Mark Tully’s death is being mourned widely, almost across the world. People, especially in South Asia where Mark spent most of his life, remember him as a great journalist and an even greater human being.
My association with Mark was neither as a journalist nor as a colleague, but as a host, one who sheltered him for nearly two weeks, quite literally with guns hovering over our heads.
It all happened on the day Governor Jagmohan ordered the externment of all journalists who had come from Delhi to cover the Gowkadal massacre. Their reports had created a national and international outcry, and the Governor was clearly unhappy.
The order was easy to execute. Almost all journalists were staying at Broadway, the only hotel functioning at the time. When the police arrived there asking reporters to pack up and leave for the airport, Mark, along with his colleague Satish Jacob, was sitting in my Press Colony home, sipping kahwa.
When news of the externment reached him, Mark was visibly disappointed. He felt deeply that an important story, one that could reach human rights activists and possibly exert pressure on New Delhi to restrain excessive force against civilian protesters, would remain untold.
As Mark and Satish discussed their next move, I casually asked Mark whether he would be comfortable staying with me until the externment period ended.
He was delighted. He smiled warmly and said he would remember this act of kindness.
That is how Mark’s two-week “house arrest” began.
It was, in every sense, a privilege to host him, especially watching him enjoy whatever local food we could manage during the harshest curfews Kashmir had seen. The Governor’s administration had disconnected the telephone lines of all journalists, and my own connection was cut too.
Fortunately, a close relative lived next door. He worked with Essential Services and had a functioning phone line. He readily offered it, but there was a problem. How do we connect it to our house?
While we were puzzling over this, my late father came up with a solution. The wire from an old TV antenna running from the ground to the rooftop was dismantled and repurposed. It was just enough to get the line working again.
Mark took all this in with good humour.
He also happily adapted to eating on the floor instead of at a dining table, using his hands and forgetting fork and knife altogether. During those two weeks, one could learn many things from Mark, how to structure a report, how to refine it, and then how to send it to the head office for broadcast under impossible conditions.
I doubt Mark ever worked in circumstances more difficult than these.
There was no typewriter. Sometimes we ran out of white paper. But my relative, armed with his essential services card, kept us supplied with food and other necessities otherwise unavailable under curfew.
We did not even have an extra toothbrush to offer Mark. The poor man had to clean his teeth using his fingers.
At Raj Bhawan, the Governor would repeatedly ask about Mark’s whereabouts. How was he reporting so freely? Why had he not been arrested?
The police would assure him they were raiding all suspected locations, but there was no trace of the BBC man.
One evening, a senior police officer arrived at our house. We thought Mark’s freedom had finally come to an end. But no, he had come on a courtesy call.
He chatted with Mark, discussed global affairs, and left. He came again the next day, and then again. From where he knew the address of Mark’s hideout was never revealed, but he did share fascinating stories of the Governor’s increasingly frustrated inquiries about Mark’s presence in Srinagar.
When curfew was finally relaxed, Mark decided to step out. But there was a small problem. Clothes. He had no spare ones.
After much deliberation, it was decided that the kameez salwar of Maqbool, our domestic help, would do. Mark wore it, went out, and returned half an hour later with bags full of supplies including a new toothbrush for himself.
Mark and I stayed in touch over the years, meeting whenever possible. He would always fondly recall Maqbool’s cooking and his long conversations with my father about Kashmir’s history and of course his ‘underground’ stay at my place which everyone except the Raj Bhawan knew.
I remember how we celebrated his knighthood in Srinagar as if one of our own family members had been honoured.
Sir Mark later wrote a reference letter for my son Shamim’s admission to a UK university. He even spoke to the British High Commissioner when Shamim’s football team was initially denied visas.
Mark and my friendship was one that never required constant presence. We always picked up exactly where we had left off, even after years.
I should have written more about Mark and his time in Kashmir earlier.
Maybe now I will.
Maybe now I must.
(Zafar Meraj is the founder of The Kashmir Monitor)