Sports Writer Ayaz Memon In Conversation With Author Khalid A-H Ansari
Ayaz Memon (AM):
You mentioned about being sport freak; sometimes, I wonder if I am a failed sportsman, therefore, I became a sports journalist or am I just a journalist who enjoys sports? What has been your story?
To be honest, I have really been a ‘gadha’ who is blessed with somebody up above. And this is the theme of my book, that ‘jab uparwala meherbaan toh gadha pahelwaan’. I was just crazy. My late father was a journalist, he fought for the country, and he was far and tremendously passioned and I was lucky to inherit some of the passion from him. It was my ambition to become a journalist from the time I was a little boy from St. Mary’s in Bombay. But I dreamt big, I was crazy as I said and I wasn’t going to be contained with a small city publication, I wanted to take on the big boys. I wanted to take on sports on pass time from the Hindu Group where sports publishing is concerned. And after that started, by the grace of God, it did well.
I got restless and then I set my sights on starting a daily newspaper. No money, no infrastructure, no bank balance, no staff, nothing. And I was just lucky to run into people like that, Ram Contractor, Aziz Karimbuoy and Bobby Dariyal Khan who would join me from day one. It has been a huge chunk of luck but I must confess at the risk of showing off that I have worked very hard. I had this crazy passion of achieving anything that I set my mind on. Thanks to the one above, I have been able to achieve a few things.
AM: You started the Sports Week magazine and I remember all the fiery editorials you wrote, trying to expose mal-administration in India, including at the highest level in the sports ministry. Looking back, at the six-decade-long sweep, are you happy with the way things turned out? In terms of sports, are we on the cusp of a breakthrough, will India become a sporting nation?
I am happy now; I am happy today and I claim no credit at all. it is entirely due to my colleagues, like Ayaz. I think a lot of things that have happened is because of the journalists. Because what we were trying to do is to create a culture of sports in the country not only to produce world champions but to produce good Indians and human beings. People who understood the sporting spirit, who understood fair play, youngsters who would grow up to be good human beings. So, that was our main objective. We started a movement called ‘Run for Fun’ in Mumbai and I remember Julio Riberio, former police commissioner was running with me on Marine Drive and we got various government authorities to join in with us with the hope that they would support us and we were lucky because we got huge support and so, we were trying to spread the message of sport. Even though I say it myself, in all modesty, the movement picked up and on Sunday mornings, there were a huge number of youngsters running on the streets of Bombay for their own sake and not to become world champions. Mostly to be healthy and be good citizens – that was our mission. I remember a meeting at Delhi when I was a member of All Indian Council of Sports and Field Marshal Manekshaw, a very good friend and, if I may say so, drinking companion, he was the chairman and I was the member. The first meeting of the council, before that General Kumaramangalam was my chairman and I was very disappointed because although he was a fine human being and a fine army man, he could achieve very little with the babus in Delhi, they had clipped his wings completely. So, I was going to resign out of frustration when I got word that Field Marshal Manekshaw was going to succeed General Kumaramangalam. So, I hung around, and it so happened that I was re-appointed. At the first meeting, some minister came to inaugurate the council and when he left, he said, “Right, lady,” there was one lady in the council, “and gentleman, now that we are done with all the rubbish let’s get down to the brass tacks. Let’s do something about sports.” And, before he could know what hit him, his wings were clipped. The babus completely emasculated him, the council would recommend that certain teams can go abroad, and the team would not go. They would find ways and means to not send the team abroad. Again, there was some frustration and then the council wound up. I am making this point to show that we as a council achieved nothing, we were utter failures and very, very, frustrated but over the years things have changed in the sports. There is more money available, for a variety of reasons. But things have improved, we have produced world champions and especially during covid, it was heartening to see the Indian contingent to do so well in the Olympic Games. So, from that point of view, I am happy, but I claim no credit. But I claim joy that I was part of the process to create awareness of the right climate to get money for Indian sports, to get coaches from abroad and to generally introduce a sporting culture in our country, the girls, especially. It is heartening to see their performances, cricket, the wrestlers, winning gold medals at the Olympic level, that is a definite positive which has made me happy.
