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| Kirti Khatri |
Kirti Khatri, Kutch and
Kutchmitra have become synonyms. Any journalist who has been to Kutch on a
journalistic assignment will agree with this introduction of Kirti.
He is a kind of moving encyclopedia of Kutch with a clear vision for better Kutch.
Though Kirti retired as editor
of the leading newspaper of Kutch, Kutchmitra two years ago, he is still
associated with this newspaper as its consulting editor. This is just a
technical shift in his position in the newspaper, for people of Kutch and the
staff of the newspaper it is the same Kirti Khatri.
Recently he had been to
North-East on what he calls a personal study tour and has penned his views in
five weekly articles in his newspaper Kutchmitra for his readers. Not many have the idea that Pakistan first attacked India on April 9, 1965 in Kutch as a kind of trial for full fledged attack on
India later that year.
Earlier this year, Kirti
visited Bangalore to interview 81 year old S J Coelho who was Collector of
Kutch at that time. He had literally seen the attack as he was in the target
border area on that day. Kirti remembered that story and like a great
journalist traced Coelho and interviewed him for the 50 years of the attack in
which CRPF had a huge causality.
Kirti is Kutchi, son of
famous short story writer of Kutch, Jayant Khatri. But his journalistic career
began with Janshakti in Mumbai and later he moved to Jansatta in Ahmedabad. It
is here that I met him first.
However, it is his career
as Deputy Editor in 1980 and Chief Editor since 1982 for
‘Kutchmitra’ which makes him a noted journalist of the best cadre. His
insightful Editorship for ‘Kutchmitra’ has taken the Newspaper to a new
height.
He has been honored with several awards starting from ‘Kutch
Shakti Award’ in1990 to ‘Harindra Dave SmritiParitoshik’
in 2011. He has also been awarded by Life Time Achievement in
Journalism Award by Gujarat Media Club.He is the second recipient of Tushar
Bhatt Journalism Award.
Kirti Khatri has come out
with a nine volume of his writings. It is basically a compilation of his
writings spanned over 32 years. This is the period when he has remained with
Kutchmitra.
The compilation is missing
the young Kirti, the man who started his career in Mumbai and later shifted to
Jansatta in Ahmedabad. He belongs to old school of journalisms where
journalists rarely thought of having records of their writings to create
profile. Even the writings in these books could become possible because of the
well organized library of Kutchmitra.
The first of the nine
books “Manas Vali Kutchimadu” tells what Kirti means to his friends
in media, leaders in society whether they are businessmen or bureaucrats.
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| One of his books |
The title of the first
article in this book aptly describes what Kirti Khatri is. The title is
“national editor of a district newspaper”. Probably nothing can describe
journalist in Kirti better than this title.
Like me many journalist
friends feel that he would have a star journalist if he were in Mumbai or
Delhi. But, he is Kutchi Madu-man of Kutch- and always remained kutchi. As son
of famous Kutch based short story writer Jayant Khatri, spirit of Kutch is in
his blood and since he was brought up in Kutch and his growth was mainly in
Kutch, he breaths Kutch in all aspects of his life.
And if he were not there,
who could have told national media about what Kutch is what are its problems
and the fascinating kutch. Like me there are scores of journalists for whom
Kirti was the main source of stories about Kutch. Stories of border issues hit
headlines in national media with journalists accumulating by-lines, all
courtesy Kirti Khatri, a name unknown to the readers of these stories.
Writings in the eight
volumes take reader to Kutch when scarcity and Kutch were common as struggle of
Kutchi men and arduous terrain of the second biggest district of India.
March 12 is the birthday
of Kirti born in 1946.
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