He was among the last chips off the old block. In many ways, he was a bit of an odd ball too; a man who never took to the steering wheel or the laptop, content as he was with being chauffeur driven in a good old Ambassador, or even travelling by a cycle-rickshaw. A man who loved his pan and his kababs , he was blessed with a rare command over English, the Queen’s language, as he would often say. It was this ease with the language that led to his rise in the world of letters — he had a long innings with The Statesman as a news editor, and a longer one as a columnist with The Hindu , and was a widely published author.
Hailing from Agra, for years Ronald Vivian Smith lived in a hotel near the Jama Masjid. Long years in the hotel begot familiarity, and a family. Two of his sons were born in the hotel, much of his writing as a columnist derived inspiration from the lanes, the mohallas , the havelis , the kuchas , the sarais of Old Delhi.
In an area where a god found abode under every Peepul tree, and a muezzin called out for prayer from a masjid every few metres, Smith was a practising Christian, a proud one too.
A noted editor, for many years, his job was to bring out The Statesman to his readers on time every morning. Among the most punctilious and diligent of editors, Ronald Vivian Smith had a long innings with the paper, from where he retired back in January 1997.
His innings as an editor ended more than 23 years ago, but his innings as a columnist and an author took wing. Even as the paper faded away after his retirement, Smith’s star burned bright, courtesy a weekly column, Quaint Corner, which he started with The Statesman a little under 40 years ago. Then a little over 20 years ago, he added a weekly trip Down Memory Lane with The Hindu Metro Plus .
In his columns, the past never died. It merely hid in untapped zones of Old Delhi, the time when begums chewed paan , the Nawabs watched either a mushaira , or went down to regale themselves with the charms of nautch girls. It was a time too when a Muslim woman of ‘ill repute’ married an Englishman and left her past behind. She went on to build a mosque too, now called the Mubarak Begum Masjid near Hauz Qazi. It was a time when the Pandits of Charkhewalan walked across lanes of Dariba and on to Gauri Shankar Mandir to offer their prayers — the mandir stood in front of the majestic Lal Quila as a symbol of a shared past. The Sikh women of Lajpat Nagar undertook a longer tour to Sisganj Gurdwara in Chandni Chowk. The gurudwara itself stood adjacent to Sunehri Masjid, the mosque which was subjected to the worst horrors by Nadir Shah’s men on Eid in 1739.
Then there were girls who sang carols and disappeared into the shadows. All these moments of a past long gone made their appearance with unfailing regularity in Smith’s columns which continued till he breathed his last on April 30, 2020.
There was an easy familiarity to his writing, an inscrutable charm when he went down memory lane. The stories he came back with reached his readers via a typewriter he used until recently. For years, this correspondent received his typed columns with hand-written corrections. He would use every inch of space, every leaflet was put to use. Just as every anecdote of the years gone by was fished out for his reader.
The way Smith wrote, it seemed he was a fly on the wall when the British ruled with an iron hand, or when the Mughals reigned over a declining empire. The present was so incidental in his columns that a wag once said, “Without history, Smith would not have a future, or present.”
The half-in-jest statement summed up Smith’s writing. His books, Delhi: Unknown Tales of a City , Lingering Charm of Delhi , The Taj: The Myth and Reality , too derived from the world of emperors and queens, nobles and nautch girls. For him, there was no full stop to history.
As a journalist, he was known to be fierce and steadfast, one who would push his subordinates really hard to get the edition out on time, and with minimum mistakes. A subeditor who made the slightest error was a recipient of a huge circle marked around the error on the news clipping, which was then put up on the notice board for everyone to see. For Smith, the work had to be flawless.
After work, he was a different man: one who loved his life, who helped the needy, who wore success with ease, and kept relationships going despite distances.
