oHERALDo: an untold chapter
Valmiki FaleiroValmiki Faleiro, a Goa-based working journalist between
1975-83, covered Goa for national publications like The
Current Weekly, the Free Press Journal group and the
Indian Express. He was Staff Reporter with the West
Coast Times and as a freelancer, contributed to various
journals like The Navhind Times, Goa Today, The Sun
Weekly, Newstrek, Detective Digest, Mirror, Newsmag.
The early 1980s. Happy days were here again for Goa's
first English-language daily, The Navhind Times (NT).
After a brief challenge to its other crucial attribute,
that of being the only English-language daily, from Goa Monitor
in the late 1960s, NT had just staved off another.
West Coast Times, launched July-1978, blazed a luminous
trail in quality journalism but, like a comet after a
brief showing, vanished into oblivion.
NT was back to its snug-seat monopoly.
A slave of the economic thought of Adam Smith, David
Ricardo and John Stuart Mill, or our own Nani
Palkhivala, JRD Tata and M.R. Pai, I have been a votary
of free enterprise and competition -- and allergic to
monopolies. A monopoly is bad for any consumer. And
infinitely worse in a crucial commodity that helps form
a society's opinion.
I had been speaking to some wealthier Goans, my idea of
launching a broadsheet weekly, which would, over a
period, be converted to a full-fledged daily. A tabloid
(like Goa Monitor) did not appeal; and mere excellence
in editorial content and quality printing (like West
Coast Times) did not suffice. What mattered was the
capacity to financially sustain a daily newspaper (by
absorbing annual losses even while continuing to
maintain quality) until the product turned round, which
could take some years. That kind of money in Goa only mineowners
had -- like all of Goa's major dailies! So my idea was
start small, stay around till you built adequate
advertising recognition and support, and only then
convert to a daily -- at a fraction of a daily's
budgetary requirement and without having to own
printing facilities from day one.
Even then, not many Goan businessmen I was in touch
with were willing to risk any substantial venture capital.
It was around this time, June 1983, if I recall the
month correctly, that a mutual friend in the printing
business in Mumbai and Goa, told me that A.C. Fernandes,
Patrao of the Panjim stationers Casa J.D. Fernandes,
was toying with the idea of an English-language daily.
The mutual friend suggested I discuss my ideas with Fernandes.
A.C. Fernandes wasn't a mineowner, not yet anyway, but
I had heard he was a shrewd businessman. He purchased
Goa's only extant Portuguese-language daily, O Heraldo,
not so much for love of the language or its dwindling
local readership, but evidently for the intrinsic value
of its press and its centrally-located premises. It was
said he took full advantage of the daily's lable, in
those days of the Permit Raj, to import (from Italy?) a
Lino typesetting machine, which actually was used for
all and sundry job works of the business house -- even
as the major part of good ole O Heraldo continued to be composed
by hand!
But what the heck! A shrewd and street-smart man, I
reckoned, would any day be better than a cash-filled
dumbo. Moreover, what Patrao may have lacked by way of
adequate resources was made up in having his priorities
right. His love Goa and her way of life, his concern
about increasing corruption in Goa's polity and
aspiration for rightful honour to the mother tongue,
were transparently genuine.
The mutual friend arranged our introductory meeting,
over lunch at the A.C. Fernandes residence at Santa Cruz
one rainy Sunday. The sharp-eyed (and, as I was later
to discover, sharp-tempered) Patrao, his demure wife
and sons, John, Raul and Oswald, with the mutual friend
and I sat across a carefully laid table. I spoke about
WCT and why it failed, my ideas for a successful daily
and my business plan for such a venture. A.C. Fernandes
(the sons, those days, played second fiddle), I think,
was impressed. And thus began a relationship, where I
did my best to midwife a second English-language daily
for Goa -- or almost.
The search was on for an Editor. Ads had been placed in
the major national dailies. Surprisingly, about a dozen
pros were willing to come to Goa! But the best were out
of reckoning, they expected salaries the kind Patrao
never figured existed! Ervelle Menezes was the best
bet. When I covered Goa for the Indian Express a couple
of years before, Ervelle was a Chief Sub at IE's Mumbai
edition. After Bhat, the then News Editor, died in
harness, Ervelle had taken over as the News Editor and
was in that position at this point of time.
From deep within, I hoped that Ervelle it would be to
launch the Herald as its founding editor. A
professional and a Goan, he was a suitable choice. For
me too: I had been, by now, ordained to be the to-be
newspaper's Chief Reporter, on insistence of A.C. Fernandes
and his son Raul. My own plan had been to be with them
till the day the newspaper took off; I was, by this
time, already getting into business, developing
family-owned land at Fatorda, Margao.
