Not just a storm in a tea cup

when mrinal pande quit as dd anchor, it was one more act of rebellion in a long career which seems littered with very public fallouts mrinal pande has a thing about tea. at ndtv, where she worked as the eternally-smiling hindi anchor, the roys were very particular about how they served their brew, and also very class-conscious - one set of cups for people like us (plus), another for people like them (plts).at doordarshan, where she worked till july-end this year, again the officials were very courteous. "they always heard you out, gave you a saucer for your dripping tea bag. but they did little else," she says. but that's not the only reason she quit the national broadcaster after persevering for over a year as one of the two hindi anchors on dd news. as she wrote in a letter to prasar bharati ceo anil baijal, despite repeated reminders, her contract was renewed only for short periods. not just that, the basic tools of journalism were denied to her and her fellow anchors - for instance accreditation. "i was reporting on the assam elections from guwahati but didn't have a pass to get into the dd kendra. imagine that. it saddens me to see what they're doing to dd," she says. "with ndtv, i didn't care. it had no atma (soul). when i expressed my dissatisfaction with the way things were run, i was told to take it or leave it. i left. how can you argue with the anchor who's also the owner?" at 55, pande has never been known to mince words - though she did pull her punches when it came to writing her autobiographical novel, my own witness, where sanjay 'hamlet' ranade was certainly the quite-unlikeable prannoy roy and krishna, a fifty-something hindi journalist was surely herself. she even gave prime minister atal behari vajpayee a piece of her mind at a recent editors' guild meet, for allowing the prasar bharati to hang fire. yet pande laughingly denies that she actively looks for trouble. "when you see something as viable as dd being destroyed, as a citizen you cannot but speak up," she says. she misses dd though - "i would travel to really remote places and ngos would present me with a sari and say they wanted to see me wearing it on the bulletin. it was really moving." these saris, usually worn with mismatched blouses, became her trademark. was there a difference in the way she was perceived on star news and on dd? "yes. on star news, the chatterati would say it's so good that hindi is finally getting its due. when i was on dd, they would tell me: 'my dear, we don't watch dd'." the former editor of vama and saptahik hindustan has always carried her hindi status as her calling card. currently, she's got two months to go for the release of her book on reproductive health. she might go back to print and do tv part-time - not the other way around, she says. "for that you have to be an english language editor," she says, not being able to resist a go at her favourite punching bag. the mother of two - radhika, an oncologist, and rohini, an assistant professor at columbia university - and wife of sail chairman arvind pande, is certainly busy though. whether it's organising functions at the indian women's press corps, of which she's a founder-member, or writing for newspapers. and if you expect her to be crying into her tea, forget it.