The Unknown Nair

From a nondescript village in Kerala to India’s financial capital Bombay, the journey of Madhav Krishna Bhaskar Nair (MKB to most colleagues) is a delightful insight into both the pre and post Independence days of economic and business journalism and perhaps life itself. MKB, the former deputy editor of the Economic Times, was also the acting editor of the pink paper daily for a brief period.

The narrative is peppered with unusual anecdotes like a chance meeting with the Ethiopian emperor in a barber’s shop, a scoop while covering a UN conference that drew the ire of PM Indira Gandhi, a meeting in Japan with PM Rajiv Gandhi and IFS officer turned private secretary Mani Shankar Aiyar, a long-running association with the late Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray, a near run-in with West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu, and encounters with greats like Balraj Sahni and Prithviraj Kapoor.

The Unkown Nair is a rare and personal insight into an arm of journalism that has come to be all pervading, through the eyes of a person who has seen it all at close quarters.