Writer Sukumar Azhikode was a keen follower of news and current affairs.
As an editor of several journals, he reminded his fellow scribes and juniors about the qualities a journalist needs: prodigious memory, social commitment, keen powers of observation, and intimate knowledge of history and politics.
He told journalists that their primary responsibility was to unravel the truth hushed up by the powers that be.
Fond memories
“I have always had close ties with journalists and newspapers. I read many newspapers, but very few satisfy me. You get attached to newspapers just as you do to your loved ones. You miss them deeply if you do not get to see them daily,” he told this reporter early this year.
He stated that he was deeply attached to The Hindu . “It is the only English newspaper I read and no other satisfies me. I read it exhaustively, a habit I developed from childhood. I started reading the daily when I was a student. I was not a subscriber then. A school teacher, who was a subscriber, used to pick his copy from the news-stand every evening allowing me the opportunity to read it in the morning thanks to the kind gesture of the newspaper vendor,” he added.
He believed he had acquired a wide vocabulary by reading The Hindu.
“Even when I was a student, I knew about the high standards maintained by The Hindu . In the library of the St. Aloysius College, where I did my degree course, there was a book containing a selection of the best editorials published in newspapers across the world. It carried two editorials published in The Hindu ,” he recalled.
