The good of all is what is good for oneself

5/2/2020 Temple, Travel and Sport: D Murali Journalist
https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2020/05/d-murali-journalist.html 1/8
Friday, May 1, 2020
D Murali Journalist
His revolutionary idea of inviting CEOs to his office and doing
open air interviews at Nageswara Rao Park found favour as he
rolled out 100s of insightful interviews but a whistle blower act
cost the CA rank holder his job
Can we, as men, decide to raise our individual
voice, rather than keep quiet, when gender
injustice happens in front of our eyes? Can we
rise above our individual interest and blow the
whistle when gender prejudice grabs the air
time and pollutes the work atmosphere around
us - D Murali in an audio address a year after his exit
It is the period of the lockdown and as I went back in time this week, I
chanced upon something that was saddening. But as I unraveled the
story over the next 24 hours, I began to salute the man whom I had
known professionally for close to two decades. This story is about one
who was ahead of time as a journalist and whose bold revolutionary
tale hit road blocks mid way. Unmindful, he resurfaced and has
cheerfully survived the decade after.
CA rank holder D Murali joined The Hindu’s new financial daily
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Business Line very early on in its journey in 1996 – within two years of
the paper’s launch. A Chartered Accountant, he launched many new
sections in the financial daily that by itself were new to financial
journalism in the city – topics that were close to his heart at that time –
Taxation, Accountancy and the like.
Very soon, his innovative thoughts got the better of him. He launched
a section called ‘60 secs chief’, where the CEO of a firm had to
answer questions that a reader could read in 60 seconds. It soon
became a big hit with several CEOs featuring in it. He followed it up
with several new sections (Number Crunch, Swati CA, Books2Byte
and so on) that he anchored for many years.
It dawned on him that the views of the experts in the corporate world
had to be captured and presented to the audience. That he saw as his
role.
Not often in the city was a company CEO invited to media houses for
discussions. For long, it has been the practice of the writers to visit the
CEO at his office and not the other way around. Murali wanted to
break that myth. He wondered if the idea would work and if the CEOs
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About Me
PRabhu S
View my complete profile

would accept an invitation for a chat at his desk on their company and
the industry.
The result must have surprised Murali even beyond his wildest
dreams for he began to host one or more CEO at his desk at The
Hindu Group’s headquarters in Madras each day of the year.
Companies ranged from the several decades old traditional firms to
young new born start ups. Murali made it his definitive model. He
video recorded the interviews and posted them online. It was
disruptive. It was unheard of in the past.
Corporate Interviews at Nageswara Rao Park
When Sundaram Finance launched the mikeless Sunday Kutcheri in
the Park, Murali was present early morning on Sundays to capture the
presentation of the budding musical talent. Taking on this concept of
events at the park, Murali experimented with the idea of ‘interviews at
the park’ as his evening interviews moved to the park. He would meet
personalities at the chess square of the Nageswara Rao Park, amidst
the chirping birds and record their stories
(https://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/IT-is-a-critical-
innovation-lever/article16481002.ece).
Biz Ed of HT @ BL
One day, this writer brought along N Madhavan, the business editor of
The Hindustan Times to meet Murali at his office
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pfjfKkxFro). The interview
left Madhavan stunned. He remarked that even in the North and the
West (of India) such a concept had not been thought of.
At press conferences, Murali brought his now famous tripod to shoot
the CEO's address. Suddenly, in a matter of a few years, Murali had
interview several 100s of CEOs and posted those online.
The visiting CEOs to his office increased manifold and that raised
eyebrows amongst his colleagues. Following this, PR execs were
rejected entry into his meetings!!!

Co-authoring stories for BL
During this period, Murali asked if this writer would be interested in co
- authoring stories for the paper. And thus I came to write a number of
joint stories with him for different sections of the paper in a very short
period of time. The pace of the stories was mind boggling. But it was
shortlived and came to an abrupt end. To date, this writer has not
asked him the reason!!!
Through those early days of his innovative journalistic model in the
2000s, Murali was clear. He did not consider himself an expert.
Repeatedly he told me this during the many professional interactions I
had with him during his period with Business Line. What he was
looking for in his interactions with industry folks was for their thought
leadership - among entrepreneurs, authors, and domain experts,
across industry verticals. And he considered it his responsibility to
showcase their insights through his stories.
Murali was not possessive about the personalities he met and threw
that thought process out of the window and sent open invitations to
his colleagues to join him for his daily meetings. Surprisingly, very few
took up his offer. It was a case of missed opportunities.
The Exit
And then on the morning of the Kutcheri in the Park in September
2012 (http://sundaykutcheri.blogspot.com/2012/09/sahana-
presents-sunday-kutcheri.html), he broke the news to me at the
Nageswara Rao Park that he was no more with BL. I did not ask him
the reason then or his future plans.
As I now look back in the years following his exit, when he was
present at the Sunday Kutcheri in the Park and the Sundaram
Finance Mylapore Festival, there were no signs of remorse in him,
during that period.
His video model continued uninterrupted and has gained momentum
over the last decade. He has always been at his cheerful best.
Sometimes, one finds him past 10 pm at the Marina walking to keep
himself fit. To date, he has posted several thousand interviews and
posts online ranging from corporate stories to Art, from Chamber
stories to chats with the cab driver in the Himalayas. And he
continues to be a regular at the corporate briefings and elsewhere.
For a man so used to attending press briefings and seminars day in
day out, this lockdown in 2020 should have been a dampener being

