By Rajan Narayan

I FEEL very angry when good Hindu friends attribute my present crippled condition to my karma. I have always believed in taking full responsibility for myself. For all my achievements as well as my failures. I stopped depending on passions like god or religion when I was 15 years old, when I cremated my 21-year-old elder sister Vasanthi who died in my arms and I could do nothing about it.
I have no quarrel with my friends who swear by heaven and hell or jannat or moksha. I believe that all of us should put in the maximum effort in all that we do for the greater benefit of humankind. I believe that humanity is the best religion.
I did not have any godfathers or patron saints. I was born into a very poor family. My father who was a lower division clerk who only thought of his children becoming upper division clerks. There were no role models within the family. I was however determined to achieve the highest peak in life by my hard work and determination.
Fortunately, I discovered when I was in the 10th standard, that I had no aptitude for physics, chemistry or maths. I barely managed to get a passing percentage of 35%. I switched to history, economics and logic at the 12th standard level. The change created confidence in me as I did very well in the arts subjects. I opted out of the rat race of getting an engineering or a medical seat. I was quite content to do my honors in economics from Bangalore University (now Bangalore is Bengaluru).
I discovered a passion for journalism when I was in my first year of college. In response to the Bangalore University coming out with an official magazine which did not reflect the problems of students. Some of us started the in-house publication “The Retort.” This was a challenge to Vice-Chancellor VK Gokak. It was in “The Retort” that I started to do my early Stray Thoughts column.
Our mini- tabloid did extremely well in taking up the real issues of the students community. One of the problems was the attempts by the Central government in imposing Hindi in Karnataka. Later I moved to Bombay (now Mumbai) to do my Masters. My primary interest however was a career in journalism. I got my opportunity when a friend at the Bombay University hostel where I was staying told me that there was a vacancy in the “Financial Express,” the financial daily of Indian Express group. My friend KM Panikkar, who was working them, took me to the Express office and introduced me to CP Raghavan, the news editor.
Raghavan agreed to try me out and I was taken as a trainee sub-editor at a salary of Rs250 per month. Since I had a natural aptitude for journalism I worked very hard. I was soon confirmed purely on the basis of merit. My first love was writing. I used to contribute middles which are small lightly humorous pieces to the editorial page. This attracted the attention of the editor, VK Narasimha. He invited me to write editorials on international economic affairs. I was terrified as I was only 23 years and I thought editorials were written only by graying old scholars or veterans. However, Narasimha reassured me and initiated me and I never looked back.
I was constantly on the lookout for bigger and better opportunities. So when an offer came from a friend to join the “Onlooker” magazine as assistant editor I joined up. The “Onlooker” was a fortnight magazine brought out by Free Press group. I joined as an assistant editor at twice the salary I was getting at the “Financial Express.” From “Onlooker” I moved to the monthly “Mirror” as the editor. I was 25 years going on 26 years when I became the editor of my first magazine with a cabin of my own and a secretary.
The “Mirror” was the poor man’s “Reader’s Digest” catering to young small town readers. Mirror’s preceding editor, the spritely 78-year-old MD Japetho (the same age as I am now) has built up a fantastic magazine. I only made it more professional, adding on amongst other features the hugely popular Pen-Pals column. This was much before Facebook and WhatsApp came along. I increased the circulation of “Mirror” from two lakh to 5 lakh in one year.
On the basis of my performance at the “Mirror” I was offered the editorship of “Imprint,” a prestigious literary magazine. I later fell out with the management or rather the owner RV Pandit because of his RSS leanings. I was perhaps a little too hasty as I suddenly found myself unemployed. I was married then and making a huge salary of Rs4,000 which in 1979 was equal to may be Rs40,000 today.
However, I however fought back. I returned to financial journalism as deputy editor of “Business India.” I wrote some of the most talked about business stories including an expose of the Reliance company. I also wrote about major multinationals like Hindustan Lever. My cover story on ACC Cement, a Tata company, led to the sacking of Managing Director S Krishnaswamy who spoke disparagingly of the Parsi community. The cement company was owned by the Tatas.
