Farewell Rajnish Sharma: A reporter’s reporter
Rajnish Sharma, the senior assistant editor of The Asian Age/Deccan Chronicle, died of cardiac arrest on Wednesday evening. He was 49 and is survived by his mother.
A brilliant, hard-working journalist, Rajnish had joined the organisation in 2009. He left the organisation in 2015 and joined back in 2016.
Wednesday evening at his Press Enclave residence in South Delhi’s Saket area, Rajnish complained of back pain. Within a few minutes, he collapsed. His ailing mother called the neighbours, who rushed him to the nearby Max Super
Speciality hospital, where he was declared brought dead.
Amidst relatives, friends, and colleagues, his body was consigned to the flames on Thursday.
In 2001, his sister, Anju Sharma, a journalist with Hindustan Times, died in a plane crash. She, along with seven journalists, was travelling in a plane along with then Union minister Madhavrao Scindia. No one survived the crash.
Rajnish’s father, who worked in The Indian Express, had also died in his mid-forties.
Before joining the organisation, Rajnish had worked with some of the leading print and TV news organisations. He was perhaps the first Indian journalist who established contact with the Kandahar Airport when an Indian Airlines flight was hijacked in 1999.
Sunday Guardian managing editor Pankaj Vohra, who had hired him for two major English dailies, said Rajnish was an extremely good crime reporter.
Nirmalya Barthakur of the newsdesk, who was shocked at his demise, said, “We deskies could call him anytime if there was confusion about MHA stories and he used to explain it to us in the most simple language. A very down-to-earth person.”
Journalist turned filmmaker and nature photographer Ajay Suri found the news of his death “devastating.” Rajnish’s friends in the media fraternity took to social media to express their condolences over his tragic death. As the organisation is trying to grapple with this unbelievable tragedy, one remembers Rajnish assuring the team that the ongoing hardships and crisis would eventually come to an end.