By Rajan Narayan

WHEN I joined the OHeraldo in October, 1983 the patrao was Antonio Caetano Fernandes and when I left in 2003 the patrao was his son Raul Fernandes. AC Fernandes must have been in his early 60s when I joined and he was a self-made man businessman from what I could understand. He had the largest stationary shop at the Panaji Municipal Garden Square and he also ran a small printing business where all the stationary was put together, including notebooks. AC Fernandes had bought the OHeraldo title from the Aleixo Clemente Messias Gomes family way back in 1967 when it was a Portuguese newspapers and now his grown up sons John and Raul Fernandes wanted to convert the society paper into a full-fledged English daily newspaper.
It was Raul Fernandes who knew the famous Goan artist and cartoonist Mario de Miranda working for the Times of India in the then Bombay who contacted me in July 1983. It sounded me off about going to Goa to edit the OHeraldo. I liked the idea of the challenge of editing a newspaper from scratch for I had never done that before. I had spent the first seven years of my life as a sub-editor and editorial writer with The Financial Express in Bombay. It was the financial daily of the Indian Express Group of publications; I had also successfully edited the Mirror and Imprint magazines later on. I was the deputy editor of Business India when Mario de Miranda asked me and the offer came to move to Goa to edit the OHeraldo.
I visited Goa in August in 1983 to study the publications market in Goa and discovered that the only newspaper than, The Navhind Times catered to the majority Hindu population which liked to read in Marathi and in English. Moreover since it was owned by the mining lobby, it was entirely pro-government. The Catholics, who were 40% of the population at that time, did not have much of a voice. I decided to position the OHeraldo as the Catholic anti-establishment newspaper.
It was more or less smooth sailing for almost 15 years editing the OHeraldo. Patrao AC Fernandes was an ideal publisher and boss. He was not so interested in money as he was interested in the larger welfare of Goa and he was happy with the prestige the newspaper brought him as the owner. He stood by me and gave me a completely free hand to do whatever I thought beneficial for the growth of the OHeraldo.
Indeed, I was gratified when he defied the then chief minister, Pratapsingh Raoji Rane, who wanted him to sack me within a month of my taking over as editor of the OHeraldo. AC Fernandes used to come to my cabin in the old rickety offices of the OHeraldo at the Municipal garden of Panaji. His only guideline was “Goyak bare kor!” Meaning “Do well for Goa!” AC Fernandes supported me during the Konkani agitation. OHeraldo’s patrao also extended full support to me during my fight with the mafia gangs growing stronger in Goa.
But AC Fernandes was growing older and of his two sons, particularly the younger son Raul Fernandes, started asserting himself. The elder son John Fernandes had fallen out of favor as he had married the daughter of a “Gulfy” and John Fernandes became a “ghar jamai.” Children of publishers grow up very fast. They quickly learn how to make money out of a newspaper. I am not talking about advertising revenue.
Raul Fernandes quickly learned how he could use the OHeraldo to win friends and influence people. He saw how all the senior politicians of Goa respected and feared me. Raul approached them directly to offer them “protection” against me when it came to what appeared in the OHeraldo – and so he started interfering with my freedom as the editor. Raul expected me to implicitly obey any directive he issued to me.
Unfortunately, this was contrary to the basic principle of independent journalism. Businessman and politician flattered Raul Fernandes. They told him that he was the owner of OHeraldo and should assert himself as the boss. It started with Raul telling me to not to criticize his favorite politicians. Every time I wrote something critical about Luizinho Falerio or Alexio Sequeira, Raul would instruct the news desk not to carry it.
Even Raul’s business friends started interfering. I recall the late night I got a call from my news editor, Sergio Caldera at that time. Some workers had died in a blast in a steel rolling mill in 2001 in Curchorem, Goa. Raul had received a call from Govind Tiwari of Kingfisher, who either at that time was a friend or worked for the industrialist Vijay Mallya. Raul wanted me to kill the story. I refused and this became a major of contention between us, setting the trend for our increasingly contentious relationship.
Raul got married to an air hostess working for the Saudi Arabia, her name was Diedre and he appointed her as editor-in-chief, even though she a media innocent. Raul and his wife Diedre brought a number of journalists from Mumbai to try to replace me. Fortunately, for me, none of them could write or manage the paper but the procession of so called editors led to a lot of harassment and torment for me for a lot of unfortunate things had happened to me too as editor of the OHeraldo. I couldn’t take the endless harassment any more and by end-2003, I was very tired.
All my powers were clipped. My juniors started controlling the paper. It was about this time that a fight broke out between the then chief minister, Manohar Parrikar and the Leader of the Opposition, Luizinho Falerio. Parrikar alleged that Luizinho Faleiro had looted the Economic Development Corporation. Luizinho on his part claimed that Parrikar had favored his brother-in-law Raju Sancoalkar with a one-time settlement.
