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Dec

My friend Mr K Gopal Pandey

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Prof Pradeep Mathur

New Delhi | Tuesday | 3 December 2024

  Family members and friends, old   and not so old,  met at the Chinmaya Bhavan  auditorium on Sunday last  to pay tributes  to an amazing person who touched their lives and made a  lasting on their minds. He was Krishna Gopal Pandey who preferred to write his name as K. Gopal Pandey, inspired perhaps by famous editor Padam Bhushan R. Madhavan Nair  
 I first met  Pandeyji in late  1970s when he came to The Tribune to appear for an interview.  I was already working there and I was happy to know  that somebody  from the Lucknow background  waswanting to  join The Tribune.   So we  had a good meeting in which he asked me things about the organisation and its bosses. I was happy to share the information with him . Mr Pandey  got selected, but for some reason he could not join The Tribute. Then  I shifted  to Delhi in 1980 .  My office on the Zafar Marg  was close to Mandi House crossing where at FICCI he was heading their PR Department.    Our meetings became quite frequent.  We soon discovered that there was much in common between two of us.   Both of us had Lucknow  background, both of us had studied at Lucknow University though at different times and  both of us had come up  in life after  hard work and struggle.   There were certain other things also in common.   Both of us had wives who were in teaching  jobs and were staying away from Delhi and we had problems like running households and  children’s care and their education etc. 
As PR head of FICCI  Mr Pandey attracted a lot journalists for news and other favours.  But somehow I stuck a deep emotional bond with him and instead of being professional our relations became personal which extended to our two families.  This deep emotional bond proved to be ever lasting. When he left on his eternal journey last week I felt I have lost a close family member. 
 Mr Pandey was a man of many qualities of head and heart.   He was always very positive in his approach to life.   He had deep empathy for those around him and  he had a great sense of humour marked by a rare trait  to laugh at himself.  He had no status complex and he met everybody with equal grace.   Though he knew so many people  he  was able to access everyone thoroughly with his rare insight.
  Mr Pandey was brilliant and  had kinetic intellectual  energy.   He had a lot of creative instinct.  I many times told him to channelise his creative energy into something tangible like writing a book or taking sessions with media students but he always refused. He was the only friend in Delhi’s media world whom I wanted but could not bring to the class room to talk to my students in IIMC, New Delhi, India’s most prestigious media institute.
  There are some senior journalists of Lucknow background  who have been good friends of Pandeyji. They met and recorded their tributes in a video discussion. The video is on U tube and can be seen by clicking on the link  mediamap .co .in 
Like many others the    Press Club of India  was the second home to Pandeyji . Now in his absence the  Press Club to me will never be the same again. 
Thinking of who all will miss him after he is gone from this world, the  famous Urdu poet Jigar Moradabadi , a great drinker and lover of  liquor bar said    :

जानकर मिन्जुमलऐ खासाने  मैखाना मुझे ,

मुदत्तों रोया करेंगे जामो पैमाना मुझे |

 ( Remembering me as someone greatly  fond of drinks and a special  member  of the liquor bar, the measure and glasses of wine will remember me for a long long time)
Pandeyji was not fonds of drinks and the Press Club is not a pub but the cups and saucers as well as the chairs and tables of the Press Club will no doubt remember Pandeyji for a long time to come.
Adieu dear good old friend !

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