MRS: A pen stops moving

It's been a day of melancholy. My mind is numb and I can't seem to be able to think of anything else. Our own journalist, my senior and my first guru in journalism passed away yesterday. M.R. Shivanna, or MRS as we all called him, was the most dedicated journalist I have seen in my short journalism life. But what I had seen was enough. He worked 24x7, literally. Many days together, he never went home. We came at 8 and went home by 5. He would be writing in the desk with head lowered and pen held as if it were his sword even before we came, and he would still be at it when we went home. In between, when we went for lunch, he would be writing, and would be writing when we came back from lunch. His pen never stopped moving.
I learnt how to write news from MRS and Meera, our Chief Sub-Editor. He was a walking, pen-wielding encyclopedia though he had just studied PUC. Ask any question, MRS would answer. He never said 'I don't know.' To me, a new entrant to journalism, he was a wonder, especially in the matters of politics there was nothing he didn't know. So even when he at first dismissed me as a young girl who didn't know anything, I would bow and take it in stride. Later, he too acknowledged that I knew something and would direct others to ask me if they had any doubt.
For two years, MRS would be in desk spewing out news as if they were fire from a dragon's mouth and I would look after the pages on Sundays. And in those days, it was a comfort to know that he would be there and I could go if I had any doubt. He would stride in in his socks, a diminutive little figure I almost collided with many times making him nearly fall down. And I would never forget his thoughtful smiles. When we went to pay our last respects, his wife told my senior that he asked her to take him home because he wanted to write news. Whatever he was, he was an excellent journalist. A real, old school journalist who never cared for laurels and wealth. He cared only about one thing: writing.