Various - Behind the News - Voices from Goa's Press

When I learnt the magazine was taken over by the Salgaocars, I felt happy. Happy not because the magazine no longer belonged to Mascarenhas, but happy because I felt the new owners and the new editor would give opportunities to new writers. As we now know, it has happened. Goa Today was no longer the domain of one man and his ego.

On another visit during summer, I was dressed in a suit. I was to meet the then Chief Minister Dayanand Bandodkar and later attend a wedding in the city. Since I had no personal means of transport, for me to travel from Bogmallo to Panaji and back twice would be difficult, so I had worn the suit and left home early morning. As soon as I told Mascarenhas that I was going to meet Bandodkar, Mascarenhas's face changed colour. He admonished me for wearing a suit to see the chief minister, saying that journalists must be dressed informally. I explained to Mascarenhas, but I could see that Mascarenhas bore some hatred for the late Bhausaheb, as the chief minister was affectionately known.

That very same day, I met some journalists, including Michael Fernandes who, I believe, was The Indian Express correspondent in Goa. I told them that Mascarenhas seemed piqued at me for wearing a suit. If I remember correctly, Fernandes said that Mascarenhas has a personal bias against Bandodkar regarding the withdrawal of government advertisement. He told me that Mascarenhas and Bandodkar were once on a friendly basis, but both had fallen apart.

I think my second adventure in getting a job in Goa came when Erasmo de Sequeira launched his paper, Goa Monitor . I applied for a position but never got appointed. The paper lived for a brief time.

Some years later, my uncle told me that he has an offer from the Chowgules to start a Konkani daily. I came to Goa for a visit and went to see Rodrigues at his residence in Darbandora. He and I designed the logo for Uzvadd, though it may have been refined when the paper was launched. Rodrigues never took up the position as he was to be under the editorial supervision of Madhav Gadkari, the then editor of Gomantak. Gadkari was fiercely pro-Marathi and my uncle felt his efforts to promote Konkani journalism would be subverted by Gadkari. To my surprise, Evagrio Jorge, the noted freedom fighter and news reader at All-India Radio in Panaji, was its first editor. The paper was well received. As expected, Jorge and the owners or probably Gadkari had a difference of opinion. In a short time, Jorge was out and he launched his own paper, Novem Uzvadd.

Without the financial muscles of the Chowgules that sustained Uzvadd, Jorge's paper suffered. I think it was also during this time that a group started another Konkani daily, Novem Goem. I am not sure why Uzvadd eventually folded up.

My friend, Cyril D'Cunha, started a sports weekly called Goal, and I was its Mumbai correspondent. I contributed many stories till the paper went under for reasons unknown to me. This was my direction connection to Goa's journalism. Later on, I was offered a job at the West Coast Times, a daily launched by the House of Timblos. At least two senior colleagues of mine at the Free Press Journal went to Goa to start the paper. One of them was Y.M. Hegde and the other, P.R. Menon.

Before going to Goa and even after the paper began publishing from Margao in South Goa, Hegde said it would be good for me to come to Goa. I forget the year it was launched and if I was still a freelancer at the Free Press Journal or on its staff. By then, I was not keen on settling down in Goa. To me, Goa was still in the backwaters of journalism. To leave a city like Mumbai where journalism made blood rush in one's veins, and go to Goa, where things moved at a snail's pace, was something I dreaded. When I wanted to come to Goa, I was found unwanted.

After leaving Free Press Journal and joining The Hindu, I met Raul Fernandes one day in Mumbai. He was scouting for talent for O Heraldo, then about to be turned into an English-language daily. I knew Fernandes, though not as well as his brother John and his dad, Antonio Caetano Fernandes.

The Fernandes family was close friends with my friends in Mumbai, the Ribeiros, owners of the Goan restaurant in Dhobitalao called Snowflake. When in Goa, my friend and I went to see AC, as he was popularly known, at the Casa JD Fernandes store in Panaji. And whenever John came to Mumbai to get supplies for their store, he would visit Snowflake where I hung out most of my time.

Raul Fernandes and I met at the Kyani Restaurant in Dhobitalao and he offered me to come to Goa as chief reporter. The offer was unattractive financially for me to leave The Hindu. I was given the impression that Ervelle Menezes, than with Indian Express in Mumbai, was joining as editor. Fernandes was in consultation with Menezes, I was told. At a second meeting, Fernandes informed me that Rajan Narayan was chosen to be the editor. I was surprised. I never had any admiration for Narayan's journalism. I had heard some stories about his resignation from The Mirror, a monthly publication from the Eve's Weekly group. Even though the offer of chief reporter was not tempting, I was not keen on working under Narayan.

I knew Narayan on a hi-and-bye basis when I was at Free Press Journal and he was at Onlooker, a sister-publication from the Free Press Journal group. I forget what position he held at the Onlooker magazine, and whether Narayan was there when M.J. Akbar edited it or later when M. Rahman took over.

I once covered a function at the United States Information Services (USIS) office in Mumbai where Narayan was present. A well-known scholar of Black studies was visiting Mumbai from the United States. Narayan carried with him a book by this scholar. I found it very preposterous on Narayan's part to bring the heavy volume to the meeting.

In fairness to Narayan, he made O Heraldo what it's today. I also heard some allegations about his wheeling-dealing with powers-that-be in the government. Many journalists and some politicians told me that Narayan deserved the violent attack on him as his journalism was biased. No matter what his journalism is, the attack on him was a shameful incident in the history of Goan journalism.

I am told he's Goa's bravest journalist. Maybe true, as I am in no position to judge that from here in Canada. But I find his writing very weak. His editorials and columns have lot of spelling errors and the grammar is often flawed. His column, Stray Thoughts, is not well composed. Just a month or so ago, someone gave me old copies of O Heraldo. Going through his column, I found his thoughts not very cohesive. He writes in a disjointed way. One thing I will agree, he writes strongly, not sparing those whom he targets. If carving a well-written piece is his fault, then using strong language is his forte. I form my opinion not on just the few papers I read recently, but also from reading O Heraldo during my visits to Goa and from those at times posted on the Goanet email list ( http://www.goanet.org).

Just after a year's stay in Canada, I came to Goa on a holiday. One fine day, Fulgencio Rodrigues, once the leader of the toddy-tappers association and a candidate for the assembly, and a fellow-villager in Bogmallo, came to my house and told me that Umaji Chowgule wanted to meet with me.

I was taken aback as I didn't know Umaji personally. Rodrigues, who worked for the Chowgules, took me on his scooter to meet him Umaji at the Chowgule offices. To my surprise, he offered me a job as joint editor of a sports daily the Chowgules were then planning on launching. The other editor was to be Antonio Botelho, a former sports writer at The Navhind Times, who I knew well, both as writer and later as one of the office-bearers of the Goa Football Association.

I was a landed immigrant in Canada and my first experience in Canada was not very good. There was recession then on and I was finding it difficult to get a job in my field. I worked in a warehouse for sometime, making enough money to buy a ticket to India.