, at a social gathering, I mustered courage and asked my Editor, “Sir, what was wrong with the story?”

He smiled and said there was nothing wrong with the feature. It was a beautifully woven story on the enigma of Sheikh, he said. Perturbed, I asked again that then why did it take nine months for such a story to get published? He again smiled and said, “Son, it was only that I wanted you to be patient and not over-joyous as it can spoil your career.” I still remember those words: “Patience is the key son.”

Daanish Bin Nabi is the Online Editor and Oped Editor of Rising Kashmir