An angry Parrikar sent a legal notice to all editors and publishers barring them from carrying any statements by the Luzinho Faleiro. I insisted that the OHeraldo carry the legal notice on the front page. Raul Fernandes objected. He was very keen on getting a license from Nanohar Parrikar’s government to run an offshore casino. In fact, Raul had asked me to talk to Parrikar about this but I had refused for being a middleman or dalal for wheeler dealing didn’t sit well with me.
Slowly it became clear to me that I could not function with my self-respect intact with Raul Fernandes as the managing director. I decided that I must quit the OHeraldo and start my own media organization. I felt strongly that there was an urgent need for an independent media organization in Goa. This was the beginning of the idea of the Goan Observer brewing in my mind even before I walked out of the OHeraldo without any fond farewells or flowers for my 20 years of service with the newspaper.
I decided to start the online edition of the Goan Observer in September, 2003. I found tremendous support for the independent weekly from the ordinary English readers of Goa. Some of my old fans contributed small amounts of money from Rs1,000 to Rs10,000 right from the beginning. Dattaraj Salgaocar was a major supporter as was Srinivas Dempo.
My wife Pankajbala R Patel (alias Tara Patel, a journalist with “The Afternoon Despatch & Courier in Bombay in the 90s) whom I married in February 2001, as upset as she was over the manner in which I quit the OHeraldo, extended her full support. Indeed, she invested all the money she had of Rs2 lakh into my own political weekly — the Goan Observer. I also invested the Rs1lakh gratuity I got for my 20 years service with the OHeraldo, my salary when I left OHeraldo was Rs10,000 per month. The gratuity was calculated at half-month’s salary for every working month.
Some friends like Aravind Bhatikar (former chairman of the Mormugoa Port Trust), my dearest friend Dr Francisco Colaco (philanthropist cardiologist in Margao), the redoubtable Frank Martins of Mapusa, Leo D’Mello (marketing expert from Margao) agreed to join the board of directors. Floriano Lobo, founder-president the Goa Su-raj Party helped me in renting a flat at La Campala Colony at a concessional rate from a UK national AK Fernandes.
An old colleague of mine Melanie Sequeira insisted that she would work free for me till the paper was launched. I opened up journalism careers to Melanie when I appointed her editor of Junior O-Heraldo way back in 1990. Melanie had joined me as secretary but was too good to waste on secretarial duties for she was an excellent writer. She went on to become the first news editor of the Gomantak Times.
I recruited Jonquil Sudhir, a Mustifund Journalism School student as a sub-editor. Shamir Diniz, an old friend who was creative director of the OHeraldo, volunteered to design the Goan Observer for me. The Goan Observer started out on a long journey across almost 24 years to this day with a computer, a scanner and a printer at Tropicana Apartment at the La Campala Colony, rented premises. Present at the inauguration of the first edition on October 1, 2003 were the late Bal Mundkar, founder of Ulka Advertising, a marketing wizard who took an interest us till the very end. Also there was my very old friend from my Bombay years, CS Mirchandani, who gifted us with a computer. I had helped him get a job with GIMs in Goa and we continued to remain good friends till he passed away.
I resigned from OHeraldo on October 10, 2003 which was the 20th anniversary of the paper. I started the Goan Observer on October 15, 2003. Our first cover was a very colorful illustration portraying Dr Wilfred D’Souza as the big bad wolf of Red Riding Hood nursery rhyme fame. The second cover had “monster rat” of Taleigao Atanasio Babush Monserrate on it. Our covers were so catchy that by coincidence or otherwise the Goan Observer specialized in converting politicians into animals. It led a feature writer from the Hindustan Times to describe the weekly as a “manimal farm.” Allen Pinto who did our marketing to begin with opted out because of other commitments but he introduced us to our financial expert and chartered accountant Reginald Dias who continues to help the company to this day.
What was very heartening was the response from readers. Within three months we were selling 10,000 copies of the Goan Observer every week come Saturday morning. Goan Observer started when Manohar Parrikar was the chief minister of Goa in 2003. This was the beginning of the “saffronization” of Goa. We fought the BJP right from the beginning. I like to think that we were successful in containing the BJP and Manohar Parrikar during his first term as chief minister.
It is ironical that Manohar Parrikar became the reason for my quitting the OHeraldo to start the Goan Observer. Forget my beating up by goons courtesy a supari given by Dayanand Narvekar and the harassment as an editor, all at peanuts salary for 20 years, the OHeraldo now won’t acknowledge that I gave 20 years of the prime of my life building it up as Goa’s best independent investigative daily in Goa. This arrogant disdain is the sharpest cut of them all.

(We shall look at the rise of Goan Observer in my next instalment.)