The Wikipedia entry on Gay Talese, a reporter who is often mentioned when people talk about New Journalism and creative non-fiction, has a couple of phrases that remind me of Cho Ramaswamy. “Entirely happenstance” and “unintended consequence”.
Although Cho’s life and his multi-faceted career (as a corporate lawyer, consultant, theatre artist, dramatist, actor, director, political commentator, politician, and perhaps for what he’s most successfully known, satirical writer) were not exactly happenstance or unintended consequence, that’s the way he liked to describe them. In an older interview — from times when interviews on TV were probably much more sensible, gainsome to the viewer and not bereft of value — Cho was asked about his career spanning not just a long stretch of time but field too. To this, Cho simply said it was all an accident.
Sure, some parts of his life were accidental happenstance. No one expected Cho to turn out into a political “seer” of sorts who dabbled in some arbitration between parties for a while. In fact, he has said on more than one occasion that his entry into journalism (through the satire magazine, Thuglak) happened “just like that”.
Cho wasn’t exactly a king-maker like Balasaheb Thackrey but he had the knack of foreseeing certain things in the political space. But he never carried this immodestly. To him, these foresights were as obvious as the summer sun and he refrained from claiming any special credit for foretelling the stories that were to unfold in a few months, years or even decades.
Not quite #1, but still…
Cho was not a crafty writer with a penchant for words. He clearly was not as popular a comedian as his contemporary, Nagesh. His days as a corporate lawyer are lost to history (or no one bothered to chronicle these yet). He was a dramatist at a time when other jaambavaans existed, mildly eclipsing his troupe. Thuglak, to this day, is not a mainstream magazine even within Tamil Nadu. His tenure as a politician was short-lived and not a very successful one at that. But there’s probably no one in Tamil Nadu in the age-group of 35-85 that wouldn’t know Cho or his tryst with various fields that he casually decided to touch.
We are all suckers for nostalgia. Not a day goes by without someone saying it was all great back in the good old days. So, it’s not uncommon to feel that today’s artists, journalists, and other celebrated, popular personalities are several notches down in the way they carry themselves and present themselves, in comparison to yesteryear celebrities (and by yesteryear, I mean those of the early 60s to early 80s; travel a little further and you end up with the likes of some unmentionable characters that have brought more disrepute than fame).
And yet, there’s not one person that I can think of, even from that “yesteryear” era, who brushed aside any reference to hardwork, trials & tribulations, or the tremendous amount of time involved in their work of creation. Except, of course, Cho Ramaswamy.
Here was a man who started out as a corporate lawyer, wrote for plays and then acted and directed them, went on to act in movies and even write them, and then decided to start a magazine of satire (at a time when satire could invite deathly trouble) which lead him to arbitration and consultation with political heads (at the national level, mind you).
But when asked about all this, Cho would casually call them happy accidents. Sometimes, his conviction in that declaration is so strong that you’re led to believe in it.
People are fond of talking about the hardships they go through in order to do the work they do. Mediocre creators with no inkling of how mediocre (or worse, crass) their creations are talk at length about the hardwork, the sacrifices and the trouble they went through to create. Almost everyone talks about these things. There’s the stoking of ego clearly at play.
When celebrities try to be humble and if you’re smart enough to catch it, you’ll see the big, ugly brush-stroke of vanity in their attempt to sound humble. There’s a lot of fake humility that goes around these days and the “fans” literally fan the smoke on places like Facebook and Twitter and Instagram that creates an illusion of a humble celebrity. The reality of course stands vastly different.
Cho never appeared humble. To some of his critics, he was in fact boastful of his own capabilities as a political commentator. “I’m not known for my modesty,” he said once at a book launch. To some more — especially from the women’s rights movement — Cho was a byproduct of the patriarchal Indian caste system (Brahminism, to be more specific), a male-chauvinist. But if there was one person who did not claim personal credit for all their output, it was him. He was so averse to claiming credit that he would actually discredit himself.
Controversial opinions, unapologetically held
A few years ago, Gopalkrishna Gandhi (the grandson of M.K.Gandhi and C.Rajagopalachari) wrote a beautiful piece on Swami Vivekananda. For much of my generation (and perhaps to the previous one too), Vivekananda is the sterling example of forward thinking. In the piece, however, Gandhi pointed out certain facts about Vivekananda that invited a closer look at Vivekananda’s thoughts. To the uninitiated, Swami Vivekananda held some condemnable thoughts on slavery and the role of women in the civic discourse. “[They] invite long editorial scissors” is how Gandhi describes some of Vivekananda’s thoughts that, in the modern world, sound extremely backward and downright wrong.
