No More Left-handed Compliments: A Colleague Remembers H.K.Dua  

Soon after taking over as the Indian Express editor, H. K. Dua began meeting the members of the political bureau individually.  

When my turn came, I felt a little nervous. He was the man credited with the massive market share of the Hindustan Times in Delhi. However, the moment I walked into his plush office, he set me at ease with a cheerful greeting. The youngest member of the awed bureau.  

“I was going through your recent stories.” He raised a bunch of stapled teleprinter pages. “Excellent work.” Then he pointed to what in newspaper lingo was called the not-used file, copy that did not make it to the paper. “Some of your stories here are quite good. Should have been in print.” Comfortable with the new boss by now, I requested a car loan from the company. “A car would give me more mobility,” I explained. Within a week, I was granted a fifty-thousand-rupee interest-free loan. I bought a second-hand Fiat – my first car. 

When Dua headed Indian Express, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao was facing angry tides of dissidence from within Congress in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition. A veneer of media gossip suggested that he would not really go after Rao. Around that time, one afternoon I met V. Ramamurthy, a prominent Congress leader from Tamil Nadu. The big stout man had a no-nonsense air about him. “Narasimha Rao is to Congress what Gorbachev was to the Soviet Union,” he said in an unfaltering voice.  

Next morning this was the front-page lead with my byline. After the morning editorial meeting, Coomi Kapoor announced – formally by newsroom standards – that the editor had expressed his satisfaction over the day’s front page. Despite a few friendly pats, I worried, wondering if Ramamurthy would retract his comments under pressure. The Gorbachev metaphor, using today’s cliché, had started going viral. Hours later, came on the PTI wire, the dissident’s statement from Chennai, repeating exactly what he had told me a day before.  

Always smiling, the genial Dua Saab would often go back to his early struggle, coping with the harsh reality of Partition. From the cramped UNI news agency office in Khan Market and surviving on dhaba food, he walked a fabulous stretch – heading four major English newspapers, becoming the media advisor to two prime ministers, Deve Gowda and Vajpayee, a stint as India’s ambassador to Denmark, a term in the Rajya Sabha. This trajectory was fascinating.  

A simple man, untouched by the grander ideas of New India, he did not look beyond the India International Centre. As Delhi was recovering from the second spell of the pandemic, I used to meet him there to talk politics, media trends. He would go back to his long association with venerable media personalities like S. Nihal Singh, Nikhil Chakravartty and Philip Mathew. At the IIC, he was an adorable figure. From the front desk staff in the library to a dining hall waiter, they would all warm up to him. “My wife says this is my first home,” he often said.  

He was an active participant in the IIC Saturday Group meetings attended by redoubtable figures in the past like Indira Gandhi, I. K. Gujral and V. P. Singh. Soon after the 2020 Delhi riots, Dua called me one morning. “Do you know Prakash Singh, the famous police officer? We want to invite him to the Saturday Club for a talk about sensitising city policing.”  I did know him.  

 In the close circle around him, Dua Saab was known for his trademark humour. At The Times of India,  he sanctioned car loans for senior editors M. D. Nalapat and Jug Suraiya. Both of them opted for the same make. When they went to thank him, Dua said, “Let me order coffee for my Esteem-ed colleagues...” All three burst out laughing.  

When he broke his hand falling down the steps of the IIC library building, doctors fixed the complicated fracture with a steel plate. After his recovery, when we met, his opening remark was, “Bhaskar, I always thought I was an iron man. Now doctors have made me a man of steel haha.” His big laugh was typical of the generation that crossed the border after Partition and survived triumphantly without silver spoons and lavish upbringing.  

Hearing about his stroke that paralysed his left side in the summer of 2024, my wife and I went to see him.  In his library I noticed two books – Fifty Year Road, my political memoir, and Demonetization in the Detail, a collection of essays edited by him that I brought out during my publishing days.  

As we were leaving, my former editor came up to the doorstep in his wheelchair. “From now on, no more left-handed compliments.” He broke into a laugh nodding towards his affected left side.   

Bhaskar Roy is an author. Border Crossers (Hachette, 2024) is his latest work.