A year apart... journalism and leaving home
Daryl PereiraDaryl Pereira came to Goa as a lost young member of the
widespread Goan diaspora. He promptly won many friends
by his friendly ways and have-fun attitude. In turn, he
not just discovered his roots more deeply (Daryl
recently chose to have his wedding in Goa), but also
earned for himself a profession. Besides opting for
Media Studies back in the UK, he currently works for a
search-engine promotion agency (or, put in plain
language, an initiative that skews search-engine
results, to allow you to be listed first, if you can
afford to pay).
A lot has happened since my time as writer and
sub-editor for The Herald's international edition. But
a brief stint in the mid-90's has left an indelible
mark on my psyche. Having said that, the Herald for me
is largely synonymous with India, journalism and
leaving home, so discussing it in isolation isn't easy.
Also, there was no clearly defined plan -- it was
something I more or less stumbled on by chance.
It turned to be a chance encounter of which I still
feel the repercussions.
I arrived in Goa from the UK early in 1995, after
scrapping a potentially lucrative yet un-inviting
career in accountancy, originally no more than another
faceless backpacker with meagre funds hoping to enjoy
the chilled hazy life of a shack-wallah. Shame I didn't
check the weather forecast. The small matter of a
monsoon put paid to any chances of beachside employment.
Offices filled with ledgers piled to the roofs were
enough to put me off venturing into the world of Indian
accountancy and, not wanting to follow the aimless road
back home, I desperately cast the net out wide. An
answer to an advert for a 'Person Required for English
Publication' -- one of the more ambiguous ads to grace
the career opportunity pages -- led to an interview and
my first trip to the Herald offices.
Finding the office more energetic and boisterous than
previous working environments I had experienced, a
barrage of writing tests and interviews left me feeling
like I had been through a whirlwind. The whirlwind
moved quickly. That very same day I found out I was the
new sub-editor for the Herald International Review, a
paper intended to serve the Goan diaspora.
Well, what this role meant in reality was that I would
read the articles awaiting publication, picking up the
odd grammatical error, but more importantly I was the
lowest common denominator litmus test -- if the pages
didn't stand up to my paltry knowledge of the Goan
political system then (the argument goes) it would not
be understood by Goans in the furthest-flung corners of
the globe.
Day in day out, I would take the long dusty climb up to
the top floor -- at the time we were sharing office
space with accounts. Not quite the close separation of
duty to which I'd become accustomed. And although their
elaborate entries in ledgers never became any less
cryptic, it did give me the opportunity to mingle with
those outside the editorial department.
During the early weeks of my tenure in May, the heat
soared. Then early in June the rains broke -- with a
fanfare of grumbles from most of the populace for the
three-day delay. Funny for me, as in the North European
climes to which I was accustomed, rain pretty much
randomly came and went. The ferocity of the storms also
came as a shock. Days heavily punctuated with storms.
The power cuts that ensued, hobbling our much needed
computers, led to a greedy lunge for the last drips of
juice out of the backup generator in order to crunch
out a few extra words. Once that dried up, we would
have little more to do than meditatively stare at the elements.
In the English political system, the summer is the
silly system. It's the time for stories of twins joined
at birth and how a routine trip to the hospital to have
a wart removed leads to three-years incarceration.
Falling over the same months, the monsoon season in Goa
seems to have a similar effect. The supply of news is
low, but the column-inches keep up their incessant
demand. Ministers with long-shot pleas for 'raindrop
tourism' (to wake up a beachside industry all but dried
up over the period) is enough to make front page news.
Perhaps that is the reason that it was felt pushing me
out into the midst of Goa on the hunt for fresh stories
couldn't do too much harm. It was only later that I saw
this as one of the perks of working in a small team
(there were only three full-timers bringing out a
24-page tabloid weekly edition). Feeling like a young
bird pushed from it's nest way before time I was forced
out, between showers, onto the streets of Panjim, to
interact with the local populace. Quite early on, I was
struck by the stony faces of small-league civil
servants. The UK broadcast journalist Jeremy Paxman
claims the relationship between a politician and a journalist
is like that between "a dog and a lamp post". I could relate.
However, a useful mentor, T helped me through my first
real interview. This got off to a bad start when, after
biking it through sheets of rain, we knocked on the
door -- only to be greeted with the merest slither of a
gap with a voice behind it. I could almost smell the
fear as the middle-aged housewife exclaimed 'naka,
naka', as T tried to negotiate us into the flat. Her
son, a bright student looking for entrance into
engineering college, had come up against a wall of
resistance -- communal motivations were suspected.
