New Delhi, Sept. 27 -- Khushwant Singh found the name Ronald Vivian Smith too foreign. In real life, popularly known as R V Smith in the Delhi journalism fraternity, he was an unassuming, paan-chewing man who came from Agra to join the then stiff-upper-lip 'The Statesman', where pudding was still served with dinner and on Good Friday the newspaper used to be closed.
Spending his entire life at the Statesman House, reading galley proofs and correcting the copy of new subs, he was leading the life of a typical desk man. One thought Ronnie Sir, as I used to call him, would eventually die like many of his predecessors - unknown and unacknowledged. But a man accustomed to 'qissabaaz' over a chai at any Agra 'chowraha', he found in Old Delhi, especially around the Jama Masjid area where he lived for many years in low-budget hotels, a city overflowing with stories. If Peshawar has Qissa Khwani Bazaar, every alley of Old Delhi has more stories than it.
Smith Saheb, as he was called later in life, found every nook and corner of the area had a 'qissa' (story) lying buried, waiting to be discovered. From here began the journey of the Delhi chronicler. His column in 'The Statesman', 'The Quaint Places', had a quaint byline - Morris Akbarabadi. When I asked him about this strange byline, he said Morris was his father and Akbarabad is the old name of Agra.
Whenever I visited him at his Mayapuri MIG apartment, I found him sitting amid piles of books and newspapers, with his old Underwood portable typewriter open. That was the tragedy of Ronnie Sir. Till his death, he remained an old-fashioned journalist who refused to adopt new technology. He told me that it was too late for him, despite facing difficulty in sending his articles to newspapers through email.
"It's a helluva of a job. First, I type it and then go to a nearby cyber cafe to email it. But there, I have to do proofreading on the computer screen," Ronnie Sir said.
Although Ronnie Sir remained reclusive and invisible and didn't get the attention and acknowledgement, he is still remembered for introducing a Delhi that very few people knew.
One of his greatest admirers, Mayank Austen Soofi of 'The Delhi Walla' fame, once wrote in one of his columns that famous Urdu writer Rakhshanda Jalil told him: "I find Mister Smith's work extremely valuable. No amount of bookish knowledge can compete with the sort of insights and real, lived memories he has. The Delhi he has known at first hand is an altogether different Delhi that cannot be accessed by the generation of writers who came after him. What's more, he has a fund of anecdotes and 'qissa-kahanis' (stories) about the city, its people, places and passions."
Sadia Dehlvi, another friend and fan of Ronnie Sir, who had known him since the 1980s, said: "Once Khushwant jokingly told me that maybe Ronnie should have changed his name, which, according to him, was too foreign-sounding for somebody (principally) writing on Old Delhi. Ronnie is like a faceless djinn to his readers, a kind of character that often appears in his own stories."
A few years ago, before his death, he wrote his obituary in which he bared his heart. He wrote: "To generations in Delhi, nurtured formerly on Mughal and subsequent Anglo-Indian culture, the quintessential romantic was one who synchronised old-world glamour with present-day reality. Of such calibre was Morris Ronald Vivian Smith (born January 6, 1938), whom many thought was a 'gudri-ka-lal' (diamond wrapped in rags), something literally true as he was not very particular about what he wore. With a paan in his mouth, even after losing his teeth, Mr Smith was able to charm readers with his columns - 'Quaint Corner' in 'The Statesman' and 'Down Memory Lane' in 'The Hindu', fine-tuned on a manual typewriter. Generous to a fault, his knowledge was greater than his wit and his interest in such diverse subjects as occult, Egyptology, Grecian, Roman and Hindu mythology, Sufiism, qawwalis, ghazals, 'mujras' and other quaint pursuits greater than them both - as is evident from the dozen-odd books he authored."
Khushwant Singh, in his 'Hindustan Times' column, once wrote: "When it comes to writing on monuments of Delhi - known, little known or unknown - no one does a better job than R V Smith." He marvelled at how Smith could weave historical facts seamlessly with the myths, folklore and local gossip of the Walled City. During their interactions, Singh once paid Smith a lasting compliment, assuring him that his writing would 'never go stale'. Singh deeply regretted that Smith - who lived a highly modest life and travelled by DTC buses - never achieved the massive commercial fame or elegant lifestyle that other elite Delhi chroniclers did.
The great chronicler of Delhi passed away on April 30, 2020. The best tribute came from Mayank, who wants to be like him. Mayank wrote: "What will happen to the lovely Underwood typewriter, which was given to him by his father and on which he wrote every day?"
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.