Many of Cho’s thoughts — which he was not afraid of voicing in a public forum — do invite long editorial scissors. While not being as strong an RSS sympathizer as his colleague at Thuglak, Gurumurthy, he was still a strong proponent of the Hindutva agenda. He was definitely a byproduct of Brahminism and, in fact, was probably the singular voice of the Brahmins during that specific time of Tamil Nadu’s history when Periyar’s and the Kazhagam’s anti-Brahmin stand flourished justifiably.
Cho’s views on women and their role in the society were dated and carried the same tone of patriarchy that the saffron brigade does. No wonder then that he attracted a lot of strong criticism from a lot of women-centric organizations. He was also, very popularly, anti-Left. That combination, however, did not refrain D. Raja, the leader of CPI(M), from attending one of the anniversaries of Thuglak. Nor did it affect the respect many of the leaders of the Left had for him.
Cho was unapologetic about his controversial views. He belonged to that upper class, Mylapore Brahmin school of thought which holds the varna system to be holy and morally right. He was basically a better, less-brash Subramania Swamy in many ways. But unlike the arrogant, patriarchal leaders of the saffron brigade, he also held views that are progressive. A brief example of this was in the way he declared his disbelief in the idea of total prohibition (in Tamil Nadu) not simply because he didn’t think it was feasible (both culturally and economically) but beacuse he thought it was a pointless exercise. Someone with as strong a Hindutva (and Brahminical) agenda as Cho would hardly say something of the sort.
Probably the only rightwing, Hindutva secularist
For all his spiritualizing and massive pro-Hindu intellectual campaigns, he wasn’t against any religion. Especially, not Islam. I don’t think that he would sound anti-Islam even if his speeches were to be misinterpreted or taken out of context but given that I haven’t heard very many of his speeches (at best, I’d have heard a sum total of 25-30 hours of his speeches on a variety of topics, delivered at various programs and meetings), I couldn’t be the judge of his attitude towards Islam or other religious communities. But given that he was a Madras-product with a wide circle of friends from all walks of life and cultures, I’d probably bet a huge part of my income in saying that he wasn’t anti-any-religion.
The lasting impact of his legacy is most certainly through his satire magazine. Thuglak enjoys a very strong affiliation by its readers who are probably in just the tens of thousands. It’s a niche readership but like all niche readerships, it’s very dedicated. Cho made his organization live precisely the way he preached — a strong, identifiable leadership was necessary irrespective of whatever democratic forum one wanted to build their organization into. Unlike every other public functions of other organizations, each Thuglak anniversary starts with a roll-call: Cho would introduce his entire staff (down to the chauffeurs) to the applause of his audience. And he would then follow it up with not speeches but with the audience asking questions. It was only after these democratic rituals that the speeches would commence. And even here, while he could have easily gotten away by inviting people who held similar beliefs and viewpoints, he invited people from camps that he was ideologically against. A communist, a Congressman, a Kazhagam functionary, a minority leader and so on.
Cho’s idolators often talk about his unbiased writing which used to be true but by the end of it all, he did turn out to be biased in a lot of ways that even his readers questioned his bias. Cho was always ready with a witty response. In the aftermath of the 2G spectrum and the Nira Radia tapes, Cho was very much in support of AIADMK’s chief (the late Jayalalithaa) as the singular alternative to the corrupt leadership of DMK. He was also completely in favor of Narendra Modi’s PM candidature and held strong views against Advani’s candidature. While he did call a spade a spade by being a strong critic of the government run by a party he supported (be it AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, or BJP/NDA in the Center), he did have his own set of biases that played along the narrative of the state or country. In more than one instance, he did accede to the charge that he was biased sometimes.
I’ve heard too many people say what people usually say when talking about dead people — that there can’t be another Cho in the history of India. I wouldn’t like to repeat it for the fact is there can’t be another “whoever” for that matter. But if there is one thing that I’d like to carry to my grave, it’s the dispassion of it all. In his time, Cho did some extraordinary things. But every time he was asked to speak about them, he did so in his characteristic witty demeanor, dismissing all praise and crediting happenstance and unintended consequence for all his achievements. That, I think, is the essence of it all. Dispassion.