spot, and accepted as instantenously.

In no time, we got that that telegram calling on us to
join 'immediately'.

One recalls rushing into the colonial styled offices of
what was to become the Herald -- we then didn't even
know what the paper was to be called, whether it would
survive, who owned it, or whom we were working for.
Within minutes of each other, Bosco Souza Eremita of
Santa Cruz, Flavio Raposo of Carenzalem, Oswald Pinto
of Aldona and myself took up our seats on the bare
sub-editor's table, learning the basics of a profession
that some continued in. Bosco seemed to be
disillusioned that journalism offered so little scope
for creative writing; but he stayed on and worked his
way through Goa Today, Gomantak Times, the Portuguese
Lusa news agency, and the Jesuit-run UCAN, apart from
The Week and others publications. Flavio opted for a
life in academics. Oswald Pinto went across from one
form of reporting to another, and stuck with working at
the less-insecure 'reporting' section of the state
legislature. Reminiscing old times still brings back a
smile. We remain friends.

But this was not always the situation. You could argue
whether it's a Rajan-influenced legacy, but at our time
the staff would often be at loggerheads with one
another. It could have just been a faulty manner of
encouraging subordinates to improve in their
performance, but promises of promotions to more than
one candidate, and repeated if unfair comparisons with
one another, sometimes did leave strained relationships
among the staff that otherwise worked together fairly peacefully.

But there were the plusses for working in a fresh new
paper too. In the initial days, Rajan was almost a
godfather. "How much are the $%#@$%s paying you?" he
would sometimes ask juniors. Often, a recommendation
from him actually got translated into a raise.

He had his style of encouraging juniors. This, coupled
with the acute staff shortage at the Herald then and
frequent resignations from staff, meant a junior
sub-editor could get enough of an ego-boost to do the
front-page layout within a year or so of joining!

Talking about resignations, in the first four years of
its operation, the Rajan-edited Herald listings showed
that at least 30 journalists had left its rolls. Part
of this could have been due to the poor and
unsatisfactory compensation offered by a paper with
drew an infinitesimally tiny number of adverts compared
to today. Some left fo