ಹಿರಿಯ ಪತ್ರಕರ್ತ, ‘ದ ವೀಕ್ ‘ನಿಯತಕಾಲಿಕಾದ ಸಂಪಾದಕರಾಗಿದ್ದ ಕೆ ಸಚ್ಚಿದಾನಂದ ಮೂರ್ತಿ ಇನ್ನಿಲ್ಲ.

ತೀವ್ರ ಅನಾರೋಗ್ಯದಿಂದ ಅವರು ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನ ಆಸ್ಪತ್ರೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ನಿಧನ ಹೊಂದಿದರು.

ಸಚ್ಚಿಯ ಆತ್ಮೀಯರಾದ ಪ್ರಸ್ತುತ ‘ದ ಟೈಮ್ಸ್ ಆಫ್ ಇಂಡಿಯಾ’ ಪತ್ರಿಕೆಯ ಅಮೆರಿಕಾದ ಪ್ರತಿನಿಧಿ ಚಿದಾನಂದ ರಾಜಘಟ್ಟ ಅವರ ಫೇಸ್ ಬುಕ್ ಬರಹವನ್ನು ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಕಟಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದೇವೆ

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Tribute: Sachi and and the Aamele Chronicles

Courtesy: Chidu Rajghatta

Mourning the passing and celebrating the life of Sachi, formally K.S.Sachidananda Murthy, friend, fellow traveler, and fabulous reporter, long associated with The Week magazine of the Malayala Manorama group.

Sachi passed away from multiple organ failure this morning in Bangalore after a tough battle that followed a lung transplant, his courage and effervescence shining through the final days. I met him thrice in recent months on brief visits home, and each time I was struck by his indomitable spirit even as he breathed through an oxygen canister by his side.

Although he had technically “retired” from the profession, his journalistic instincts, honed by some 40 years of outstanding reporting, never left him. On the second of those visits, after I phoned to tell him I’d drop by but not spend more than 15 minutes with him (mainly not to tax him, given the stream of friends who kept dropping in), he called back to ask if I could delay my visit by half hour — because he was sitting in on an editorial meeting over zoom — while he was breathing oxygen from a canister because of damaged lungs! You’re nuts dude, I told him, you need to take it easy. But there was more to follow. After we had nattered for a while and I took leave and headed back in an Uber, he whatsapped me his column that had appeared that morning!

Our friendship goes back to the 1980s, when we began our careers as typewriter guerillas in The Indian Express before moving to magazine journalism (he with The Week and me with Sunday), where we were frenemies long before the term became current, without ever losing our affection for each other. He was also my “senior” in J-school and National College in Bangalore. We moved to Delhi around the same time mid-80s, two Bangalore boys in a profession dominated by bongs and mallus, about whom we shared plentiful jokes — and abundant admiration.

He was a reporter par excellence, and our colleague Ramakrishna Upadhya (also ex-Express) loves relating the “Sachi technique” of ferreting out news. In conversations, over phone or in person, Sachi would always goad sources with the word “aamele?” (roughly, in Kannada, “and then?” or in Hindi “aur phir?”) whenever the exchange flagged. It was a gentle inquisition that would somehow persuade a source to reveal more than he or she intended to. Ram’s nickname for Sachi was Aamele.

Earlier this year, Malayala Manorama, a fine institution that treated him with great respect and affection, presented him oon his retirementwith a memento with the following inscription

To Sachi, with love

A brilliant reporter, marvelous Chief of Bureau and inspirational Resident Editor, Sachidananda Murthy the amazing journalist, insightful columnist and astute media strategist energised The Week and Malayala Manorama for forty fascinating years, giving the institution his heart and soul, earning its enduring love and respect. Caring, genial and witty, this wonderful human being invested himself with immaculate integrity.

I’ve seldom seen a media house treat a journalist with such love and care, and there’s a little background to this. In 1983, both Sachi and I peeled off from Indian Express for magazine journalism, which was booming at that time. There were two jobs up for grabs in Bangalore — correspondent for Sunday, from the ABP Group, and for the newly launched The Week, from the Manorama group. I took Sunday and he took The Week at almost the same time. Couple of weeks after he joined, Sachi had an accident that put him out of action for several months, and eventually left him with a slight limp after multiple surgeries. I think Manorama took very good care of him (considering he had been them very briefly at that time) and he repaid the care by never leaving them for another job.

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Even after I peeled off to the US in the 1990s, we kept in touch with regular visits across seven seas, particularly after his sons made their way here to work initially at Amazon in Indianapolis. He and Chandrika, his wife who was his rock, visited us in Takoma Park when Diya was a toddler, and we were fortunate to be in Bengaluru when his older son was getting married, out tykes running riot at the wedding (the composite photo says it all!). Suffice to say we were more than friends; he was family.

The last time I saw him was at the Apollo Hospital in Jayanagar, Bangalore, where he had to be rushed after an emergency. It turned out to be a false alarm. But while we were waiting outside listening to grim prognosis by the doctors (they were waiting on a lung for transplant), there was Sachi, with all kinds of tubes going in and out of him, insisting on talking about breaking news. “There will be plenty of time for editorial meetings… get well soon,” I told him sternly.

Sadly, not.

But I’m betting he’s out there or up there at pearly gates sniffing out the next scoop, asking “aamele?”