Kolkata: Twelve years before the SIR of rolls triggered a mad scramble for birth certificates at the KMC headquarters, celebrated journalist Mark Tully had queued up for the document. A British citizen, Tully, who was born in Tollygunge on Oct 24, 1935, needed the birth certificate to apply for an Overseas Citizen of India certificate that allowed him to enter and live in India without the requirement of a visa.In an e-mail sent to then KMC mayor Sovan Chatterjee on Aug 5, 2013, Tully wrote: “I was born on Oct 24, 1935, and my full name, which should be in your records, is William Mark Tully. My father’s name was William Scarth Carlisle Tully and my mother’s name was Patience Treby Tully. I was born at 6, Regent Park, Tollygunge. My birth was registered by the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Alipore, 24-Parganas on Nov 21, 1935. I would be most grateful if you could assist me in obtaining the copy of my birth certificate.”
A known name in the well-heeled section of society, Tully was BBC’s ‘Voice of India’ for nearly half a century and reported on all major incidents in South Asia since 1965, from India-Pakistan conflicts, Bhopal gas tragedy, Operation Blue Star, the assassinations of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv to the demolition of Babri Masjid for BBC.Getting hold of the certificate apparently proved tougher than any other assignment the Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan awardee journalist had faced in his illustrious career. A civic official had even said it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to retrieve the record. “As KMC is governed by The Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, there are constraints. With Tollygunge being a separate municipality and not part of KMC at the time, we do not have records. So the document, if issued, will be a no-birth-records certificate. He can apply for it only after giving an affidavit from a first class magistrate, after convincing him he was born in Kolkata,” the official had said.After being unsuccessful in procuring the birth certificate, Tully reached out to TOI Kolkata. “I am eligible for an OCI but need a birth certificate as part of the documentation. Since I have lived all my working life in India and love the country of my birth, I wish to continue staying here without worrying about visas,” he had said.TOI passed on Tully’s request to the health department, which is in charge of birth certificates. Atin Ghosh, then MMiC (health and engineering), took up the matter personally and pursued it until the job was done. “After receiving the request, we undertook a comprehensive search of relevant records with the state govt and obtained the relevant birth report from the archive,” recounted Ghosh.Locating the records was no mean feat, given that Mark Tully was born on Oct 24, 1935. The birth was registered by the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Alipore, 24-Parganas on Nov 21, 1935. “We are glad that we, along with TOI, could help an internationally acclaimed journalist who was not only born in Kolkata but also worked in India and loved the country of his birth,” said T K Mukherjee, who was the health adviser to the civic body. Much to Tully’s delight, he received the coveted document on Nov 26, 2013, and subsequently applied for the OCI card. He continued to live in India until he died in a hospital in Delhi on Jan 25 this year. He was 90. Tully had once remarked: “I feel I am a citizen of the two countries I feel I belong to, India and Britain.”