AM: I completely concur. In the last Olympics we got an individual gold medal winner in Neeraj Chopra, which is a complete game changer because he opened a whole new vista for sports and what you mentioned about women is what I firmly believe in, you have to actively get girls to participate in sports because if you keep 50% of your population out of sports, you can’t be a sporting nation.
AM: So, let’s move to Mid-Day; a decade later after Sports Week in 1979, you come up with Mid-Day, there is a David vs Goliath kind of scenario and you told us how you managed to get the first edition. But it is a resounding success, and over the next few years it becomes the heartbeat of the city. Were you surprised by the reaction or reception that Mid-Day got from the people of Mumbai?
KA: I would be dishonest if I said that I was not surprised. But it happened much faster than I anticipated. Again, we had no resources, there was no premises, no money, no newsprint, nothing and yet, thanks to my team, I am really grateful to them, Ram Contractor and others including you, but yes team work and I think it was an idea whose time had come as expression goes. Bombay was lacking a good afternoon paper. If you looked at the demographics of Mumbai, people travel long distances by train or bus and they don’t have much to occupy themselves with on their way back home. So, it struck me that if I could start a paper that was sexy for the entire family, in a way irresistible. That is why the tag line, ‘Bright exciting exclusive’. We tried to make it bright with a lot of masala and gossip, but created a family paper, nothing sleazy, and I was hoping to make an office goer buy a copy and take it home for his wife and children. So, we expanded the whole universe with people who wanted a good afternoon paper. Fortunately, of the two papers in existence at that time, one which closed down after we came on the scene was that we appealed to the whole family and the previous afternoon papers were full of politics, they were dull, there was nothing sparkling about it. So, we wanted to produce sparkling papers, we got names, we got Sabby Merchant to do a column. She did a readable and popular column which helped in paper circulation called ‘What’s the Good Word?’ which, as we know, achieved international fame. When I went to Dubai to run the Khaleej Times newspaper, Sabby very kindly agreed to let me reproduce the column in Khaleej Times. So, she clearly got international fame but that was one of the reasons that the paper did well. we got Nutan to do a column, Simi Garewal, Zeenat Aman. And we got a lot of sports people and we emphasise sports because we saw the potential there and knew that India was increasingly interested in sports and we were doing better. More people were interested in sports, they were reading sports, so, that was another avenue. This is what we did and I am glad to say that the formula worked.
KA: Apart from a lot of crazy things that happened in Mid-day, one of them was making a sports journalist an editor, that is me, so it was unthinkable in those days that a sports journalist can become a new editor but it happened in Mid-day and that is when I got first-hand experience of understanding the Mid-day formula, it is about involving the citizenry. What makes them involved in the thing, how they are involved. And I remember it was a motto to think global act local and therefore local issues became paramount be it civic, local, or political issues. What was your aim in involving the readers? The reader became active participants in the paper, not just letter writing to the paper.
In fact, this is why I started a movement called ‘ACT – Action by Citizens Today’, the intention was take action, don’t just complain. Don’t write to the newspaper’s editors, that is not enough, you have to be positive and aggressive. If I publish the names, contact numbers and address of the Members of Parliament, it was a local paper, we confined ourselves to not make the whole message diffused. So, the name and contact of the MLA, General Manager of the Railway and I said, if you have a problem don’t come to us, contact these people and make their lives miserable. Tell them that this is the problem, better do something about it, if you don’t, then don’t come for our votes next time around. So, this stirred the imagination of the Mumbaikars, that appealed to the masses and it was catching on. Looking back now, I regret that I accepted an assignment in Dubai to run the Khaleej Times, I had just come back from Stanford in America, stopped over at Dubai. I met the Finance Director of Khaleej Times, he said aap kya kar rahe hai? I said Kuch nahi, main bekaar hu. So, long story short, I ended up accepting an assignment at the Khaleej Times as a Managing Director and Executive Editor on my request. I said I insist on both or it is not going to happen because they were in a very bad shape and they needed a drastic surgery and for that I needed a complete free hand. So, I took up the assignment and as I said may be a year or two, I said let’s try it out, if you are not happy you can sack me. And if I am not happy, I’ll say thank you very much and I will be on my way. So, we tried it out and perhaps the donkey, and the one above, we turned the paper around in years’ time. So, then it was time, there was no challenge left and I had to take a very stern steps, I was called the Indian Butcher because the paper had many multinational employees from England, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and I had to sack a whole lot of people. But my brief was to turn the paper around, and I had to do it in a year’s time. And that was the only way. Sometime, of course it hurt me, if the person was needy and I had to let him go but I had to answer to myself and I had the responsibility to turn the paper around and I did it. But I do feel sorry that I was called Indian Butcher.
