An Afternoon With Sir Mark Tully

My first encounter in flesh and blood with Sir Mark Tully was an unexpected one. His essays in ‘No Full Stops in India’ were recommended reading for aspiring hacks in journalism school. I had heard stories from veteran journalist Satish Jacob about how he accompanied Tully to Ayodhya at Ground Zero for an assignment in 1992 in which they were challenged by kar sewaks before the eventual demolition of the Babri Masjid. As a Sub-Editor on the Edit page of a newspaper, I had read the flawless drafts of Sir Mark’s fortnightly column that mixed scholarship with lived experiences, in which all the full stops were at the right place. His insights into the politics of the Hindi heartland were as incisive as his distinct and persuasive voice on the importance of education in rural India. Subbing his columns was a pleasure early in my career.   

So, when I discovered that I will be moderating a panel discussion at a book launch with Sir Mark Tully, I was over the moon. This was the credible and objective voice on radio my father turned to, before the advent of television. He was a legend of the profession and here I was, set to share the stage with him. What brought me on one platform with Sir Mark was the love for train travel. My travelogue about the longest train journey in India was part of an anthology brought out by the Indian Railways and Rupa Publications. It occupied pride of place with seasoned writers such as Ruskin Bond, Gillian Wright, Omair Ahmad, Shobha Narayan, Jerry Pinto and of course, Sir Mark Tully. 

In the first half of the conversation, I was a bundle of nerves, but Sir Mark was generous to a fault. After the initial hiccups, the discussion on the magic of railways, came back on track.   “Without the railways, the three great cities of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras would have remained small colonial trading ports,” he said.

The news of his death brought back memories of that afternoon when his love for steam engines, comparable only with another steam aficionado Bill Aitken, whom we lost last year, enthralled everybody present at the Rail Museum.  His contributions as the voice of BBC India for decades are widely recorded. However, whenever I hear the name Mark Tully, my train of thought rewinds back to that special afternoon. Farewell, Sir Mark.