rn management vis-a-vis the workers'
strike. Till now, I had no reason whatever to doubt the
man's integrity. I wrote back, naively in retrospect,
that I was committed to being one with the team and
should one be touched, all would go -- or something to
that effect.

Rajan obviously didn't throw away that letter, as I had
routinely done his.

In time, Rajan returned to Goa -- bag and baggage. His
Mumbai team was to follow once we were staffed and
ready to run dummies. At the wooden-floored 1st storey
Herald office opposite Panjim's Municipal Garden, work
was on at a feverish pace. Rajan and I conducted
interviews for 'subs', reporters and correspondents. We
bagged some gifted hands -- Frederick Noronha, Bosco
Souza Eremita.

On the field, Devika Sequeira was to assist me with
Mumbai's Sushil Silvano on the local crime beat,
together with school chum Nelson Fernandes to cover
sports and Lui Godinho on the camera. I roped in some
old field hands from my WCT days, down to the last
detail of Nandu Zambaulikar, to ferry newspaper bundles
south of the Zuari!

Ticker lines were installed, typewriters and telephones
put in place, and the Mumbai team arrived (I recall
only S. Vaidyanathan on the newsdesk, though). The
machine, finally, began to crank. It was decided we
give readers a preview. One Sunday (or was it another
public holiday?), a few weeks ahead of the formal
launch on October 10, 1983, a special edition was given
out gratis to English-language newspaper readers in
Goa. The edition was packed with features, and news of
the day. I wrote something on bus transport woes of the
Goan commuter, if I recall right.

Dummies began rolling. Agonizingly, I began to see the
penny-wise-pound-foolish dictum again at work (as I
had, in the later stages, of WCT's short life.)
Expensive computers had been brought in but A.C. Fernandes
cribbed on appointing experienced hands as
compositors. A daughter-in-law came in after her own
regular office hours to help at computer keyboards.
John's wife worked late into the nights.

Result was a delightful melange of howlers -- which
continued for a good while after launch of the
newspaper. Every expense, however trivial, had to get
Patrao's direct approval. If Rajan wanted a chair
cushion, he'd have to convince the old man why his
posterior ached! But the good news was, the rumble and
stumble continued without interruption. We were close
to D-day.

That was when one fine su