Eventually, after agreeing to keep the article as vague
as possible, she succumbed and we entered the flat.
Once in, hot chai and samosas were thrust upon us as we
sat on the main (and only) sofa in a clean and basic
flat. Seems like hospitality begins at the sacred
entrance -- perhaps the reason why were kept out for so
long. Antagonism and Indian snacks don't sit that
comfortably together.
Well, for my first time, all seems to be going well.
However, looking down as I rapidly scribble, I start to
notice a puddle emerging around me on the stone floor.
Early on in the rains and I haven't yet made the
connection between downpours and sandals. The puddle
grows and I feel like my shoes are slowly turning into
the source of the Mandovi. I have little option other
than to come clean. What followed was an episode with
me apologising, receiving a maternal smile and a towel
and a level of empathy I'm not sure could have been
reached any other way. As it happened, the article
created few ripples and the power of the press didn't
have quite the force the lady had anticipated.
My confidence grew, and, as the rainy season drew on, I
ventured out more and more.
Towards the end of August, the rains finally showed
signs of letting up. However there was talk in the
market place -- the fish didn't return. At street level
housewives were struggling to find the plump shimmering
mackerals with which they normally populated their
spicy yellow curries. In the areas surrounding the big
resorts, blame was laid on the proliferation of hotels
with their ever-growing need for the freshest produce.
Out at sea, traditional fishermen blamed the trawlers.
The National Institute of Oceanography, which is
responsible for monitoring the seas, observed from the
fence. Whatever the cause, changes were afoot on this
rural coastal land -- the once abundance of resources
strained as it's popularity started to mushroom.
As the clouds melted away for good, shacks started to
spring up like primroses in May. The hoteliers grumbled
-- their 'multi-cuisine' menus just weren't being read.
Politicians took sides with either faction. Some
framing the fight in favour of the shack-owning
under-dogs, others pointing to their lack of civic
responsibility with their spliced electricity wires and
overflowing rubbish out of the backs of the flimsy
beach side establishments.
On the backs of the tourists and travellers flocking to
Goa came the stories of the parties, drug deaths, Anjuna
hot-spots that managed openly flout local licences and
throb on till the early hours of the morning. Crime
also increased -- the mugging of tourists, either on
desolate stretches of beach or in their insecure
dwellings, became more and more widespread. The hotels
brought problems of their own. This being a time of
huge growth, water was sapped up beyond the limits of
the local ecology and the coastal regulation zone (the
area demarcated on the beach up to where the hotels
could be built) was debated and apparently ignored in
many instances.
The international ramifications of a sordid paedophile
ring is exposed, following the conviction of Freddy Peats,
a German national involved in the abuse and traffic
of Goa's under-age. As the grim facts unfold, including
naive support by the Catholic church, the society looks
on in repugnance, wanting to distance itself from such
heinous activities. Once again, Goa's flirtation with
other cultures in a bid to make the most of its
picturesque rural ideal is put into question.
One of the major benefits of such a small team bringing
out fortnightly publication is that we had the
opportunity to experience each of the many ingredients
that make up a well-rounded news magazine.
Towards Christmas, to lighten the load of the heavy
political wrangling, I took to the fields. The paddy
fields that is. As a Goan urban dweller, I am familiar
with the white side of rice -- as it appears in all its
culinary simplicity and elegance on the plate. I am
however completely ignorant of the involved process of
getting to that stage. An 'expose' on the inner
workings of the paddy harvest -- the cutting,
thrashing, pounding and milling -- gives me the chance
to wade through the paddy, chase frogs, and be
generally mocked by good-tempered field workers. Not
quite sure if this is in the general job descriptions
of most journalism openings.
As the season starts to draw to a close, like a hungry
tiger the news machine goes in search of whatever
morsels are on offer. Once again the rains come and
Panjim is filled with the sight of sodden journalists
speeding around in reversed raincoats.
For personal reasons, it's time for me to head home.
On return, an enthusiasm for media leads into trendy
multimedia and somehow I end up dumped in full-blown
information technology, where I am today. As such, I'm
not in the perfect position to be able to compare the
practice of journalism in Goa with that of elsewhere,
although the peculiarities of the working environment
do stand out.
From the original office on the dusty top floor, we are
eventually reshuffled into the air conditioned first
floor vault. The cool air brings a much needed respite
from the heat and dust, and the environment is
definitely less makeshift. The room does have another
feature -- low hanging beams at the end and
(particularly hazardously) in the middle of the room
level out the worst excesses of pomposity with a short
sharp shock. I'm not sure if they are part of a larger
shrewd plan of management, but over the years they have
cracked the head of a number of prominent Goan
journalists and contributors. Exactly quite how this
has affected the quality of output, I'm unsure.