stuck to the confines of his home. Not for Murali, for he has always
found an innovative way to make life interesting for himself and useful
for others. In the period of the lockdown, he has been creating
educative video content for Sanskrit learners, via chanting of the
Srimad Devi Bhagavata Mahapuranam (https://lnkd.in/fBiPVQA?
trk=public-post_share-update_update-text) and Valmiki
Ramayanam (https://lnkd.in/fHAe6DB?trk=public-post_share-
update_update-text). Earlier he had created a similar educative
video on Sundara Kandam (Ramayanam). Given the impact of the
lockdown, Murali wonders if some of the big corporate seminars /
events and even the press conferences would happen again anytime
in the near future. He says ‘Doubtful’!!! And is of the view that both the
corporates and the journalists will have to prepare themselves for a
different model of interaction as they go forward into the life after
Corona.
8 years later - The Breaking News to me
I did not ask him for several years on his reason for his exit from BL,
given that he seemed to be doing well churning out stories each day
of the year for the paper. And then this month, quite accidentally
during the lockdown, I landed up on his page and found a story (on
his home page) that I had written with him for BL well over a decade
ago, and the story of his sudden, unforeseen exit from the paper.
In the hours and days that have passed since, I lay in shock, shaken
after reading through the sequence of events that led to his exit. And I
went back and looked at some of my own blog stories I had written
over the last decade on issues similar in philosophy to what he had
brought up - a story that I posted at 3 am, a couple of hours after that
dreadful night of January 16/17 2017 when the Adyapakas of
Thiruvallikeni went slow on the Prabhandham as a way of protest
against the priests
(https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2017/01/parthasarathy-koil-
adyapakas-arrogance.html) and another story on how vested
interests was destroying cricket in TN

(https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2020/01/tn-ranji-cricket-
fall.html).
Explaining our role in life
He tried to fight for a cause that he believed in strongly, unmindful of
the consequences. Subsequent to his exit, in an audio address, he
explains, beautifully, burning issues that should touch the hearts of
each one of us and that we as humans should be concerned with. He
posted the transcript (of his audio address) too in the Public Domain.
He said that his forced exit was abrupt because of a whistle-
blowing exercise he had undertaken through a group email
within the newspaper raising issues of gender and racial
prejudice within the organisation.
One has to wonder as to why a man with 15 years in the firm had to
send a mail to all the staffers.
And as I listened,8 summers after the episode, to the audio address,
presented in fluent English, this April, I felt proud that a man who I
had known and respected for many years had let go a high paying job
on grounds of principle, and wondered as to how many would have it
in us to take such a call in life.
In his audio address, he says his boss asked him something very
inhuman and immoral “Why should you be agitated (about gender
prejudice)? You are not a Malayali! You are not a woman!” his
boss told Murali all those years ago.
Alas, what a retrograde thinking! Murali said of this above comment
in that audio address in 2013. “If this be our thinking, as Tamils,
why should you be agitated with what happens to Biharis or
Gujaratis? As Indians, why should you be worried about the
atrocities in other countries? Should Asia be bothered about the
crisis in Europe? Why at all should the Americans lose sleep
over hunger in Africa?”
He says that there is a greater realisation now that the good of all is
what is good for oneself “Health and development mean a lot to all of
us as much as air and water. And, to repeat the eternal Karmic
message, what goes around, comes around.”
He asks “Can we, as men, decide to raise our individual voice,
rather than keep quiet, when gender (and racial) injustice
happens in front of our eyes? Can we rise above our individual
interest and blow the whistle when gender prejudice grabs the
air time and pollutes the work atmosphere around us?
'Blowing a Whistle' is a risky proposition as Murali found out under a
decade ago. Yet, it was a philosophical call he took for he believed
then that 'the bigger and a long-term risk is not standing up right
then when something is not right.' Another man would have been
shattered at the manner of his exit from a newspaper but not Murali.
While he did not seem to garner any support at the time of his exit, he
seemed to have had no regretful look back at the past for he eased
himself into other exciting things in life. For people with clarity, life
becomes easy.

Interestingly, he has in the recent past brought together hundreds of
journalists in a whatsapp group where he alerts them with news of the
day as it happens. Many including TV channels have used his alerts
to lead with their news. Such has been his contribution to the field of
Journalism staying always ahead of time.
This journalist stood his ground for what he believed was a right
cause taking a principled stance on an issue he considered was of
high importance at the work place. Very few in life exchange a high
paying job with 'Philosophy'. Once upon a time, D Murali did!!!
Posted by PRabhu S at 3:49 AM
Labels: Personality
6 c o m m e n t s :
SB said...
This is yet another brilliant article that is more than just about
the story described about. It is about the idea of living a value-
filled, ethical life based on integrity and principles. We all have
a lot to learn from this story of Murali D and should challenge
discrimination and prejudices of all forms in our everyday life -
be it at the workplace, homes, and with our families. The
author does a great job of capturing these principles and
presenting a story that is worth being shared. Thank you for
sharing this human interest story and I hope it helps instill
positive qualities in people across all ages!
Friday, May 01, 2020
Anonymous said...
Super. I have seen many of his video interviews. Truly
innovative.
Ranjan Kumar sahoo said...
I have grown up watching his interviews of stalwarts in the
accounting profession. Thank you so much.
Anonymous said...
As a fellow journalist from a peer publication during Murali
sir's stint with the hindu,I used to awe over his maverick ways
of mounting the tripod and panning the camera at biz honchos
at press conferences, when rest of the tribe were practising
the art of pen to paper journalism. More than that, Murali sir
always maintains a down to earth disposition at press
conferences demanding no preferential privilege with the
conference organisers for hailing from a prestigious
publication.
Anonymous said...
Excellent Prabhu. Well written and a beacon of hope for future
generations

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Anonymous said...
Very interesting and moving story. I hope Murali is at peace
with himself, and not tortured by how things turned out.
Speaks poorly of the publication as a workplace.

The good of all is what is good for oneself

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