t the news-desk managed things among ourselves and
didn't then make a case for more staff. We did. It
worked. Any desk-man taking off during the crucial
night-shift, made sure to get in a mutual replacement.
In a word, this system probably worked better than
system of policing shifts. The point here is that if he
so chooses, Rajan's style of avoiding micro-controls
could actually make for a workable management strategy.

But this phase seems to have ended nearly exactly one
year after the launch of the English-language Herald,
when the staff got the drift their their editor was
unable or unwilling to take their issues into account,
and almost all jointly formed a union. When Rajan
learnt of this, his reaction was one of a man betrayed.

Part of the problem could have been that Rajan also
perceived the insecurity of his tenure. One got the
feeling that the paper was not being improved beyond a
point, as this could make those at the editorial top dispensable.

Over the next few years, the fetters started coming on.
Rather quickly. To the staff, it was pretty clear who
Rajan's own sacred cows were, even if the editor
posited himself as the paragon of a free press. From
industrial groups lacking their own mouthpiece in
print, to some of the dissidents then harassing the man
whom Rajan got into mutually-arrogant ego-clashes with,
Pratapsing Raoji Rane.

Rajan also had a perchance to hob-nob with politicians.
One of our colleagues always attributes his survival in
journalism to then political bigwig Dr Wilfred de Souza
. How so? Obviously Rajan had flung across a copy to
the sub concerned with a 'Find the mistake in it, or
get sacked' threat. Just that time, Dr W's car pulled
up alongside the newspaper entrance. Rajan was gone,
and so vanished the threat of a loss of the job.

(As anyone who worked on the desk would concede,
finding errors on paper, when under pressure, can be
the most difficult task. Specially if they are your own
errors. Everything looks correct. This writer too has
made the stupidest of errors, notwithstanding the
reputation of being a fairly careful and concerned
desk-person.)

In our early days at the Herald, some of us
college-kids who were blessed with two-wheelers -- even
if we needed two jobs and a loan to manage these --
doubled up as 'pilots' to the seniors. It came as a
shock to one's post-teenage idealism to hear Rajan
argue after being ferried to a lengthy confabulation
with a Co