I left “Business India” and joined the advertising agency of my friend, CD Ramchandran . But I found that I was not comfortable on the other side of the fence in the communications business. But I got my first introduction to Goa when I handled the public issue of Sesa Goa, and Fomento resort owned by Auduth Timblo. When I eventually came to Goa Auduth Timblo would boast that it was he who brought me to Goa. This is not true as it was the late Mario da Miranda who introduced me to the Fernandes family who owned the “OHeraldo” title.
As with the “Mirror” and the “Imprint” I had to start from scratch at the “OHeraldo.” It was a major challenge to bring out the English edition for when I arrived in Goa on October 1, 1983 there were no tele-printers, no typewriters and no staff. Within 10 days I set up the infrastructure and started the “OHeraldo.”
Fortunately for me, the only other English paper “The Navhind Times” was a pro-government Hindu paper. So I positioned the “OHeraldo” as a Catholic independent paper emphasizing on investigative reporting instead society and government journalism. Here again I had no patrons or godfathers. The Fernandes family did not have much money either to promote the paper, but I built up the newspaper to become the most influential paper in Goa.
I take pride in the fact that I built two of the most powerful media brands in Goa. When I left the “OHeraldo” after 20 years of editing it through ups and downs, highs and lows, I started the “Goan Observer” as an independent media organization. Thanks to the reputation I had built up at the “OHeraldo,” the political weekly “Goan Observer” was an immediate success. We made our independent stand clear by taking on all the politicians. Starting with Dr Wilfred d’Souza and Babush Monserrate to Manohar Parrikar who had just become the chief minister of Goa when the Goan Observer launched in 2003. We took on the hoodlums of GOA, we took on corruption. While I take full credit for building the “OHeraldo” and “Goan Observer” brands I also take full responsibility for the later collapse of “Goan Observer.”
I am arguably a very good journalist. I have perhaps been a very good editor, but I must confess that I am a rotten manager. I did not understand that I could not antagonize all the people all the time. I did not build strong relationships with business and industry. I was too judgmental. This is partly because there was nobody to exercise control over me. We had a board of directors of very senior responsible citizens like Francis Martin, Arvind Bhatikar and Dr Francisco Colaco but alas, I did not listen to them. They in turn were a little afraid about cautioning me when I was going overboard. If I had not put all our eggs in one Congress basket perhaps the “Goan Observer” would have been doing better today.
Manohar Parrikar’s BJP took revenge on me in petty ways for my bias towards the Congress. In any case, the big Congress politicians joined the BJP two years ago and I may not blame anyone for the gradual decline of the “Goan Observer,” especially after the Covid pandemic and lockdowns.
In conclusion I refuse to blame karma or any gods that be for my present state of health or dismal financial poverty. If I had not tried to starve myself and my nutritional levels had not fallen, perhaps I would not have contacted spinal tuberculosis. If instead of living in denial for a year I had agreed to start the treatment two years ago on clinical evidence alone, I would perhaps have recovered in a much better state of mobility today. Due to my cussedness in trusting and not trusting doctors alternatively on the inner whims of past remembrance, I delayed treatment for a year and this is the major cause of spinal damage (which in any case I was vulnerable after my beating up by goons while I still the editor of the “OHeraldo” on September 16, 1989, that incident is well-known now in media history ).
I have friends telling me that the state of the body does not matter if the mind is working. This is rubbish as the mind cannot work if the body does not cooperate well. The mind cannot cope with the frustration of a right hand out of action because of a “frozen shoulder” and neck areas. I still can’t sign cheques or eat or hold a mug of water with my right hand. There are other friends who talk about the spirit being more important than the body. But even a strong spirit trapped in a handicapped body is useless. It has been suggested that I leave everything to the Almighty. I am sorry I have never passed on my burdens to the Almighty. The good lord whether it is Lord Ganesh or Jesus Christ or Prophet Muhammad have enough followers.
I took responsibility for myself at the age of 15 years and I shall continue to take responsibility for myself however lonely I may have become. I only wish my friends both in real life and Facebook would visit me sometimes and spend some quality time with me. My real friends have passed on to wherever we go once no more