by Tyron Devotta
Birthdays were important for Killi Rajamahendran! It was a day for celebration and wishes. It ended, for him, with a party. Not a big one. A chosen list of friends, relatives and some employees of the company (Maharaja’s) are invited home. I’ve had the privilege of attending some of them. It started, usually, around 8 p.m. and ended well past midnight. It kicks off with drinks at the bar where one had the privilege of being served by the Chairman himself. He saw that every glass was filled on time from a well-stocked stash. He was also the self-appointed DJ for the night playing oldies from a modern day jukebox.
The parties were lively with conversation, merriment, and there was dancing, which he insisted on, and he would join in, dragging himself away from his duties at the bar. The grand finale was a sumptuous dinner at the long table where he would tell us stories from the past or some anecdote related to politics. There would be brandy for those who wanted a night-cap and then an abrupt ending where he would see everyone at the door as he bid them goodnight.
After this came the traumatic part as he would be up by 5:30 the next morning, bright and chirpy, and the first call would be to me on some idea he would have for the news of that day. Being the Head of News was an arduous journey and being woken up at 5:30 a.m was part of it.
Love & Hate
It’s about 3 years since Mr. Rajamahendran passed away and 20 years after I left News1st, but all those interactions remain fresh in my mind. For all those who knew him well, there was one thing that stood out, and that was you either loved him or hated him, and he on the other hand could easily lose his temper but he would also forgive easily. There was nothing lukewarm about Killi Rajamahendran. He was a person you can depend on when the chips were down as he would go all out to help you in times of trouble. The passion that drove him at work or play was dogmatic and daunting. Many would tell you stories of his involvement in Sri Lanka’s national level cricket and how, during those times, he stood by the team, heart and soul.
At work, he had his finger on every company in the group, despite it being a vast conglomerate of diverse businesses. He always dressed immaculately and took pride in looking his best. He once told me he took time choosing a tie every morning, as if to tell me it was an important part of the day. It was also a subtle hint directed at me as I most often wore the same tie every day. His point was that caring for one’s appearance was paramount, an essential part of the whole enchilada.
Fire
He led from the front and we followed; most often without asking questions, as the complexity of his solutions often baffled us. One example was the day on which a massive fire broke out in the Pannipitiya media company complex, which resulted in the heart of the broadcasting and telecasting section being burnt down completely. The master control room was wiped out, which meant the end of transmission. The fire started around two in the afternoon on a Sunday and by 3pm he was there, assessing the smouldering remains of the building. I followed close behind and when we entered the master control room; I was so taken aback that my eyes welled up with tears. Later on, I told the people around me that it was the smoke, but he turned around and saw my emotion, and told me with a stern look on his face, “You go back to the newsroom and do your job and we will start with the 6 o’clock radio news.”
A Miracle
Back in the newsroom, the editors and producers surrounded me with troubled looks. I relayed the Chairman’s message to get ready for the evening news. “For ours was not to reason how, but to charge headlong into the valley of uncertainty.” All the newsmen and women went back to work and the well-oiled news machine began to churn again amidst the smoky environs. By some miraculous means, we were ready to go live by 6 o’clock, as 2 OB buses from other media organisations came to our rescue and operations rose from the ashes. In the months following, we bought new equipment and lived up to Mr. Rajamahendran’s motto, ‘The show must go on.’
Accreditation
Somewhere after the year 2000, I got a strange request, which I was not happy about, initially. Mr Rajahmendran asked me to get him accredited as a media person. Since I was a news director and the Government Information Department recognized me as the person who recommends media accreditation for the newsroom, I had to endorse his application. For a while I wondered why he wanted to put his neck out, but later realised that he was in fact, taking responsibility for the news, because we were all in this together. Those were heady times when Murphy’s law was in play and getting called out by the authorities for what they claimed to be bad reporting in national interest hung over us like the Sword of Damocles. Those were the days when bombs went off every so often, and death and carnage was a common element of our news reporting; one always walked a tightrope. The Chairman himself was figuring things on the run but he was a fast learner and a bold decision maker.
Heart & Soul
Empathy was something he had, without a doubt. In fact, some would say he had too much of it and it could colour some of his decisions. Whilst on one side he was a hard-nosed businessman, he also had a soft heart. Almost into a year after I took over news, we had a discussion one day, which resulted in creating the ‘Action TV’ segment in the evening news. This concept was to go to the people and find out problems that were often missed by the mass media and this concept helped to solve minor issues that needed to be addressed by the Pradeshiya Sabhas and Municipal Councils. A damaged road or a broken bridge was highlighted, and the best part of it was the local politicians responded and we gave them the chance to get on national TV with their solutions. This, I believe, was the beginning of the Gammadda programme, which is now run successfully by News1st. Today, it has a formula that goes directly to the people and finds solutions for their problems from within the community. Gammadda happened after I left the newsroom and I was told that it was his pet project. The legacy lives on!
On Track
There is a postscript to this story. Which is about being objective and subjective in journalism. While in those early days we did our best to be objective in news reporting; with Action TV we were bordering on being subjective. But I believe with Mr Rajamahendran it went further, the lines were blurring between these two genres, and while he wanted news to be fair and accurate he also wanted it to have a heart and a soul. Not a detached view of the world around, and that’s how he built his genre in news reporting. Though I disagreed with him twenty years ago, today I believe he was on the right track!
Opinion
His life story is over a thousand pages of entrepreneurship, trailblazing and a sheer love of life itself. A man who started work in Pettah, moved on to build an empire and create a unique genre in the business world. He believed that politics, the socio-economics of the country and businesses were all connected entities; that they could not be separated from each other and the wealth of a nation is built on understanding it. If he disagreed with anybody, he would tell them no matter what station of life they were in, and that included even the Head of State. If they did not respond, he would move hard with his opinion, sometimes even to his own detriment.
Going Home
After 8 years of working for him in the newsroom, I quit because I was worn and tired. Our separation was amicable as in a letter to me on 14th October 2004, his last para says, “Please keep in touch with me. As I said, the way I see it you are taking a temporary vacation due to fatigue and high pressure of work and when you get back to your senses you would come home.”
And yes, he was right. Maharajas was like home to me even though I did not go back! I kept in touch with him until the end. I met him last at a newsroom function where he insisted that I be present and we spent a few minutes talking and joking about various things. This was a few months before he died. We even took a photograph together; that’s a cherished memory. There is nothing more certain in life than death, and even though sometimes we in our naivety thought this titan would defy that reality, it happened and all we have now are memories and lessons learnt.