I never met or spoke to Ervelle about this job. Raul
had, and I gathered that Ervelle was indeed interested.
I was aware that he had come to Goa to check things
out. Ervelle, of course, is around and it would be for
him to say why he declined. What I surmised at that
time, though, was that Ervelle must have been put off
by local opinion about A.C. Fernandes' financial
capacity to sustain a daily newspaper to the stage it
generated its own resources. Ervelle of course
explained it had something to do with his mother's illness.
Ervelle's decision was a great setback to the plan --
there was just one last application left in Raul's file
of responses for the Editor's post. If I had not urged
its consideration earlier, it was because the applicant
lacked experience with a daily newspaper. The
applicant's only exposure to a daily was a brief stint
at the Financial Express -- not a mainstream newspaper.
His c.v. spoke of experience at Mirror. But then,
magazine journalism is not the same as what goes into
the making of a daily newspaper. Moreover, the
applicant wasn't even into journalism for quite some
time: he presently dwelt in the dreary world of
advertising and public relations, at one of Mumbai's
lesser-known firms. Such was the irony.
What the NT had been to Goa's English readers, a
Hobson's choice, Rajan Narayan's application now was to
Raul and me!
Fearing that Patrao may get discouraged enough to
abandon the newspaper idea, my airflow changed and I
convinced A.C. Fernandes that we invite the man and
take a closer look at his credentials. Rajan was lodged
at Panjim's Hotel Mandovi (I wonder if he ever stayed
there again, used as in later years he was to offered
or obtained five-star hospitality across Goa's coast!)
Patrao, Raul and I met him. The parleys went so long in
the afternoon that there was no restaurant open for
lunch. Rajan and I had to make do with puri bhaji at
Cafe Real (I wonder, again, how he'd have raved and
ranted in his latter-day popular Sunday column, Stray Thoughts
. But beggars were not choosers, those days.)
To me, Rajan came out as a clever and crafty mind. But
again, what the heck! At that point of time, the NT had
a clever and resourceful skipper at its helm. I had
known Bikram Vohra from my days at the Indian Express.
When marched to Ahmedabad as Resident Editor of the
IE's local edition, to fend off competition from the
formidable Times of India, one could count on Bikram to
come up with extremely off-beat ideas: he painted the
town red with the slogan, Keen ahead of the times, read
the Express! To compete, we would need a crafty mind
and I though Rajan fitted that bill pretty well. From
me, Rajan wanted to learn more about Goa --- its
history, economy, religions, cultural mix the
background of its English-language press and, of
course, of the A.C. Fernandes clan.
Rajan was obviously impressed with my views on how the
newspaper should be. He said he was immensely happy to
have me around, that things would be difficult talking
to A.C. Fernandes and Raul alone. He was also glad I
would be the newspaper's Chief Staff Reporter. He
pleaded that I stay back in Panjim that day, so we
could discuss in greater detail. The kid that Raul then
was, also decided to stay back. We sat in Rajan's
Mandovi room, drinking his favourite Old Monk (not
Raul, then a teetotaler, I don't know if he's still one.)
We were immersed in plans and strategy, more than in
the rum.
It was well past 9 p.m. and there was a knock on the
door. Being closer, I rose to answer, but obsequious as
Raul was, insisted on doing that himself. Raul had
barely opened the door when we heard the sonics of a
resounding slap across the face. A furious A.C.
Fernandes hollered, "Mama and I were so worried about
you." (It seems those days the Fernandes household was
being terrorized by another Fernandes household in the
Santa Cruz neighbourhood, so much that no member of the
former went home unaccompanied after dusk; if late, a
group of employees from the shop or press escorted them
home.) That was among Rajan's first personal
impressions of his future employers!
Twenty years is a long enough span for perceptions to
change. But I believe my opinion carried the weight of
near finality with the Patrao. Rajan Narayan would edit
the to-be Herald.
Next morning, we met with the Fernandes, again to work
out a blueprint for the newspaper's editorial
requirements, right down to a list of furniture! From
the way bare essentials were being economized, Rajan
privately kept asking me whether these guys could
really run a newspaper. I kept assuring him they would.
We agreed that together we would keep prodding them if
they wavered. On the way back to the hotel (he was
returning to Mumbai that day), Rajan said I was the
only person he could trust and would I please mail him
on a weekly basis on the progress of implementation of
the agreed blueprint.
