Among the stars who became STARS this week is Ronald Vivian Smith, born in Agra on 6 January 1938 and rendered unto the Lord 30 April 2020 in Delhi.

How do we know him? And what do we know of him? This son of the yesteryear journalist Thomas Smith, this pillar in the old redbrick building of The Statesman at the crossing of the Barakhamba Road, this storyteller of the Raj Days, at par with the Charles Allen and Paul Scott. I first met him, when I walked into my first job at the nightshift desk in the 1990s. He was my chief-sub, who I learnt everyone feared. However, I soon found out how kind and genial a person he was and it was he who taught me all about editing, the little that I know. A teacher who finetuned editors. He retired in 1996 as News Editor.

I met him last in 2018. I was privileged that he gave Vitasta his last book, From the Bylanes of Delhi, Agra Jaipur and I got the chance to process the manuscript. There was little one could change; Ronnie Smith, educated at St Peter's College and St John's College, from where he got his MA degree in English Literature, was the master storyteller who held even his editors spell-bound. I had taken him a bouquet of flowers. I had not seen him for so many years. He held my hand and had tears in his eyes, when I left, misty-eyed. As Rakshanda Jalil said in her Foreword to this last book: 'Were it not for Smith Sahib and that treasure trove that is his memory, we would have been mehroom, bereft, of the story behind the Pir of Bachon ka Ghar, or the New Year festivities at Ludlow Castle, or who was the Thakur's Sleek Beauty, or what's the mystery behind the Owls for Slaughter, or what and where is the Hell on Dunghill. It is these and scores of such tales that find mention in this book. Saved from being lost forever, given the short life newspaper columns have, and especially in the age before the internet when old articles never made it to the archives, collections such as these acquire great significance.' Having given us a Treasure-trove, May His Soul Rest in Peace.   

Post by : Papri Sri Raman