(This article has been republished from The Quint’s archives on the occasion of journalist Jyotirmoy Dey’s death anniversary. It was first published on 11 June 2015.)
Sometime in May 2011, Jyotirmoy Dey entered my cabin, flashed some papers in his hand, and smiled like a cat that has just got the cream. Dey was pretty tall, so I asked him to sit. He rarely smiled, so I knew that he had a big story in his hand. I had worked with Dey briefly between 1994 and 1995 when he was a freelance photographer for Mid-Day (I was a trainee features writer and copy editor then) specialising in environmental reportage.
Apart from rarely smiling, Dey rarely even spoke to his colleagues unless there was a professional reason. He was, for all practical purposes, an enigma.
It rained so heavily on 11 June, the day he was murdered, that I could not even travel from my residence in the western suburbs of Mumbai to the central suburb of Powai, where he lived with his wife, Shubha. This inability to reach out to him on that fateful day haunts me even now.
No Smiles, Only Benign Grins
Coming back to that day in May 2011 I began with. Dey was not smiling, he was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. He said that he had unearthed a multi-crore fuel scam along the Mumbai eastern sea front — a veritable oil mafia that was cheating people of the city by siphoning thousands of barrels of diesel from the official market, and selling it in the black market at a slightly lower rate by adding adulterants like naptha and kerosene.
Fishermen and dubious fuel pump owners were the biggest customers. These fuel pump owners would then sell the adulterated diesel at market rate making a tidy sum in the bargain. Everybody made money, except that unsuspecting customers got cheated.
The scam was valued at more than Rs 10,000 crore (for impact, in the headline, we rounded it off to Rs 10,000 crore), and Dey even named the kingpin of the smuggling operation in his story. Based on Mid-Day’s story and their own investigations, the kingpin was arrested by the police for the murder of an informer.
The Indefatigable Journalist
This story was important for two reasons: the first is evident. But it was the second that was more sinister, discovered a few months after Dey was murdered. David Headley, the infamous Lashkar-eTaiba operative who had recceed Mumbai’s landmarks for the 26/11 terror attack, was in touch with Mohammed Ali Abu Shaikh, the kingpin of the diesel smuggling operation.
The reason for this long anecdote and the intricate weaving of facts of the case is this: Dey would chase the most dangerous of stories with the glee of a teenager anticipating his first kiss.
Like most journalists, he too got a high when he broke a big story, but most of his big stories were inevitably “dangerous” stories. They would mostly involve the mafia, the underworld, powerful politicians who would brook no interference from a pesky journalist, corrupt bureaucrats, film stars, film producers, and such like.
"You Don't Know What You've Got Till It's Gone"
It was only after he was gunned down close to his house that readers in Mumbai became aware of his contribution towards crime journalism.
“You don’t know what you got till it’s gone,” wrote Joni Mitchell in her immortal song The BigYellow Taxi, and it was true of Dey. With respect to all the hardworking crime journalists out there, I cannot name a single person – except for Dey’s guru S Hussain Zaidi, who has covered (or rather, uncovered) the Mumbai underworld as well – as extensively as Dey did.
'Rani' and Her Rider
He was so fond of on-field reporting that his wife, Shubha Sharma (an ex-colleague at Mid-Day, who now works for a business daily), in a tribute written on his death anniversary, said that he probably loved his bike more than her. He called his bike Rani (Queen), and as Shubha wrote:
Before every journey, he would whisper sweet nothings to her, lovingly pat her, and take off with a flourish — it was a language only the two of them understood. And she reciprocated in equal measure, faithfully standing by him when the end came.
Shubha also recalls that he was so involved with exposing the underworld that he had even worked out codes with her to pass on secret messages. Only she knew how loving he was. And mischievous.
“CHQ,” Shubha told us,“would be Central Headquarters, or home; “RHQ” would be Regional Headquarters, a close friend’s home they often visited; “Chai ki Dukaan” would be the coffee shop in their neighbourhood, and “Coast” would mean they had unwanted company.
The Unceremonious Superhero
This was our little heaven and he was my superhero. On a rare occasion when we travelled in the general compartment of a suburban local, he sensed my discomfort at prying eyes and quickly wrapped his strong arms around me. With one look and his trademark 1,000-watt smile, he reassured me that no one could dare come near. And in that sweaty, hostile sardine can, I retreated into my shrine of peace and comfort. In blinding rain, if he had even a hint of me sniffling with a sinus infection, he would stop the bike, take off his extra-large wind-cheater and wrap it around my shoulders.Shubha Sharma
I got a hint of his magnanimity soon after I joined Mid-Day and faced my first crisis. One of our reporters, who went by the pen name Akela, was arrested under the Official Secrets Act by a vindictive police inspector who was upset by Akela’s reporting of a waterlogged ammunition depot that was created specially after the 26/11 terror attack. I was scared he would never get out. But it was Dey who told me to calm down.
He said,“You take care of the lawyers, I will take care of Akela.” And so he did.
The Calm Six-Feet-Three Giant
While I was working with Mid-Day’s lawyers to extricate Akela from jail, Dey stood by his colleague day and night. When he was finally released on bail, I silently wept. It was the worst seven days of my professional life. All through this, I was nervous; Dey, a six-feet-three giant with the physique of a boxer, was the epitome of calm. It was his demeanour that gave me the confidence that any battle can be won. I suspect he even thought of himself as a father figure to me (I was 37 then, and he was 53).
One afternoon, a few days before he was murdered (allegedly by gangster Chhota Rajan’s associates), I jokingly told him that his stories would land me in jail some day. He laughed it off saying, “Don’t worry, sir, you will always have me for company. We will have cockroaches for company at night, and if we feel hungry, we could always munch [on] them.”
Admittedly, an editor’s job is often a lonely one. There is no one to share anxieties with, and no matter what happens, you have to maintain a stoic face. With Dey, I knew that I always had a hand on my shoulder comforting me, telling me that things will be alright. Four years later, I still miss that assuring hand on my shoulder.
(Sachin Kalbag is currently the Resident Editor of The Hindu, Mumbai and was a close friend of Jyotirmoy Dey’s.)
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