This was essential, he explained, because as discussed
and agreed, he would be asking some friends in Mumbai
to quit their secure jobs to join the Herald and he
didn't want to put people in trouble if the paper was,
after all, not going to take off. During the period to
the run up, I wrote and kept Rajan informed of the
progress and, in reply, he kept reminding me to press
the management on the tasks that remained unfulfilled.
Quite a balancing act, for me!
In the course of such weekly back and forth postal
exchanges, Rajan asked for my reiteration that I would
stand with them as one -- if ever the management acted
funny with any of them in future. I presumed he was
concerned with risking his Mumbai team's future. I had
mentioned to Rajan earlier in Goa how the entire
well-knit editorial team at WCT had quit en bloc in the
face of a stubborn management vis-a-vis the workers'
strike. Till now, I had no reason whatever to doubt the
man's integrity. I wrote back, naively in retrospect,
that I was committed to being one with the team and
should one be touched, all would go -- or something to
that effect.
Rajan obviously didn't throw away that letter, as I had
routinely done his.
In time, Rajan returned to Goa -- bag and baggage. His
Mumbai team was to follow once we were staffed and
ready to run dummies. At the wooden-floored 1st storey
Herald office opposite Panjim's Municipal Garden, work
was on at a feverish pace. Rajan and I conducted
interviews for 'subs', reporters and correspondents. We
bagged some gifted hands -- Frederick Noronha, Bosco
Souza Eremita.
On the field, Devika Sequeira was to assist me with
Mumbai's Sushil Silvano on the local crime beat,
together with school chum Nelson Fernandes to cover
sports and Lui Godinho on the camera. I roped in some
old field hands from my WCT days, down to the last
detail of Nandu Zambaulikar, to ferry newspaper bundles
south of the Zuari!
Ticker lines were installed, typewriters and telephones
put in place, and the Mumbai team arrived (I recall
only S. Vaidyanathan on the newsdesk, though). The
machine, finally, began to crank. It was decided we
give readers a preview. One Sunday (or was it another
public holiday?), a few weeks ahead of the formal
launch on October 10, 1983, a special edition was given
out gratis to English-language newspaper readers in
Goa. The edition was packed with features, and news of
the day. I wrote something on bus transport woes of the
Goan commuter, if I recall right.
Dummies began rolling. Agonizingly, I began to see the
penny-wise-pound-foolish dictum again at work (as I
had, in the later stages, of WCT's short life.)
Expensive computers had been brought in but A.C. Fernandes
cribbed on appointing experienced hands as
compositors. A daughter-in-law came in after her own
regular office hours to help at computer keyboards.
John's wife worked late into the nights.
Result was a delightful melange of howlers -- which
continued for a good while after launch of the
newspaper. Every expense, however trivial, had to get
Patrao's direct approval. If Rajan wanted a chair
cushion, he'd have to convince the old man why his
posterior ached! But the good news was, the rumble and
stumble continued without interruption. We were close
to D-day.
That was when one fine sunny morning, as I was about to
cross from the Panjim Municipal Garden pavement to the
Herald office across the street, Raul emerged from the
stationery shop, as if casually, and waved me to hold
back. He crossed the street and invited me for a cup of
tea at a nearby cafe at Jesuit House, Jasmal or Jesema.
Once seated, Raul developed an unusual countenance and
began vaguely referring to the salary that had been
offered to me (Rs.4,000 per mensem.) I imagined there
must have been a family council the previous night. I
reminded him that I had not asked the figure, that I
had merely accepted what was offered -- and that I was
with them in this not for the money, but for a dream to
break a monopoly. I suggested the figure could be revised.
That's when the bombshell broke. "It's not about the
amount of salary," Raul stated, "it's..."
"You mean I'm not wanted here anymore?" I butted in, in
disbelief. "You can take it as something like that,"
Raul said. I was too shocked to even ask why. Having
known Rajan fairly well by now, I instinctively felt
his hand in this. Didn't even feel like meeting the
others at the office or the Patrao at the shop
downstairs. Over the previous several months, I had
worked to virtually midwife the Herald and however much
I may have been, I did not wish to upset the scene when
the baby's umbilical cord was about to go.
I just took the next bus home.
And on that very unpleasant note ended my brief
association with a newspaper that over the last 20
years, tottered, steadied and thrived -- even if in
large measure on the guile and brilliance of one crafty
man, Rajan Narayan.
