Whether it was crafting flawless editorial pages or recounting tales of his newsroom days, Vipul Nautiyal’s legacy is one of dedication, warmth and passion for his craft
He flaunted the title “calamity reporter” with pride as he vividly narrated the story behind how Dr Chandan Mitra, editor-in-chief of The Pioneer, gave him the name. Known to friends as Nauty (that’s how he spelled it) and to juniors as Vipul Sir, or Nauty Sir, I was introduced to him in August 2021, while writing a test for an editorial role at The Pioneer. I hadn’t met him before, but had heard things about him — his co-workers respected him, but they feared him even more. It was my first stint in the media and I was nervous.
I was supposed to join his team and work on the Edit and Oped pages. By the time I was almost done with the test, I was looking around wondering who Mr Nautiyal could be. That was when an old-looking fellow, who was humbly dressed and had uncombed hair and a grey beard, looked at me and said: “Cheating kara du”? I laughed it off. This couldn’t have been the Vipul Nautiyal I had been told about. But then an HR executive arrived and my paper was handed over to him. I was interviewed and ended up addressing this “old-looking, humbly dressed” fellow as “Vipul Sir” ever since. I learned an important lesson that day. Nevertheless, I was hired.
A few weeks of working with him I realised that he was extremely honest towards his job, so much so that he made me question myself. He would reach the office sharp at 2 pm, retouch his already super-organised desk and begin the thinking work — often with a glass in his hand. He was proud of the work he did, he knew he was good. He had an impeccable eye for detail — if it was Vipul Nautiyal’s page then it had to be error-free, even if nobody was going to read it, even if he hadn’t been paid in months. Headlines were paid even more attention, they had to be perfectly symmetric — a habit that I picked involuntarily. This was the Vipul effect. He once recounted an incident from his days at The Times of India, when Dr Mitra had asked him to return to The Pioneer. Later, during the exit interview at TOI, when Mr Nautiyal was asked “TOI chhod kar Pioneer kaun jata hai?” (Who leaves TOI to join Pioneer) he replied with lit-up eyes: “Jisko Chandan Mitra bulaata hai.” He knew how to efficiently run a desk and bring the team up to speed with some flair.
A senior editor at TOI says, “Vipul Sir could beat you in a game of table tennis single-handedly, with his favourite drink in his other hand.” Mr Nautiyal often mentioned that he received job offers from almost all leading media houses, except for The Indian Express, for which, he said, he waited for quite some time. In my five months of working with him, I never saw him snap at anybody — unless somebody caught him on the phone during work hours. He was known to be unpredictable at times. But he was there for his colleagues — those who worked with him will agree. His way of getting his point across was his own. When I had to negotiate my salary while joining TOI — where he had referred me — he told me to ask for a massive raise, saying: “Purse bhaley hi HR ke paas hai, but tu journalist hai, boli tu lagayega” (Even though the purse is with HR, you are a journalist, so you will call the shots). He had more confidence in me than I had in myself. Those who teamed up with him absorbed a great deal of wisdom in all walks of life.
That’s how Vipul Nautiyal was. Besides being an exceptional storyteller, he had a song, a sher or an anecdote for almost every occasion. He was a fanboy when it came to Dev Anand. He often wrote an editorial piece on Dev Sahab’s birth anniversary. He was proud of the fact that he had seen Guide several times.
He would often play Mohammed Rafi songs or Mehdi Hassan ghazals, lower the volume, and write the edit columns.
(The writer is a former staffer of The Pioneer; views are personal)
