India, Feb. 1 -- Mark Tully's death is truly the passing of an era. In his decades as the BBC's chief of bureau in our country, he was certainly, as many fondly called him, the voice of India. For the millions of Indians who lived abroad in the 1970s, '80s and '90s, he was usually the only source of credible news and insight into what was happening at home. During my years in England, I depended on his broadcasts to know and understand news from India. Because his reports were more likely to feature on the BBC's world service bulletins rather than on domestic television, I'd carry a powerful transistor that could tune into the shortwave transmissions of the world service. Every day, but most often in the morning, I'd hear his reports and keep in touch. It was not just the best way of following India's fortunes, but often the only way. The British papers and television of the time were very limited in their coverage of developments in India. Fortunately, I got to know him before his retirement in the mid-1990s. He was not just a big man, with a deep resonant voice and a beguiling smile, but a journalist with a grand, if not awesome, reputation. I thought he'd be intimidating. I was terribly wrong. He was accessible and friendly, informal and chatty, helpful and engaging. I first met him in the 1980s. Paradoxically, I was to interview him. He was in the make-up room at London Weekend Television when I walked in. "Good morning, Mr Tully," I said as I introduced myself. "For heaven's sake call me Mark," he instantly responded, looking at me through the large mirror in front of his chair as the make-up lady applied powder to his cheeks. "Are you going to be cruel?" he asked. "I'm nervous". That sounded so odd, if not unbelievable, I couldn't help laughing. "But you're a professional broadcaster who's done millions of interviews. You can't be nervous." "I'm used to speaking into a mike in a small room, where I'm on my own, not being interviewed in front of multiple studio cameras and a large audience. I'm accustomed to radio, not telly." But his diffidence was unwarranted. Mark was riveting. Afterwards, he was mobbed for his autograph. Mark was also a very thoughtful and sensitive person. When my television career abruptly ended, he rang to cheer me up. "I would bet your best days lie ahead of you. I found that was the case when I left the BBC. That's bound to be true of you too." And, perhaps, because he thought I wasn't convinced, he invited me to lunch. He then spent two hours opening my eyes to the new world that was about to commence. Mark's strength was he spoke Hindi and understood India. He was at times criticised for being too sympathetic to this country. "He's gone native," his critics would allude. But that was unfair. What they overlooked was that intimacy gave him insights his rivals could not equal. It also gave him access few, if any, foreign correspondents could boast of. In his time, Mark was the BBC in India. Actually, that was probably true of the whole subcontinent. From the meanest rural hamlet to the grand portals of Rashtrapati Bhawan, his name was recalled before that of the corporation he served. Millions would tune in just to hear him. And, they unfailingly believed what he said. Rajiv Gandhi maintained that he only accepted his mother had been killed when he heard Mark report it on the BBC. Tully Sahib, as he was called, was particularly proud of the Padma Bhushan conferred on him in 2005. He told me it meant more than the knighthood he received three years earlier. "I belong to two countries, India and Britain," he explained, "but I'm a child of India". And, indeed, he was. Born in Calcutta, as it was then called, he lived the majority of his life in Delhi. This country was his home and he was one of our finest journalists....