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Veteran Indian journalist calls it a day

WASHINGTON: TV Parsuram, who served as the Press Trust of India (PTI) correspondent in the United States for 46 years, has called it a day and will be returning to India.

Known as the doyen of South Asian correspondents in the US capital, he was greatly respected for his professionalism, friendly disposition and accurate reporting. It was said that while the rest of the “pack” is still struggling with the lead, Parsuram has already filed his story.

Indian correspondents were often alerted by their head offices to what Parsuram had filed, wanting to know why they had not done so.

Always an agency man, Parsuram started out before independence and would often share with this correspondent stories of press conferences held by Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Mahatama Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, which he had covered as a young reporter. A phenomenal shorthand taker, he could jot down 170 words a minute. Reporters often sought his help in getting important quotes right after a press conference had ended. He was invariably helpful. He could also type with great speed and in the 1950s won a gold medal for being the fastest typist in India. Originally from Kerala, he will be returning with his wife Anantha Lakshmi to Delhi where he will spend much of the year, but periodically return to the States to be with his two children, a son and a daughter.

Parsuram told Aziz Haniffa of India Abroad that he was returning to Delhi after 46 years in the United States to “smell the coffee and the roses and, when in the mood, to pen my experiences”. It was often said by his junior colleagues that Parsuram could type and fire off his stories faster than CNN anchors could announce them. Another popular joke journalists told was that while some in this country had come with the Pilgrim Fathers on the Mayflower, TV Parsuram had landed here even earlier.

Parsuram has been replaced by Sridhar Krishanswami, who until recently was the Washington correspondent of The Hindu. Asked how he felt, he replied, “Knowing Mr Parsuram, the day he finds something wrong with PTI in Washington, he is going to come back.” khalid hasan

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