Balagopal memorial meeting in Hyderabad – a follow-up
by Anant Maringanti
It will be a while before any kind of transcription of the eulogies at the memorial meeting yesterday will become available.. I didnt want to be distracted by my own camera. There were dozens of cameras all over as it is – all scanning the hall for newsworthy weeping faces.
There was something very strange about all this for me – I quit being a newspaper man at the end of 1997 – when TV channels were just beginning to divide and multiply. I have known how media cameramen think – there is a template in their minds – one which has a slot for each saleable emotion. They are labeled – heart rending, bucolic, joyous, so on and so forth. What was strange however was that, at the time I quit working in a newspaper – the print man was still somehow in control. The visual image had a purpose that was first envisioned by the analytical and the contemplative mind. I see little evidence of that culture now.
Yesterday, as soon as Kannabiran said he with his hands put the black gown on Balagopal when he became a lawyer – and choked – the cameras rushed towards him – like a flock of birds. Kannabiran said – go away! Cannot I even have a moment of privacy ?
A moment of privacy at the podium in an auditorium bursting at the seams? It is possible. It was palpable yesterday to some. Without the mental, visual, intellectual clutter that seems to pervasive in this city perhaps it would have been palpable to more.
Several years ago, Balagopal once said Hyderabad is a vanity fair. You must go there with a clear purpose in mind, get the job done and get out of it immediately. Since then apparently he has mastered the technique of living in Hyderabad and keeping the clutter out.
If anyone still has any doubts about how he did it — here is Amitav Ghosh writing about Satyajit Ray.
“Ray was for me, not just a great artist; he was something even rarer: an artist who had crafted his life so that it could serve as an example to others. In a world where people in the arts are often expected, even encouraged, to be unmindful of those around them, he was exemplary in his dealings with people. This was, I think, one of the reasons why he was able to sustain his creative energies for as long as he did: because he refused to make a fetish of himself. As a student I had heard him speak on several occasions: it always seemed to me that there was something very private about his manner. I had the sense that it was by holding the world at arm’s length that he had managed to be as productive as he had. This was a stance I respected then and respect even more today, now that I am more aware of how easy it is to be distracted by the demands of public life.”
The above could easily have been written about Balagopal. In fact, it is quite possible that Balagopal learnt that art without much fuss when he was a student at the Warangal Regional Engineering College. Jeevan Kumar, president of Human Rights Forum said yesterday that he first met Balagopal at the screening of Pather Panchali in the Film Club in Warangal in 1975 and
remained a steadfast friend since.
anant