startling
discoveries we made of some of the murky path in which
the cricketing world travels. Aravinda de Silva asked
us to speak his manager for permission to do a write up
on him. To our chagrin, we realised that his manager
was in Sri Lanka and this was an excuse by Aravinda de
Silva. This came amidst reports of some cricketeers
expecting to be paid a fee -- or extract money,
depending on how you see it -- for an interview. The
standard rate then it seems was Rs 10,000! Sunil
Gavaskar too behaved oddly with us when we asked him to
talk to us. This was much before the match-fixing
scandal broke out.

Thanks to Choppy, even though I started by helping him
out on the desk, I also got to do many stories for
Sportswatch. This taught me many lessons in writing,
meeting deadlines, and building up a nose for news. One
incident I remember is the disbanding of the Sesa Goa
football team. Somehow, Choppy got wind of this. So we
went to the Sesa management, which denied plans for any
such move. We ran a story to this effect in Sportswatch
. By the next week, things took a dramatic turn and the
news became official. The Sesa Goa football team was
indeed disbanded.

On the day when the decision was announced, both Choppy
and me did not even have time for lunch. We grabbed
some samosas and straightaway landed at the team
manager Joe Vaz's office in Miramar. Here we collided
with a collage of emotions from the coach to the
manager and the players all in a stupor. This was a
unique experience. One which provoked us to criticise
the management strongly; but journalistic ethics reined
us in. It taught me not to be emotional when dealing
with a profession.

It seems that Alvito D'Cunha, one of the dashing
forwards for East Bengal today, was one among a group
of Sesa Goa players who ditched the club midway in the
Second Division league and came back to Goa from
Bangalore during the players transfers period. Shorn of
its cream players, the team was left high and dry
without any strength, nullifying it chances of
qualifying for the Big League. Peter Lima Leitao, who
was the corporate manager for the team, is on record
saying that if Sesa Goa had qualified for the National
League, then perhaps the decision to disband the team
would have been put off.

Of course, it was not all hunky dory for me on the
Sportswatch desk. Neither could I boast that I had
become a full-fledged writer with hardly two years of
experience. When B