There were two sets of stars at the launch of the Golden Jubilee issue of the Bombay Chartered Accountant Journal (BCAJ) – on the one hand were five young music students at the Symphony Orchestra of India, NCPA, and on the other hand were stalwarts who had consistently contributed to the Journal for decades.
The glittering event was held on Wednesday, 6th March, 2019 in the C.K. Nayudu Hall of the Cricket Club of India and attracted a full house of office-bearers, eminent chartered accountants, committed contributors and unabashed admirers of the BCAJ. When the special commemorative issue was formally released, there was prolonged applause, bursting of balloons and a shower of confetti.
BCAJ Editor Raman Jokhakar, who was the master of ceremonies, started by welcoming the guests and introducing the young musicians at the ‘Birthday Celebrations of the BCA Journal’. First off, Gauri Khanna played Air Pergolesi and Dance Jenkenson on the cello. She was followed by Pranaya Jain on the flute rendering Rondo Mozart. Leah Divecha on the violin and Tivona Murphy D’Souza (D-Bass) rendered the popular Bollywood number “Senorita”. And Sangeeta Jokhakar ended the performance with a Bollywood medley and a cavatina by J. Raff on the violin. The budding, young musicians (some of whom will become the stars of tomorrow) and their teachers were felicitated with bouquets and mementoes.
Next, Raman invited the chief guest, Sunil Nair, Mumbai Resident Editor of the Times of India and BCAS President Sunil Gabhawalla to the dais. He stressed that the purpose of the celebration was to honour and acknowledge those who had contributed to the BCAJ for long and enabled it to reach the fabulous figure of fifty. He also quoted Steve Jobs who had said, “One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are.”
Thereafter, the President spoke about the service provided by the Journal and acknowledged the scores of dedicated people who had nurtured it for years. He then introduced the chief guest.
Sunil Nair, who spoke on the “Future of the Print Media”, gave a brief and informative talk. He spoke about similarities in the roles of auditors and the press. He stressed the need for independence of media and also spoke about the future trends in media by embellishing his points with statistics.
He was astounded by the fact that the BCAJ had been published without a break for fifty long years and depended totally on subscriptions. Another unique achievement was that it was being brought out by chartered accountants who stole time from their professions to publish it on a voluntary basis. Warming up, he was candid enough to admit that although The Times of India was the biggest English language newspaper in the world, of late it had slid to the third position overall in terms of copies sold in India. The first two positions were now held by Hindi news dailies and the Times was no longer the highest-selling daily in the land. The silver lining, according to him, was that overall the circulation of newspapers in India was on the upswing – whereas in the rest of the world it was seeing a pronounced fall.
In other words, he stressed, the printed word still carried weight, and although television, the internet and other electronic forms of dissemination of news were becoming popular all over the world, they had still to make any huge impact in India. This was probably because of the late “blooming” of the Indian economy. Nair’s talk was well received and he was presented with a memento by Vice-President Manish Sampat.
Raman then spoke about the early days when editing DID NOT involve backspace, select, delete, cut, copy, paste. He stated that instead of a big bang special issue, the Editorial Board had decided to carry Golden Pages throughout the year which contained Interviews, Views and Counterviews and Special Articles (32 in number) amongst other regular features.
Just before the release of the last issue of Volume 50, past Editors Ashok Dhere, Gautam Nayak, Sanjeev Pandit and Anil J. Sathe along with Editorial Board members Kishor Karia and Anup Shah were invited to be part of the team to release the special issue. The twelfth issue of Volume 50 was then released by them.
The next segment consisted of honouring the Editors and the authors, writers and columnists of existing features. Raman started off with the words of Khalil Gibran: “You give little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.” What Gibran meant was giving of one’s time, because one’s time was one’s life. He also spoke about the past eight Editors and acknowledged the presence of the family members of the Late B.V. Dalal, the Late Ajay Thakkar and the Late Narayan Varma who served as Publisher for a long time. He also regretted the absence of K.C. Narang who was indisposed on that day.
