TWO EDITORS PAR EXCELLENCE

R.E. Hawkins and Soli S. Mehta

   It was tragic that within three weeks two editors who had nurtured the Himalayan Journal passed away. R.E. Hawkins passed away at the age of 82, while Soli S. Mehta died of a sudden heart attack at 62. I had learnt all sorts of editorial tricks from them and owe them a personal tribute.

    It was in 1978 that Jagdish Nanavati, Hon. Secretary, quietly broached the subject of my helping in the Himalayan Journal (H.J.) as Soli Mehta, editor for past eight issues was leaving for Nigeria. H.J., first published in 1928, had had a string of great editors like Kenneth Mason, H.W. Tobin. T.H. Braham and Soli Mehta. I had no editorial experience, not even of running a college magazine. My only qualification was having published two editions of the guide book Trek the Sahyadris. My reaction was of course to say ‘no’, but Jagdish knows his job, master-fixer that he is for the Himalayan Club, and I was persuaded. I was assured that R.E. Hawkins would lend a hand.

    When I first met Soli and Hawkins their expertise and experience was evident. After explaining the current issue (the Golden Jubilee issue, vol. XXXV) over a few meetings Soli handed over the files and left for Nigeria leaving his beloved baby (H.J.) in my care. We kept in regular touch—regular correspondent that he was.

    Hawkins lived quite close to me. That facilitated close contact between us. Almost every morning we would exchange articles and notes. Everytime I entered his house, Hawkins would be working at his table in front of a wall lined with books. He was a man of few words and watched me with keen eyes. He established fresh conventions for H.J. to match international standards. He visited our printers often and when they delayed publication he changed over to new printers. If there was a reference to be made he would go to the Asiatic Library and the following day a footnote would be added. As a teacher he was made of the stuff of the old, revered gurus. I was allowed to make my mistakes. He would put a ‘?’ there and that was it. I had to search for an answer and of course finally he was there to correct it if I failed after making sufficient effort. When we read the galley or page proofs we compared notes, Hawkins with his old but experienced eyes would found more corrections. But I did not feel belittled. He would make a small nod with his head and I knew I had to improve. During the decade that I visited his house, only once did I sit down to have coffee and discuss unrelated subjects. No, he was not a recluse, but he had work to do, there was a sense of urgency about him, that his expertise not to be wasted. Incidentally my old servant Vishram, who delivered my papers to Hawkins always came back with news got over a cup of tea from Hawkins’ servant. He sometimes said, he ‘talked’ to Hawkins. That’s how I learnt that Hawkins knew many Indian languages which had led to the publication of Common Indian Words in English.

    Hawkins was fond of trekking and he had roamed in the Western Ghats from the 1940s with different companions. He rarely talked about it but whenever I mentioned my latest trek, Hawkins had been there. Once a prominent local daily gave a full-page coverage about how a historic fort was ‘discovered’ by a local photographer in 1970s. I was furious at this sly claim as this place had been visited and known for generations. I wanted to write to the paper. Hawkins visited the photographer-author next day. When I asked him whether the author had said he had ‘discovered’ the fort or whether this was one big distortion by the press, Hawkins quietly replied: ‘He doesn’t say he has discovered the fort, he says he has built it! He is so egoistical and the claim so much of a humbug that it must be ignored’. Thus I learnt the important lesson to ignore the trivial. Though we fought for truth in H.J. we ignored the sensational and ignorant press.

    His walking sprees continued till he could walk. Once he went to the airport walking from Pedder Road (about 15 km) to receive a friend. He always climbed up and down the seven storeys of my building and never sat for long. My children would meet Hawkins in his white shorts walking on the road almost anytime of the day. He did not like a telephone at his house and led a spartan life travelling by local buses and trains.

    Behind all the austerity was a genius, as is often the case always. Hawkins was attracted to Gandhian ideals and secured a job in a Delhi school to be in India. As fate would have it the school was closed in response to Gandhiji’s call for non-co-operation with the alien system of education. So he joined Oxford University Press in India. This was in 1930. From 1937 till his retirement in 1970 Hawkins was General Manager of OUP. He was the publisher of the works of Jim Corbett, Minoo Masani, K.P.S. Menon and Verrier Elwin amongst many others. He was a close friend of the great ornithologist Dr. Salim Ali. Dr. Salim Ali’s autobiography Fall of a Sparrow is dedicated to him—‘To Hawk’. He was the General Editor of the monumental work Encyclopaedia of Indian Natural History published in 1987. This was the centenary publication of Bombay Natural History Society of which he was a Vice-President.

    As I started editing with him we had our first difference. He insisted he would be an ‘Assistant Editor’. He firmly believed that only a mountaineer could understand the intricacies of mountain climbing articles. He refused to be persuaded. This was another great trait of his, he did a lot for many causes but took very little credit for anything. He was genuinely true to himself and had adopted humility as a way of life. On the title page of H.J. his name appeared in ‘8 point’ (smaller type) below mine. When I corrected it to appear in ‘10 point’ (slightly bigger type) he struck it off. When I restored it again an angry Hawkins climbed seven storeys to my flat with: ‘Shall we stop scratching each other’s back?’ The printing tradition is that an assistant’s name should appear smaller and that rule was not to be violated even though his contribution was in ‘12 point’ (still bigger type).

