ght
pages. It was in my eighth standard, when one of the
then Salesian fathers, Jude Borges, who taught moral
science, brought copies of the Herald into the class
and asked us to count the number of advertisements and
the number of news items on each page. The verdict:
There was more news than advertisements. The moral that
day for us kids was: read the Herald newspaper, it
enriches your knowledge because it has got more news
than advertisements compared to the other leading
daily. Father Jude left us behind with one moral. I
felt like crying.

Meanwhile, Rajan Narayan's editorials and Stray
Thoughts rose to dizzying heights, and so did my
reading interest in the Herald. So finally when I met
the man himself, I was in a kind of daze.

Of course, the man never ceased to amaze me.

Much water has flowed under the Mandovi bridge carrying
with it the angst, dismay, despair, frustration of many
people who worked with me in the Herald into the
Arabian sea over my style of functioning. Call it what
you want, my stars, fate, karma, foolishness, anything,
but I have this knack of raising the hackles of people.
This inherent nature was actually a boon for me as it
was a kind of weeding out process through which I
landed in the company of those who mattered most.
Because, for a rookie like me, who had no formal
training in journalism, getting trained or learning the
nuances of journalism was of utmost importance. If I
need to tweak my brothers for that, a little 'mea
culpa'.

My innings in the Herald was a kaleidoscope of events
both inside and outside the news-room. But, Goa being
what it is, with sports and politics dominating the
news-pages, I kept myself out of the politics and
devoted myself to sports. Among other things, some
months after I joined, the Herald launched the
Sportswatch, the only sports supplement in Goa at that
time. Francis Ribeiro, affectionately called Choppy,
given charge to bring out the supplement every Friday,
was running short of hands. So I got an opportunity to
help in layout and editing of stories. This was really
an exiting break for me because, being a sportsman
myself, having played competitive judo, and with keen
interest in football, I naturally took to Sportswatch
like a fish to water.

My first big story was an interview with cricketer
Arjuna Ranatunga, the then captain of the Sri Lanka
team, which came to play in Goa. The highlight was not
my interview with Ranatunga but the