The rich content mix and the eye-pleasing design of BusinessLine that readers get through the week owes much to the transformation brought about by Mukund Padmanabhan during his tenure as its Editor, from August 2013 to March 2016.

As Mukund retired from The Hindu Group on Thursday, Raghavan Srinivasan, who succeeded him as BusinessLine Editor, recalled some of these momentous changes. “Mukund considerably transformed and enriched the content mix of the paper, and introduced certain ‘magazinised’ elements,” he noted.

Specifically, Mukund ushered in many theme-based feature pages through the week, and brought in long-form reportage to BusinessLine. “And, of course, he conceptualised the Saturday supplement BLink, which is arguably among the best weekend magazines in the Indian space,” he added.

At a townhall farewell event in Mukund’s honour, in the newsroom that he oversaw, Srinivasan said that so impactful were these changes that “you see a bit of Mukund everyday in BusinessLine, somewhere or the other.” In addition to Mukund’s focus on the big picture, he was a “very meticulous line editor, who was very particular about the usage of words, lest they be misinterpreted,” Srinivasan noted.

Addressing his former colleagues, Mukund reminisced that given that BusinessLine was the first newspaper he had been Editor of, it would always be his “first love”.

“The high point of my time here was getting to work with such a fantastic set of people – who are so uncomplicated and straightforward, and who were so responsive to the changes we made,” he said.

In retirement, Mukund will take up a part-time position as Visiting Professor of Public Practice at Krea University. His first ever job, as a 22-year-old was as a lecturer in Delhi University, and “I’m just happy to teach,” he said.

Colleagues recalled with fondness that while Mukund was a hard taskmaster who set exacting editorial standards, he also dealt with them with extraordinary compassion beyond the call of duty. Indicatively, during the apocalyptic floods in Chennai in late 2015, Mukund drove to the residence of a colleague – whose family, including a new-born, was marooned – and rescued them to the safety of a hotel near the office.

Editorial meetings with Mukund typically fused a business-like approach with frothy banter. “He’s the kind of editor who could be on back-slapping terms with you, and yet give no quarter,” recalled a senior colleague.

On slow news days, Mukund was given to pacing around the newsroom, stopping to chat with colleagues at their workstations - and occasionally foraging for light bites. In retirement, that familiar form will likely be seen more often on the golf course or working on his fitness.

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