any consumer. And
infinitely worse in a crucial commodity that helps form
a society's opinion.

I had been speaking to some wealthier Goans, my idea of
launching a broadsheet weekly, which would, over a
period, be converted to a full-fledged daily. A tabloid
(like Goa Monitor) did not appeal; and mere excellence
in editorial content and quality printing (like West
Coast Times) did not suffice. What mattered was the
capacity to financially sustain a daily newspaper (by
absorbing annual losses even while continuing to
maintain quality) until the product turned round, which
could take some years. That kind of money in Goa only mineowners
had -- like all of Goa's major dailies! So my idea was
start small, stay around till you built adequate
advertising recognition and support, and only then
convert to a daily -- at a fraction of a daily's
budgetary requirement and without having to own
printing facilities from day one.

Even then, not many Goan businessmen I was in touch
with were willing to risk any substantial venture capital.

It was around this time, June 1983, if I recall the
month correctly, that a mutual friend in the printing
business in Mumbai and Goa, told me that A.C. Fernandes,
Patrao of the Panjim stationers Casa J.D. Fernandes,
was toying with the idea of an English-language daily.
The mutual friend suggested I discuss my ideas with Fernandes.

A.C. Fernandes wasn't a mineowner, not yet anyway, but
I had heard he was a shrewd businessman. He purchased
Goa's only extant Portuguese-language daily, O Heraldo,
not so much for love of the language or its dwindling
local readership, but evidently for the intrinsic value
of its press and its centrally-located premises. It was
said he took full advantage of the daily's lable, in
those days of the Permit Raj, to import (from Italy?) a
Lino typesetting machine, which actually was used for
all and sundry job works of the business house -- even
as the major part of good ole O Heraldo continued to be composed
by hand!

But what the heck! A shrewd and street-smart man, I
reckoned, would any day be better than a cash-filled
dumbo. Moreover, what Patrao may have lacked by way of
adequate resources was made up in having his priorities
right. His love Goa and her way of life, his concern
about increasing corruption in Goa's polity and
aspiration for rightful honour to the mother tongue,
were transparently genuine.

The mutual friend arranged our introductory