Without doubt, the oHeraldo marked a new chapter in
English-language journalism in Goa. A lot of latent
young talent found expression. Investigative journalism
got its fair image. Above all, the average Goan reader
now had a choice, and the inherent benefits of
competition. Happily for Goa, the combination at the
right time of the Proprietors and of Rajan Narayan and
some excellent members in the editorial team, clicked.
Despite shoestring budgets and lack of official
advertising patronage in the initial years, the
newspaper survived, cracked a monopoly in a vital area,
and will now shortly enter its 21st year of publication.
I lived and worked in Goa (for myself, of course!)
during these 20 years and saw the manner in which this
one man notched circulation and endeared himself to the
average English-language newspaper reader, especially
of the minority community. Rajan, a crafty
non-practicing politico, in no time had comprehended
the Goan mindset, particularly of the Cristao, as he is
fond of referring.
And the brightest star in his horoscope also arrived in
good time, in the form of the Konkani official language issue.
While other editors dithered, Rajan lost no time in
recognizing the scope of the issue (he had the genuine
backing of his Patrao of course) and almost went
overboard with his undying love for Konkani, Goa and
Cristaos liberally splashed all over the place, for
months without end. With a 'sympathy and empathy' never
before seen, the Mai Bhas formula worked magic for
Rajan -- as it did, I must concede in fairness, to a
couple of other politicos, some with a degree of merit,
like Luizinho (my namesake) and Churchill Alemao. The
true heroes, however, have almost been forgotten!
In fairness, again, it must be conceded that to have
run a newspaper with all of Herald's infrastructural
deficiencies, was no mean feat. There must have been,
in the initial stages, a lot of pain and personal
sacrifice -- but let's also not forget that Rajan was,
those days, without the responsibilities of a family
and with only a pint of Old Monk for company, and the
option to return to Mumbai's drab world of advertising!
He slogged, manipulated, and was rewarded with success.
What, however, happened after such undreamt success hit
the head sooner than Old Monk did, is a story I must
leave best to be told by many a gifted journalist, who
worked with Rajan. At least one such is alas no more in
our midst -- Norman Dantas, son of a former
publisher-partner of Goa Today. Rajan marginalized many
a gifted Goan journo because he perceived them as
threats to his position!
Back to my 1983 story.
It was some seven or eight months after that
uncivilized Cafe Jesema or Jesmal episode that the
mutual friend who had introduced me to the Fernandes
revealed the truth. Rajan Narayan, my trusted senior
colleague, days before the oHeraldo could hit the
newsstands, showed my letter to him on the editorial
team standing as one -- and quitting as one if need
arose -- and convinced the Patrao that here was a snake
already scheming to kill the newspaper before it was
even born! How the intrinsic illogic of this premise --
since the Fernandeses were well aware of my commitment
to the newspaper -- did not strike them, I shall never
know. Rajan had successfully weeded out what he
imagined would be future threat to his position (in
this case, entirely imaginary, since he at the time
knew that I was sooner or later getting into my own
business).
That was the first case. Many were to follow.
Other than weeding out rivals -- real or imagined --
Rajan is believed to have done some pretty nasty things
on the side. He played his reporters one against the
other, to fetch desired coverage of stories that suited
him the most. He is alleged to have killed many a good
story. And all this from behind the mask of being the
self-appointed keeper of Goa's conscience and probity
in her public life. The powerful Stray Thoughts (which,
incidentally, started off with Bolshoi the dog,
borrowed from the celebrated ToI columnist and later
owner/editor of Mumbai's Afternoon Despatch & Courier,
Behram Contractor a.k.a. Busybee) came in handy here. I
know the legion of Goa's five-star hotel GMs,
practicing and aspiring politicos, or even the
occasional industrialist locally mired in controversy
(like Dr. Jindal, of Meta Strips, the day after some
crude bombs went off at Vasco's St. Andrew's Church)
will not publicly admit the manner in which they rubbed
shoulders with St. Rajan!
I hear that the editor who brought a refreshing change
to the English-language print scene in Goa, has finally
been paid in the same coin he had paid many a
subordinate -- by making the subordinate's life so
miserable that there was no option but to resign.
Having known Rajan Narayan the way I did 20 years ago,
I have my doubts whether he will leave on his own. Of
course, he has already announced plans to publish a
weekly in Goa -- owned by the readers!! He knows the
Goan mindset all too well, and has already started
drumming up support via the Herald editorial columns
with typical (even if more virulent) anti-Hindutva,
pro-Cristao/Church writings that may border on the dangerous.
Of course, if and when Rajan Narayan does launch his
weekly, he will be infinitely better placed than the
Patrao, A.C. Fernandes was in the monsoon 1983. Let's
wish him luck!