For India-born editor, cricket dreams turn to words

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Britain’s first non-white editor of a national newspaper Amol Rajan dreamed of cricketing glory and not bylines as he grew up in London.

The 29-year-old, who will formally take over as the editor of the Independent newspaper on Monday — just days short of his 30th birthday — reveals his first love was cricket. He wanted to be a spin bowler in the England team. He is just about three years older than the newspaper.
“So really journalism was admission of failure,” he laughs. “I am only doing journalism because I couldn’t do what I wanted to do — which is to bowl leg spin for England.”
Indian-born Rajan grew up in Tooting in south London after moving to the UK with his parents as a three year old. Getting injured at 17 put an end to his dream of cricketing glory, recalls Rajan as he sits in the building shared by the Independent and its sister publications with the Daily Mail and other Associated Newspapers titles in Kensington.
“I always wanted to be a cricket player, that’s my first love. In fact, ever since watching Shane Warne bowl Mike Gatting during the 1993 Ashes match in Old Trafford I was completely certain I was going to be cricket player.”
His cricketing romance continued with his book, Twirlymen: The Unlikely History of Cricket’s Greatest Spin Bowlers, which he wrote in 2011. His enduring romance with cricket is visible in his use of cricketing examples and quotes from players and coaches to illustrate his chats.
The passion for cricket has stayed with him and the shift towards academic pursuits led Rajan, who counts Anil Kumble as a cricketing hero, to journalism. He edited the student magazine Varsity as he studied English literature at Cambridge University and then started to work as a journalist.
“Increasingly journalists are generalists — if you are interested in lots of different things, love words, love writing, like finding out stuff, are curious. Life of a journalist is wonderful — it is an immense privilege to get paid to write and to find out stuff. Having decided to become a journalist, I am very very glad that I have become one,” says Rajan, who is one of the youngest editors in the mainstream media in the UK.
He does not attach too much importance to becoming the first ethnic minority journalist to run a UK national newspaper. “It was exhilarating. I must say I didn’t attach much importance to that, for me the achievement was becoming an editor and I completely failed to realise for a lot of people the more important issue will be not the youth or the position but the fact of ethnic background,” he says.
Describing his appointment as “exhilarating” and a “huge challenge”, Rajan, who does not have children of his own as yet, says his feeling is that being an editor is close to being a parent “in the sense you can never switch off.”
“I have a very romantic attachment to the idea of a newspaper,” says Rajan, who has a very ambitious blueprint on how he wants to steer the newspaper under his stewardship. He wants to take the newspaper upmarket and inject enthusiasm and optimism and return to some of the ideas from the original vision for the daily in 1986. “The Independent should be truly independent. It should surprise people. It should not be not left-wing or right-wing.”
Rajan, an adviser to Independent owner Evgeny Lebedev, admits that he always dreamed of becoming an editor, but did not expect to become one before hitting his forties.
“I think it’s a combination of events that make you attain a certain position. It’s a huge amount of luck. A couple of years ago I got the chance to work for the owner which is a great opportunity… and a combination of events led to my appointment. I don’t think I would have been made the editor of other dailies like the Time, Guardian or Telegraph this soon.”
Rajan, who worked through the ranks in the Independent, was the comment editor before his appointment. “I think my commitment to the Independent has grown as it has given me this opportunity at this young age.”
The young editor’s elevation comes in a year of major changes in his personal life: He is getting married in September and his mother is battling cancer. “It does feel a little bit surreal at the moment. It feels as if everything is going on very very quickly. I cannot wait to go on my honeymoon to the Caribbean,” he laughs, adding that exorbitant prices had dashed his hopes of riding an elephant to his wedding in London.
Rajan, whose father is from Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu and mother from Pune, says he feels “extremely strong attachment, loyalty, and affection” for India. With parents coming from large families, he feels a strong connection to his extended family and to different parts of India. Revealing his obsession with Indian trains, Rajan, who speaks and understands bits of Hindi, says he used to memorise the railway timetable.
His affection for India is very apparent as he discusses the country of his origin and he is very optimistic about India, saying he feels in the next 100 years India will be ruling the world.