Next morning, we met with the Fernandes, again to work out a blueprint for the newspaper's editorial requirements, right down to a list of furniture! From the way bare essentials were being economized, Rajan privately kept asking me whether these guys could really run a newspaper. I kept assuring him they would. We agreed that together we would keep prodding them if they wavered. On the way back to the hotel (he was returning to Mumbai that day), Rajan said I was the only person he could trust and would I please mail him on a weekly basis on the progress of implementation of the agreed blueprint.
This was essential, he explained, because as discussed and agreed, he would be asking some friends in Mumbai to quit their secure jobs to join the Herald and he didn't want to put people in trouble if the paper was, after all, not going to take off. During the period to the run up, I wrote and kept Rajan informed of the progress and, in reply, he kept reminding me to press the management on the tasks that remained unfulfilled. Quite a balancing act, for me!
In the course of such weekly back and forth postal exchanges, Rajan asked for my reiteration that I would stand with them as one — if ever the management acted funny with any of them in future. I presumed he was concerned with risking his Mumbai team's future. I had mentioned to Rajan earlier in Goa how the entire well-knit editorial team at WCT had quit en bloc in the face of a stubborn 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 sunny morning, as I was about to cross from the Panjim Municipal Garden pavement to the Herald office across the street, Raul emerged from the stationery shop, as if casually, and waved me to hold back. He crossed the street and invited me for a cup of tea at a nearby cafe at Jesuit House, Jasmal or Jesema. Once seated, Raul developed an unusual countenance and began vaguely referring to the salary that had been offered to me (Rs.4,000 per mensem.) I imagined there must have been a family council the previous night. I reminded him that I had not asked the figure, that I had merely accepted what was offered — and that I was with them in this not for the money, but for a dream to break a monopoly. I suggested the figure could be revised.