nk (not
Raul, then a teetotaler, I don't know if he's still one.)

We were immersed in plans and strategy, more than in
the rum.

It was well past 9 p.m. and there was a knock on the
door. Being closer, I rose to answer, but obsequious as
Raul was, insisted on doing that himself. Raul had
barely opened the door when we heard the sonics of a
resounding slap across the face. A furious A.C.
Fernandes hollered, "Mama and I were so worried about
you." (It seems those days the Fernandes household was
being terrorized by another Fernandes household in the
Santa Cruz neighbourhood, so much that no member of the
former went home unaccompanied after dusk; if late, a
group of employees from the shop or press escorted them
home.) That was among Rajan's first personal
impressions of his future employers!

Twenty years is a long enough span for perceptions to
change. But I believe my opinion carried the weight of
near finality with the Patrao. Rajan Narayan would edit
the to-be Herald.

Next morning, we met with the Fernandes, again to work
out a blueprint for the newspaper's editorial
requirements, right down to a list of furniture! From
the way bare essentials were being economized, Rajan
privately kept asking me whether these guys could
really run a newspaper. I kept assuring him they would.
We agreed that together we would keep prodding them if
they wavered. On the way back to the hotel (he was
returning to Mumbai that day), Rajan said I was the
only person he could trust and would I please mail him
on a weekly basis on the progress of implementation of
the agreed blueprint.

This was essential, he explained, because as discussed
and agreed, he would be asking some friends in Mumbai
to quit their secure jobs to join the Herald and he
didn't want to put people in trouble if the paper was,
after all, not going to take off. During the period to
the run up, I wrote and kept Rajan informed of the
progress and, in reply, he kept reminding me to press
the management on the tasks that remained unfulfilled.
Quite a balancing act, for me!

In the course of such weekly back and forth postal
exchanges, Rajan asked for my reiteration that I would
stand with them as one -- if ever the management acted
funny with any of them in future. I presumed he was
concerned with risking his Mumbai team's future. I had
mentioned to Rajan earlier in Goa how the entire
well-knit editorial team at WCT had quit en bloc in the
face of a stubbo