E-Paper
Liquor into printing ink: A newspaper story
The column talk about the journey of Kanekal Nettakallappa Guruswamy from a liquor baron to a founder of Deccan Herald and Prajavani
Last week, one of Bengaluru’s well-loved, much-respected and most enduring institutions, synonymous with the city itself, turned a robust 75. Like many others of that vintage in the Cantonment, this one also started life on what used to be South Parade (today’s MG Road). And like so many other well-known institutions in the city – schools, hospitals, film production houses, sports centres, and horse racing – this one too was bankrolled by a local liquor baron.
If you want to split hairs over it, Kanekal Nettakallappa Guruswamy was from Ballari, not Bengaluru. But it was only after his family – like Dr Rajkumar’s family, they belonged to the toddy-tapping Ediga caste – moved here in Guruswamy’s youth that their fortunes took off. As the oldest of six siblings, Guruswamy was inducted into the heat and dust of excise auction halls when he was only 18. And a good thing, too, for his father would pass unexpectedly in 1928, when he was only 26.
In the decades that followed, Guruswamy’s business went into overdrive, turning him into a wealthy, influential figure, as recognizable by the large solitaire on his finger, the immaculately-tied white kachche panche, the closed-collar coat, the large white turban and the Mont Blanc pen in his pocket as by the long black Cadillac that was his steed of choice. Indulging his passions for horse riding, horse racing (although he never himself placed a single bet), and shikar – his grandson, KN Hari Kumar, in his recent memoir about his grandparents, recalls a room full of hunting trophies, including tiger, gaur and bear heads, stag antlers, elephant tusks, and more – to the fullest, he seemed to want or need nothing more. Joy reigned on the domestic front as well – not having children of their own, he and his wife Kadiramma had adopted the son of Guruswamy’s brother, Anjanappa, naming him Nettakallappa after his grandfather.
Nothing in this picture would suggest what was to come in 1948, when Guruswamy decided, seemingly on a whim, to risk both fortune and reputation on a venture that no one in Mysore state had tried before. Notwithstanding the fact that several Kannada newspapers he had supported had folded up, he decided he would start what the city had been missing – a first-class English daily. A space had just come up for sale on 16, South Parade, which was just right for the newspaper’s offices. It had most recently housed a popular dance hall called Funnel’s, but now that the Raj had waltzed out, the Irish owners were looking for buyers.
On Wednesday, 16th June, 1948, after much last-minute panic – the inexperience of everyone involved in the enterprise had ensured that the original printing press picked had messed up the production, and a Kannada press had to be pressed into service at short notice – an eight-page tabloid, costing 1 anna a pop, was ushered into life with a small tea party ‘at the residence of Deccan Herald’. A few months later, it was followed by the launch of its equally iconic sister publication in Kannada, Prajavani.
Guruswamy’s biggest triumph was the recruiting of Deccan Herald’s first editor, the legendary Pothan Joseph, who had also been the founding editor of the Pakistani broadsheet ‘Dawn’, the editor of Hindustan Times, and a very popular columnist (his long-running column, ‘Over a cup of tea’, ran for over half a century!)
Both Deccan Herald and Prajavani would take their own sweet time to turn a profit, but Guruswamy never faltered. Today, it is his three grandsons who continue to bring news of their hometown to nostalgic Bengalureans all over the world from 75, MG Road.
(Roopa Pai is a writer who has carried on a longtime love affair with her hometown Bengaluru)
