Behind the News: Voices from Goa's Press

professions too, before coming back to commit himself in writing once again, only to reveal a style that remains as readable as ever. Luckily f

ittle. I was preparing for my final B.Com. exams due in a few weeks and had, in any case, tired myself of asking

. Silveira and me. (Silveira was one of my two English lecturers at Margao's Damodar College and, with the other, B.G.Koshy, lat

mmission me to do Sunday features, sometimes full-page, on topics of prevailing reader interes

d), the incredibly witty Balan (Chief Sub), my friend Patrick Michael (a gifted Malayalee who, with me, but surreptitiously, covered North Goa for The Current Weekly - together we had done the Siddarth Bandodkar sh

ay I complete graduation - though I never really meant to take journalism as a career. I had set my sights on becoming

r's private secretary telephoned him while he was shaving just that morning (to compliment him on the day's "excellent" editorial), fact was that NT rarely traveled 35 kilometres to Margao before 8 or 9 in the morning. Times wouldn't cha

NT - and Sripad P. Madkaikar, who at one time or the other published most of Goa's dailies. Both had called at home earlier in the day. Kaka left a note saying he had something "interesting" for me and would I kindly see him soon. I met him at his Patto quarters

that it would help me cope with my Company Secretary studies from the comforts of my own home in Margao? The ex-Army man perennially dr

" And yet another, "Remember I am the P.A.C. (Press Advisory Committee) chairman for anot

ut its Response Sheets would be better done from home and without working on shifts, as I'd at NT. [I was, eventually, recompensed with poetic justice. I hadn't reckoned that joining a fledgling - nay, nascent - publication as its Staff Reporter, with added responsibility

, by way of acceptance of the appointment letter, personally signed by Papa (Panduronga Timblo) himself.

rudas' Timblo Private Limited (TPL) had during this time invested in some far-sighted (but alas, badly managed) industrial enterprises, including fertilizers, rubber footwear and collapsible tubes, youngest brother, Modu's Sociedade de Fomento Industri

o Hobson'

was available before noon or afternoon those days. While the Mumbai dak editions of Times of India (ToI) and Indian Express (IE) did the honours in coastal Maharashtra, it was Bangalore's Deccan Herald in coastal Karnataka. Goa's NT, which took only a couple of hours less t

re of any family feuds among Goa's mining magnates at the time and shall stand corrected if there was any such raison d' etat. If there really were any differences between the two families, they would be b

etting, from proof reading to optical processing, from plate-making to the final printing, were so located as to achieve maximum production speed. Attention was paid even to minor details, like sending galley proofs to the news desk in a jiffy. Such were the conveniences that the edition could go to bed by a leisurely 4.30am (the print run took bare

strations; these were optically processed directly to printing plates. A modern web offset printing machine was brought in (together with a Delhi-based Haryanvi operator who soon acquired fondness for palm feni from nearby Jose's bar and other unprintables from across the Rawanfond railway tracks!). The machine churned out, if I remember right, 50,

kbone of the newspages, the News Editor, was P.R. Menon, the old and revered FPJ warhorse. The complement of three Chief Subs and about a dozen Subs was picked from various national dailies - Goa co

gues (both law students then), Felicio Esteves (who went on to become a Ministerial P.A. and co-author of the infamous Marks Scandal subsequently scooped by me for the FPJ), John Carlos Aguiar in Ponda, Vallabh Dessai in Quepem, Minguel Mascarenhas in Sanguem, Kelly Furtado in Vasco, and half a d

e that had to be clicked from a bubbling canoe in choppy waters off a rocky beach in Betul, South Goa. [This one was of a rotting human male corpse - sprawling, shocking and white on the dark rocks - which the cops had neglected to recover despite the local Sarpanch's days-long complaints. P.R. Menon splashed the pic

rying the day's matka figures. We refrained from gimmicks like carrying dummy adverti

for innovative

y instance, a Su

y the Salcete mag

up for a couple of

eaders of his colu

had to fill in w

ed the Vanishing

ademark

g the back of monopoly newspaper distributors in South Goa - by selling

ern talukas. But then, we had just two vehicles to cover the entire territory. ("Penny wise, Pound foolish," P.R. Menon forever rued, he never carried much of an impression about the managerial abilities of Goan mineowners - all his life, after al

overloaded, ramshackle, dieselized Ambassador cars that should have been a delight to Mario Miranda and Alexyz (we used a syndicated pocket cartoon, incidentally, since Mario was with the ToI group in Mumbai and Alexyz hadn't yet surfaced as a cartoonist.) Babal and Shivram, true heroes who virtually were at call, round the clock, round the year. [They of c

ismay of our well-knit editorial team, there were also no signs of implementation of the pan-Konkan Plan. The management, instead, began fighting shy to inject fresh investment in the

home in Betim, I can vouchsafe Nicky didn't travel to Davorlim by any 'political' inspiration. My best guess is that some restive workers of the WCT press, aware of wages being paid at NT, must have approached and invited Nicky to Davorlim. The workers of WCT press got unionized and Nicky soon served a Charter of De

sted, transported and shipped. And, of course, to profits!) Papa, strangely, sometimes used queer management methods. There was this Chief Accountant, hired for the PTI group, on a then princely salary of Rs.4,000 a month. To get a

is chamber, his P.A., Sambari would buzz to announce a visitor. In a flash Papa knew why the man had come, what he would say, and had the replies even before the visitor entered! I personally saw flaming creditors leave his chamber smiling, even though not a paisa had yielded! He had that rare ability to disarm even the most irate visito

ded with Papa to concede some sops to the striking workmen and get the publication going.

inful decision emerged that we tell the management to either settle the dispute with the Union or we quit en masse

of Lord Parashuram's Konkan on the West Coast of India, went phut. A modern press and process, an excelle

of Manvin Couriers. I joined the FPJ Group (Free Press Journal, its tabloid-eveninger Bulletin and fortnightly, Onlooker) as Goa Correspondent; moved in like capacity to IE when FPJ's Chief Editor, S. Krishnamurty joined IE's Mumbai edition as Resident Editor; played a role in J.D. Fernand