TJS, that legend down the corridor
There are journalists, and then there are journalists who get that rare prefix, ‘legendary’. TJS George belonged to this second order, an endangered tribe these days. Its list of card-holding members got rarer still when the man passed away today, at age 97.
Behind him trails a career in letters that has spanned about as long as the life of the Indian republic, and as varied. From his erudition in Carnatic music that birthed a book on MS Subbulakshmi, and others on VK Krishna Menon as well as Nargis, it also contained landmarks in good old-fashioned print journalism, such as being the founding editor of Asiaweek in Hong Kong back in the 1970s—an act of pan-Asia ecumenism that would have resonated well today.
That such an eminence was a living presence in the offices of The New Indian Express till the other day was a matter of honour and delight equally for all of us here. It was only in June 2022 that he laid his pen to rest after writing his last column, the Sunday Point of View, in his inimitable, no-holds-barred style—sharp, ironic, fearless. Over 25 years, he contributed 1,300 columns for these pages.
Politicians, judges and powerful people feared and respected his pen, and treaded carefully around him. He was famously unpredictable. In our Bangalore office, when a VVIP dropped by wanting to meet him, we would exchange nervous glances. If it was his column-writing hour—always longhand, pen on paper—he would refuse to meet them, however important they might be.
Siddaramaiah, the current chief minister, had a taste of that brusqueness when TJS admonished him in a humorous, schoolmasterly way on one such visit—for wasting time in a newspaper office instead of working among the people! No one took offence. Once at a function in Mysore, SM Krishna, then External Affairs Minister, vacated his seat for TJS when he saw him standing, but characteristically he refused.
Such was the awe he inspired among Union ministers, high court judges, chief ministers. Even when his columns were scathing, the powerful usually held their peace—it was only their sycophants who protested. He had opinions, he took stands, and never wavered, even when it led to sedition charges in earlier years. The only man he openly admired was our founder, Ramnath Goenka.
“I have no god,” he would often say. A non-believer, or rather a believer only in humanity, and in journalism as a calling. He taught generations of journalists the importance of precision in language, and of calling a spade a spade. Outside the newsroom, George had deep interests in cities and food. He was fascinated by urban planning—often comparing the systematic grid of New York, where he and his beloved wife Ammu lived during his UN years, with the chaos of Bangalore’s house numbering. In his last few years, he spent his winters in Coimbatore, leaving the chaos of Bangalore behind him, to “best idlis, dosas and coffee”.