him with a piece of
writing and asked for permission to launch a column in
the Sunday supplement. He was reluctant. I was new and
untested. And I was not even a regular -- I was on
voucher payment. But he decided to give it a try and
carried the piece on the front page of the Sunday
Magazine. It was titled 'A peep into Goan psyche'. The
column was called 'Small Talk' and it appeared under
the pseudonym of R.K. Yen. The response to the first
piece was incredibly good. Mudaliar readily published
the second one and, when the third piece appeared, I
got the appointment order.

By then Mudaliar had been confirmed as Editor and the
paper was ready to face the world with new vigour. The
editorial offs were curtailed to once a week. The
printing improved and new features and columns were
gradually introduced. The NT had arrived. The threat
from GT looked feeble now. They had good journalists
and better technology, but had forgotten to hire good
proof-readers. The paper was full of typos, even in
headlines.

The NT was relieved -- at least temporarily.

The arrival of GT had a big impact on the Herald too.
Rajan Narayan began to behave like one possessed. He
blamed Chief Minister Pratapsing Rane and the NT for
all the ills of the world. His frustration was
beginning to show. He railed against the NT and Rane at
the drop of a hat. Once, two people were killed in
police-firing in Vasco following a group clash. It was
the lead in the next day's NT, but the Herald
completely missed the news.

A reader's letter was published in Herald a few days
later: "Where was your reporter when the firing took
place in Vasco? Had he gone to Baina for a quickie?"
The Editor's reply: "We don't enjoy the patronage of
Chief Minister Pratapsing Raoji Rane. So we missed the news."
(As if Rane had called in the NT and given out the news!)

Rajan Narayan is essentially a rhetorician. He has a
way with words and can argue his case convincingly. But
his writings carried little conviction, which was the
major reason for Herald's credibility crisis in those
days. But the fact that he changed the media scene
there cannot be disputed. In my view, the fundamental
error he made was to plunge into the middle of things,
rather than remaining a level-headed observer that a
good journalist is supposed to be. He made an
over-zealous effort to ingratiate himself with a
section of the Goan society and failed miserably. The
fact that even today his Goan