Nirmal Shekhar: A rebel as a sports editor

February 03, 2017 09:48

Much has been said of Nirmal Shekhar, The Hindu's former sports editor who passed into the ages this week, but nothing is as eloquent, and heart-felt, as the one by Vijay Parthasarathy in The News Minute.

'If he believed in you, he protected you and backed you to the hilt. In my mid-twenties, I started to shed some of the flair in search of a deeper voice; for a period, my writing got flat. But Nirmal let me take my time, and compared my slump to a batsman struggling to rediscover form. The criticism he offered was always practical,' writes Vijay, the first Asian College of Journalism grad that Shekhar hired after becoming sports editor at The Hindu.

'Nirmal was both a rebel and an extraordinarily generous man who taught me that those two traits were not incompatible qualities. Some bosses give off an old-school vibe, impose a top-down structure. Nirmal, dynamic to a fault, made no such fuss,' writes Vijay, in what must be one of the most sincere words written about a former boss.

You can read the full tribute, here.

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