Chandrika Mago, Editor Par Excellence

As I sit down to write Chandrika Mago’s obituary, the memory that is most fresh is of both of us sitting in adjacent rooms and editing late into the evening. I used to love to work with old Hindi songs playing in the background, songs that Chandrika loved as well. She would ask me to increase the volume so that strains of Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar and Mukesh would waft across both rooms as we struggled with split infinitives and future perfect tense.

These shared likes are perhaps what attracted us to each other when 38 years ago, on September 3, 1985, we, along with 24 other aspiring journalists, walked into Times of India’s TRF Institute’s School for Social Journalism, the fire to change the world raging in our bellies and desire to enter the hallowed world of journalism shining in our eyes. That was the day we became friends and classmates, too. Chandrika had just completed her M.A in History from Delhi University and graduated with a postgraduate diploma in journalism with the prize for editing under her belt in 1986. She joined the Times of India’s Delhi edition as a reporter in May 1986 and soon made her mark through her impeccable reporting and investigative skills. She had the talent to demonstrate a lot of empathy even as she remained unbiased in her reporting. I remember editing her investigative series of stories on the abattoirs of Delhi which brought to light the abysmal conditions of the slaughterhouses and even as the reports remained almost clinically factual, she herself turned vegetarian for almost a year, so affected was she by the scenes she saw.

This empathy is what made her a wonderful boss when she was Metro Editor at Times of India and later when she headed the Lounge desk at Mint. All editors and reporters who have worked with her vouch for her unerring eye for detail and her ability to improve copy by just tweaking a few sentences. She was a grammar Nazi when it came to copy and spelling whiz, all of which made her one of the best editors of her generation. She always acknowledged the training that we received at TRF (as we referred to our journalism school) from stalwarts such as K. Thomas Oommen, Seema Sharma and Hartman de Souza, for her prowess but her own meticulousness and eye for detail were responsible for her success.

As Metro Editor at the Times of India, she introduced the practice of celebrating every team member’s birthday together in the newsroom. As a colleague said, other teams always envied the joy and celebration that emanated from Chandrika’s team. She said these actions worked wonders in team building and going by the eulogies that have been pouring out since she breathed her last on November 29, 2023, she was absolutely on the ball. She was a wonderful mentor and teacher and young journalists she trained have gone on to become well-known journalists, all of whom acknowledge her contribution in their development.

In her entire illustrious career, she worked at only two newspapers – the Times of India from 1986 to 2006 and Mint from 2006 till the day she passed away. This steadfastness she continued in her personal life too, forging friendships that were strong as the proverbial iron. Her friends were many and each would go the extra mile for her because she would do the same for them. And she did. Everyone had anecdotes and tales to tell at her funeral that attested to the great friend she had been to them.

In a world where people lament that they do not have time to read, Chandrika was an inveterate reader. Her love for books went as far back as when she was a student and a young journalist. Those days we got our salary as cash at the Times of India. As soon as we got our salary, she and I would go to the book warehouse in the building adjacent to Times House and buy a book each. We would buy different books which we would exchange once we had finished reading. Today when I read the books I bought along with her, I am taken back to those days when the smell of a new book would take us to heady realms of joy. “Journalism is literature in a hurry,” said 19th century poet Mathew Arnold. Chandrika believed in this, and she was bent on ensuring that whatever she wrote or edited would stand the test of time. For this, she would stand up to bosses and would even refuse to allow her byline to be used if the story she filed was changed beyond what she considered acceptable. She was the rare breed nowadays – a journalist who stands up for her principles. There was no compromise on this score for her.

This non-compromising adherence to what she considered right she carried into the way she dealt with cancer, which she battled in two bouts for 13 years. She would be cussedly stubborn in the way she fought her illness, never letting it stop her from enjoying life or work. In fact, she edited her last story just a few hours before she ultimately succumbed to cancer. All of us would love to go with boots on, and Chandrika really did so. It will be difficult to find another like her.