Four past Editors, Ashok Dhere, Gautam Nayak, Sanjeev Pandit and Anil Sathe, were felicitated by the chief guest with a special memento designed for the event for their diligent, meticulous, persistent and focused contribution to the BCAJ. The words on the mementoes read: “In appreciation of your long and outstanding contribution to the BCA Journal…”
There was special applause when President Sunil took the mike in between and requested the chief guest (himself a resident Editor) to present a trophy to the BCAJ Editor, Raman.
In a touching gesture, Raman did not overlook those of his predecessors who were no longer with us. Thus, bouquets were presented to Mrs. Dalal, Mrs. Thakkar and Mrs. Varma, spouses of late Editors and Publisher.
Moving on, Raman spoke about a set of Japanese people called TAKUMI, which stood for artisans. This word could be written in many different ways in Kanji characters and each one of them gave different meanings – adroit, eminent, clear and so on. It is said that the intensity of the Takumis’ work borders on obsession – they are precise, absorbed and meticulous. These people are real experts. One of their characteristics is – Ganbaru – or to persevere, to stay firm by doing one’s best, with obsessive attention to detail. All of this is considered to be a unique talent in Japan.
The twenty five feature writers of the BCAJ, he stated, are perhaps best described by these two words: They are “Takumis” or artisans whose hands dance and flow in concert, designing and creating a new form each month.
Each of the features was introduced with a brief history, how it was curated and who were the people who wrote them. Each of the feature writers was then presented with a trophy as a mark of appreciation and regard for their consistency, quality and length of voluntary service to the Journal. It was notable that some feature writers had been contributing for more than 30 years on a monthly basis.
In an interesting twist, the trophies were not presented by the chief guest or by the Editor. Rather, the past Editors and President were called upon to make the presentations. Editor Raman, who compered the event, included not only facts and anecdotes during the presentations, but also sprinkled a fair dose of humour on the proceedings. He requested Gautam Nayak to present the trophy to the other Nayak — Mayur. Similarly, one Anil (Sathe) was asked to present a trophy to another Anil (Doshi). A round of applause greeted Anup Shah when Raman pointed out that when he had started off as a contributor, he was called CA. Anup Shah, but after nearly two hundred columns he had now become Dr. Anup Shah.
The presentation included a specially-designed trophy to all the regular contributors who had been writing for more than five years for the features concerned. Each trophy contained a sketch of the feature writer himself, along with a citation mentioning the feature. More than 40 trophies were ready for distribution.
Raman also recognised those involved in bringing out the Journal : V.K. Sharma, the Knowledge Manager, and Ms. Navina Vishwanathan, the Assistant Knowledge Manager, Anmol Purohit and the BCAS team. The printers, M/s Spenta Multimedia, were also present and each of the team members was acknowledged with a round of applause.
And then it was time to cut the ceremonial cake. It was a huge cake, to put it mildly, and it required the efforts of Raman, Sunil and some of the past Editors to cut it. The icing on top of the cake was designed to look like the cover of the issue that was released on the occasion.
Apart from the Editors, office-bearers and authors, the C.K. Nayudu Hall also saw the presence of some of the chartered accountants whose absorbing life stories featured in the article “Kaleidoscopic View” in the Golden Jubilee issue. Among them were Motichand Gupta, now Senior Manager for Taxation with Ion-Exchange (India) Ltd.; Ms. Nandini Shankar, CA, violinist and music teacher; Kisan Daule, who established his own practice after serving Transworld Shipping for 20 years (he retired as Senior GM); and Brij Mohan Chaturvedi, who is the third generation in a family having five generations in the CA world (he was accompanied by his granddaughter Tina, who is the fifth-generation CA in the Chaturvedi family).
A sumptuous repast was laid out for the guests who partook of it with great delight. As the eventful night came to an end, the hosts and the guests headed home carrying pleasant memories of an evening well spent.
