Anant’s blog: Of 56 papers, 45 countries and Mathuradas Mills

Tomorrow, 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the perhaps unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. Many if not most will publish it on the front page, warning of a "profound emergency."

The text above has been reproduced from editorandpublisher.com.

Try as I might, I find it impossible to visualize the discussions that led to consensus on the ‘common’ editorial. Obviously these 56 newspapers have managed the feat – and that in itself is laudable.

If one had to visualize the beginning of this process, when one individual somewhere, some day, decided to explore this coming together for common cause, he must have been an absolute basket case. How dare he dream such an impossible dream?

He did, and a lot of us in these 45 countries (and others thanks to the magic of the Internet) will read, absorb and react to the edit. I profited greatly from reading it – and am linking to it  so Campaign India’s readers can read it as well.

Nearer home, I saw another basket-case in Elsie Nanji of Red Lion. She’s a neighbour of our’s, in a manner of speaking. Campaign India’s office is just outside the Mathuradas Mills compound, while Red Lion’s is inside. So it was that I had dropped in for a cup of coffee with Elsie (coffee to die for, especially if you’re a Tamilian, which I am) and she showed me some work done by her team to keep their design skills honed. Nothing to do with any client, just design for design’s sake, all inspired by the immediate surroundings. Great stuff.

And Elsie spoke about how she wanted to do a ‘festival’ on the Mathuradas Mill ‘culture (which I didn’t know existed till the moment she mentioned it); of the smorgasbord of characters, of businesses, of eateries – all adding up to ‘make’ a Mathuradas Mills culture.

So was born ‘Life around the neighbourhood’. The final event was as successful as it was thanks to the contributions of any number of disparate ‘partners’, (entire list in the above story) partners who Elsie managed to bring together.

And who could have thought such consensus and such collaborations were in the realm of the possible?

Elsie could.