e 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 emp