WHEN PRESIDENT'S APPOINTMENT GOT CANCELLED

H.E. Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan was the President of India then. It was his last year in office. I was allowed by my then employer, The Statesman newspaper in New Delhi,to do cub reporting under the guidance of its then Chief Reporter (CR), Mr M.L.Kotru. (To this day I am not sure if he was Makhan Lal or Mohammed Lateef. But one fact was sure : he never missed the annual Urs at Hazarat Nizamuddin's Dargah at New Delhi.)
Mr K. Rangachari was the Resident Editor in New Delhi.
The procedure was that I put before Mr Kotru my story ideas and take his approval.
Thus it was that I told him that I wanted to do Dr Radhakrishnan's story, whose treatise on holy Bhagwat Geeta was appreciated universally. He nodded his consent.
Quickly I traced the President's Press Relations Officer (PRO), Mr Anbdul Hamid, and fixed an appointment with him.
We discussed the details of interview and if The Statesman would send its photographer or not. I said it was CR's decision.
Thus it was that my name appeared in the President's Appointments circular, which, in those days. was circulated to all the newspapers. And it was mandatory for all the papers to publish it prominently.
That set a cat among The Statesman pigeons.
I am not sure if it was the Resident Editor, or the Chief Editor in Calcutta (now Kolkota), kor the paper's Government Accredited correspondents, or senior reporters who objected, but Mr Kotru withdrew his approval on the day of interview.
Willy-nilly, I telephoned Mr Hamid and regretted my inability to go on with the interview.
Mr Hamid was shocked, to say the least. He eagerly offered President's car to ferry me if there was transport problem. (In those days arriving at President's Estate in his vehicle was a mark of dignity.) I told him about the sensitivity pf The Statesman about it conveyance policy. It deflinitely wanted its reporters to travel by Statesman Ambassador cars, nothing else.
Later, Mr Hamid told me the President was disappointed, as in the hurly-burly of daily politics, he felt neglected and ignored. He was looking forward to a chat.
I said it would have been a lifetlime achievement to talk to the President and write something about him.
But colleagues being colleagues, they never tired of needling me "Sir, you miossed by the whisker of a mouse the permanent enlistment to President's State Banquets !"

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