South Indian culture is incompatible with North India: T.J.S. George

Veteran journalist T.J.S. George talks about his new book, which profiles India through the biographies of 35 personalities

The maintenance man carrying a big canister walks through the garden outside the French doors at which we are seated. When he announces that he is about to release large clouds of mosquito-repelling gas, T.J.S. George briskly gets out of his chair and slides the glass doors shut. “This other door is only mesh,” he clarifies, “it lets all the smoke into the living room.”

A wall of books dominates this living room and its tasteful interiors, which includes the crockery in which we are served coffee and apple pie. “The decor is the work of my sister, Sheba,” George’s son, author Jeet Thayil, explains.

We begin discussing George’s latest book,  The Dismantling of India — a compendium of short biographies of 35 Indian personalities, which illustrates this nation’s trajectory, from Independence. T.J.S. (Thayil Jacob Sony) George is singularly qualified for such an enterprise. His career of 75 years as a journalist began in 1947 — the year of Indian independence. He is 94 years old this year, and he continues to be a working journalist. The 35 personalities in the book are his list of Indians who have made a significant impact on the country’s history, and therefore, our lives. They are people from art, entertainment, politics, science, business, crime and cause.

Typically, such a selection would have been made from a long list of prospects. But George’s subjects have been handpicked decisively, to craft this collection. “As a journalist,” he explains, “I have a sense of understanding who is newsworthy. What do they call it... sixth sense? That sense... it makes me pick somebody as newsworthy.”

Equally typical would be to expect — with the anticipation of tales from behind-the-scenes — that George knew most of them personally, but he is clear that the biographies were written from a professional standpoint alone: “I don’t think I have personally interacted with many of them, or any of them in fact.”

Some names are predictable — Gandhi, Savarkar, Ambedkar, Bal Thackeray, J.R.D. Tata. Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and the Gandhi family — Indira to Rahul. Some are surprising inclusions. The bandit Veerappan and India’s most wanted, Dawood Ibrahim, for example. Another is stock market chiseller Harshad Mehta, and Abdul Karim Telgi, who was convicted of counterfeiting stamp paper. “Harshad Mehta used his genius for the wrong ends,” says George, “but that does not detract from his importance. Evil people are also important in the making of a country. And (Telgi) when he was active, controlled a lot of public life.”

Veerappan, a ‘favourite’