as
happened. Goa Today was no longer the domain of one man
and his ego.

On another visit during summer, I was dressed in a
suit. I was to meet the then Chief Minister Dayanand Bandodkar
and later attend a wedding in the city. Since I had no
personal means of transport, for me to travel from
Bogmallo to Panaji and back twice would be difficult,
so I had worn the suit and left home early morning. As
soon as I told Mascarenhas that I was going to meet
Bandodkar, Mascarenhas's face changed colour. He
admonished me for wearing a suit to see the chief
minister, saying that journalists must be dressed
informally. I explained to Mascarenhas, but I could see
that Mascarenhas bore some hatred for the late
Bhausaheb, as the chief minister was affectionately known.

That very same day, I met some journalists, including
Michael Fernandes who, I believe, was The Indian Express
correspondent in Goa. I told them that Mascarenhas
seemed piqued at me for wearing a suit. If I remember
correctly, Fernandes said that Mascarenhas has a
personal bias against Bandodkar regarding the
withdrawal of government advertisement. He told me that
Mascarenhas and Bandodkar were once on a friendly
basis, but both had fallen apart.

I think my second adventure in getting a job in Goa
came when Erasmo de Sequeira launched his paper, Goa Monitor
. I applied for a position but never got appointed. The
paper lived for a brief time.

Some years later, my uncle told me that he has an offer
from the Chowgules to start a Konkani daily. I came to
Goa for a visit and went to see Rodrigues at his
residence in Darbandora. He and I designed the logo for Uzvadd,
though it may have been refined when the paper was
launched. Rodrigues never took up the position as he
was to be under the editorial supervision of Madhav Gadkari,
the then editor of Gomantak. Gadkari was fiercely pro-Marathi
and my uncle felt his efforts to promote Konkani journalism
would be subverted by Gadkari. To my surprise, Evagrio Jorge,
the noted freedom fighter and news reader at
All-India Radio in Panaji, was its first editor. The
paper was well received. As expected, Jorge and the
owners or probably Gadkari had a difference of opinion.
In a short time, Jorge was out and he launched his own
paper, Novem Uzvadd.

Throwing light on Uzvadd

Without the financial muscles of the Chowgules that
sustained Uzvadd, Jorge's paper suffered. I think it
was also during this time that a gro