And then there was the technology. Aside from the
hardcore printing machines, large metal plates and
dangerous chemicals lying around, the computers that
sponged up our picture and prose were actually more
contemporary than the ones I had left behind as a
Liverpudlian accountant. As the adoption of the
computer had come in here at a much later stage, the
Herald machines tended to be newer, faster and bigger.
There were just fewer of them. Working under such
limited resources would at time inevitably lead to
fractures. Although we worked on the computers
feverishly in the morning to make way for the daily
staff (whose strict deadline gave them precedence), as
deadline approached tempers could occasionally erupt.
This thing called the Internet had been kicking around
for a few years but towards the end of my tenure was
finally picked up by a journalist fraternity that had
viewed the Internet with scepticism and suspicion (as
did many other people at the time). For us it was just
a dial-up modem taking about two minutes for a standard
sized email, as long as nothing happened to the fragile
connection. As our publication was aimed squarely at
the Goan living abroad, this was an excellent resource
for finding out what the Goan diaspora was up to and
how Goa was perceived on the world stage (especially
important in the area of covering tourism). As an
aside, it also meant that I no longer had to write all
the letters to the editor. Other resources such as the
Goacom website appeared, with intentions sturdy enough
to keep it valid to this day (I can heartily recommend
the recipes!). I think it is safe to say that the
Internet has irrevocably changed the face of
researching, collecting and distributing news. The
availability of this service in The Herald and other
Goan papers marks Goa out as one of the more fortunate
areas of the developing world.
I often wondered how powerful the pen we were wielding
actually was. Beyond the massage of ego of seeing a
by-line in print, it was hard to work out if our
columns of verbiage could actually make a positive
meaningful difference. Covering the depletion of fish
stocks after the rains did, to my surprise, seem to
create a few ripples.
Liquor (hard and soft), was often present in the world
of Goan journalism. Anecdotal evidence from the UK and
US suggests that this is common throughout many other
parts of the world. As with many stereotypes, the one
of the hack at the bar does contain some truth. There
is a quite widely held belief that alcohol gets the
mind churning and the pen moving. A pint at lunchtime
can help be a bit more assertive and searching when the
proud owner of the new enterprise slips into pompous conceit.
There was one ritual we adhered to quite regularly --
once a fortnight, after we had put the paper to bed, we
took to the city to celebrate. A restaurant would
inevitably mean a few pegs of rum. Then onto one of the
few late night drinking establishments: a seedy
corrugated bunker alive with the chatter of civil
servants, cops and journalists. Indian rum formed the
cohesive force -- the basis for a number of nefarious
deals in shady corners. Being not so familiar with the
more subtle political machinations I felt largely sidelined.
I did get a glimpse of the more unsavoury effect if
taken to excess -- seeing the image of older
journalists whose idealism had turned to advanced
alcoholism. Exactly what were the causes remained
unclear, but it wasn't pleasant to see.
But how politically unbiased were we allowed to be? The
advertising versus editorial debate in the press is a
perennial one. Over the year I was with The Herald,
there were a few lapses where there would be direct
influence from commercial interests to have articles in
their favour. Being asked to give the owner of a
prominent luxury hotel a mouthpiece through an
extensive interview did give me the sense of being in
the pockets of big business. However, I had the
authority to go to press with quotes throwing into
question the viability of luxury tourism in a land
where the season lasts little over four months --
slightly dampening the gushing tone of the article.
Rather than being downright manipulative, in hindsight
I would describe the management style as slightly
neurotic, characteristically protecting its own
interests. This led to occasional grumbles, back-talk
and skirmishes among the editorial team; however they
say the best relationships flourish under tension.
Perhaps this was the cohesion needed to keep together
the tribe of English-language hacks who refer to
themselves as 'ex-Herald'.
Being a Goan born and raised in the West, interested in
keeping contact and learning about my more distant
roots, the attempts of The Herald to reach out to the
Goan across the globe was admirable, and I was honoured
to be a part of it. The edition has since folded and it
is a shame that the paper doesn't do more at the
international level now, perhaps utilising new
technologies available to streamline the whole process.
All in all, I feel my tenure at The Herald was a
fruitful one. That is not to deny that the paper has
its troubles, but to an extent newspapers (like
politicians) are merely mirrors of the society they
serve. The fact that it has been a part of the Goan
social and political landscape for the last twenty
years is, if nothing more, testament to its success
within the community.