he media remained somber for
half a decade or so.

Evenings at Mr Teli's office comprised of the
invariable cup of tea and on several occasions pakodas
from Cafe Real. Mr Teli's strategy was to ensure that
discussions over such sessions never focused around any
crime-related events for the day. And he ensured that
his agenda stuck. And then there was also the annual
get-together at one of the city hotels where
liquor-happy journos abounded. Almost no journo could
say no to Mr Teli. The same was the case with the liquor.

Things they say were even better during Umesh Gaonkar's
tenure as the officer in charge of the Panjim town
police station, with several weekend outings for
journalists covering crime. Umesh, who is now promoted
as a Deputy Superintendent of Police, has kept up his
press management tactics in Margao. Correspondents
often walk up to him and complain that they had lost
their purse and Umesh readily obliges, not with the
purse, but at least with some money. (For more
information please contact the late 'eighties and early
'nineties language-loving journo clique and primitive
Margao based correspondents-cum-teachers)

This uneasy equation also has its own kind of 'freak
shows'.

A journo attached to a Marathi newspaper, who belongs
to the Somnath Zuwarkar school of thought -- one of
those few loyal sycophants who refused to turn sides in
favour of Babush Monserrate -- was involved in an
embarrassing incident a couple of years ago. Shopping
in the departmental store in the capital run by the Goa
Marketing Federation, he tried flicking a tooth-paste
and slipped it inside his pocket. His sleight of the
hand was noticed by an employee, and was promptly
reported to the manager, who hauled him up and informed
the Panjim police about the incident.

When the reporter revealed his professional identity
and explained that he too owed obeisance to Somnath
Zuwarkar, the complaint was duly withdrawn. Another of
Mr Zuwarkar's cronies was in charge of running the
marketing federation then. The journo is now dubbed as
"Colgate" and he really does not bristle with joy when
he is called by the name. (For more information on this
please contact Police Inspector Mahesh Gaonkar)

But that's not all. Journalists pimping for the police
is also not very uncommon. Pardon the word pimping, but
there are times when the lines between both the
professions blur.

Only recently, a South Goa correspondent for an
English-