    For eight years we edited the journal bringing out eight issues. During all these years we kept in contact with Soli at Nigeria. He procured articles with his contacts, suggested subjects and made enquiries. Once there was a poem on the mountaineer’s world at high altitude (H.J., vol. 36) called ‘Ballad of Bethertoli’. It naturally included four-letter words that mountaineers used at high altitude. I wondered whether these should be included in the journal. Jagdish Nanavati strongly objected to such ‘filth’ in our respected journal. Hawkins came with Oxford Dictionary to analyse each word, to determine whether it could be classified as ‘dirty’. He cleared all except two words. Finally all the material was forwarded to Soli at Nigeria for a final verdict. ‘Keep every . . . .’ word of it. We don’t want to be left behind in these days of permissiveness, a curt telex settled the issue. And so it was fun learning from those masters.

    Soli returned to India in 1985 and I was glad to hand over his baby to him immediately. In the meantime Hawkins had retired from all public life on completion of 75 years. He was made an Honorary Member of the Himalayan Club and continued to be available for guidance. Soli took over with all his bottled-up energy. I immediately became his assistant which fact surprised some. Rarely does a current editor relinquishes his post to become an assistant (particularly in government publications here, where battles are fought to retain the position). But this transition was my tribute to the greatness of Soli. He never made me feel in anyway inferior and I always treated him as my guru. It was natural for me to step down.

    The policies of editing remained the same but the modes changed completely. At Soli’s house, there were always pakoras and tea, and side-tracking to various subjects and lots of laughter. Soli’s Parsee humour regaled all of us. Soli liked to laugh at everything including himself. He once passed on a letter from Polish climber Voytek Kurtyka to me in between a meeting. Soli had requested him for an article, which had already been printed in our last journal. Kurtyka wrote: ‘Don’t you read your own journal?’ Soli added with a grin, ‘Look I messed up’. Everytime I would ring him up his strong welcoming voice would boom through the phone. Bol Dikra (Yes, son). And the conversation would start. Exchanging editing notes in the margins was also fun with Soli. Once, after striking out some utter nonsense he wrote: ‘Shit’, I wrote there: ‘Soli be careful, we preserve these papers in the archives for posterity and people will refer to them after many years. The papers came back with Soli’s curt writing below mine, ‘Sorry, I did not realise that, I’ll use stronger words next time’. He was irrepressible.

    Apart from editing, Soli was an excellent pianist and cellist. He regularly played in the Bombay Chamber Orchestra. He worked for ICI (India) from 1950 to 1985 when he retired. He served in various senior positions in Bombay, London, Rishra (Bengal), Sudan and Nigeria. He had a degree from St. Catherine’s College, Cambridge. He travelled a lot and met many editors, trekkers and mountaineers the world over. He trekked regularly in the Himalaya and gave talks with excellent slides as visuals. He was Vice-President of the Himalayan Club and handled all the organisation of the Club’s Diamond Jubilee in 1988. He gave a talk on ‘Executive Trekking’ where he demonstrated how he stuffed himself with food whilst enjoying the beauty of a trek. To a packed hall he came away from the mike to demonstrate, ‘I was like this when I left’ he took his stomach in, and, ‘Like this when I returned’ and stuck his paunch out, the audience burst into laughing. Only Soli could do such a thing.

    Soli always talked about his daughters with great verve. Naushad is a senior journalist with Time Magazine. U.S.A. (‘Like father like daughter’, he added) and Yasmen is practising Modern Dance at California. His wife Meheru was a constant source of inspiration to him. She read, corrected manuscripts and reviewed books. During 1976 to 1979 between them they produced eight issues of the Himalayan Journal without much support from any quarters during the darker days of the Club. Soli kept this international Club alive and going—a debt the Club can never repay.

    In 1988 the Himalayan Club celebrated its Diamond Jubilee. To commemorate the event it was proposed to publish Exploring the Hidden Himalaya (Hodders and Stoughton) jointly written by Soli and myself. At once Soli flung himself into it with great energy. We collected slides, material and wrote all the chapters. It was a treat sharing Soli’s lunches and his humour. The book was published in early 1990. He was not around to see it. Death came suddenly. A heart-attack snatched him away on 4 November 1989. He had looked forward to retired life, music, editing, writing further books, H.J.s and lots of fun.

    With Hawkins passing away on 13 October 1989 after an year of illness, suddenly two persons who had done such a lot for the Himalayan Journal were gone. It is a challenge to keep to their standards and keep up their good work. I would have sent this piece to them for editing immediately after writing it. But perhaps there was some urgent editing to be done up there. Heaven now has two editors par excellence.