AM: You were wearing two hats: in Khaleej Times as Editor and Managing Director and in Mid-day’s case as the owner; which did you prefer? Editor or owner?
KA: At heart, I am very much a journalist, so, I would prefer the journalist hat and the reporter hat. I am lucky it also enabled me to travel, I covered 9 Olympic Games because I was wearing that hat. Also, there was a challenge of starting a new venture, taking on the big boys and trying to make a point.
AM: The two most interesting events that you have covered among the many events?
Kargil, of course, being a civilian at a war, that was a thrill that is indescribable. Then with my own team, there was this young lady who was the editor of the New Delhi edition of Mid-day, she came and a photographer. The three of us, and me in the thick of the war, we were at a hotel in Kargil and in the middle of night, a shell falling in the hotel courtyard. Filing the report daily making sure it reaches to the readers in Bombay up close. That gave me great thrill. Covering the Munich Olympic Games, unfortunately there was this tragic incident that the Israeli athletes were killed, that was sad but again it was an extraordinary event to be at. Being asked to produce a paper for the United Nation, it was called the Earth Times, it was started for the Earth Summit which took place in Rio De Janeiro. I had to recruit staff from NY, people from NY Times, NBC, CBS, and the paper was well received. We were asked to go to Rio De Janeiro and bring out a daily paper for all the delegates from all over the world including George W Bush. So, bringing out a daily paper for the climate change conference was again professionally a great challenge and it was good to say that the paper was well received professionally.
AM: Are you happy with journalism today, the improvements?
KA: To be honest, I am happy I am no longer part of it. I don’t think I would have survived with all the pressures and constraints. Makes me wonder do we have a free place in the country? So, I am happy I am not part of it, but I am worried what has happened of the media. The reason we sold our business, I’ll be honest with you, I took my son Tariq who looked at the paper, and we sat down and saw the number of papers closing down and the big boys having financial problems. So, we saw the writing on the wall and we are glad that Tariq agreed with my point of thinking and we saw that we better make plans for the future. Is there a future for the print media? We both concluded, no. So, the sooner we get out the better. So, we got a good offer and we exited. For the sake of written media, it’s close to my heart. I sincerely hope that things change. At the rate we are going, more and more papers are still closing down to give way to the electronic media. So, I don’t know what going to happen to India but I wish them well.
AM: For the past few years you have been devoting a lot of time to charity and foundation and helping the women and girl child, what took you to this direction? What are you doing now?
I am trying to keep my wife happy for one. In fact, we are both involved in the charity, we do a variety of things in the Trust. We discovered that there are so many hassles and so many questions and authorities to answer, we said we don’t want to be part of this, we shut down the Trust and started a foundation. It has far fewer problems. We are happy with the operation of the foundation and variety of things; we concentrate on girls and their education. They are the future of the country, we do Art camps, Vocational training. We don’t like the normal BA, BCom and BSc stream because they don’t provide livelihood to people in the slums of Bombay. My wife is a great animal lover, so, we do a lot of work in animal welfare. We are involved in many territories; we are working with the Tata Trust recently and we have decided after us everything little that we have will go to the Tata Trust.
AM: Having read your book, what keeps you so optimistic?
I think I was born optimistic. I always think that glass is half full and not half empty. That basic attitude helps a lot in life. You believe in dreaming and working very hard to make them come true. My favourite song is ‘Fly me to the moon and get me to the stars.’ that is the kind of attitude, my own thinking is positive.
If you can share the elixir of youth with us?
I go playing with my friend in the evening.
