The soft launch of the first copy of 18 pages, costing Rs. 2, was done by the Member of Parliament Eduardo Faleiro, in the city, where a few prominent citizens were the invitees.
For the nearly four years the paper was regularly published, there was great enthusiasm shown by the readers. But this in itself is not enough for the success of a paper, as any publisher will vouch, without advertisements, which is the main revenue provider. And that is exactly what we lacked. This could be because of a variety of factors, including perhaps, bad management. After several appeals to the readers via the editorials for such revenue support bore no results, we decided to suspend publication, as we could no longer continue suffering losses. We still hope to restart, provided the finance is available; but for the moment we haven't a clue of where this money is going to come from.
Though sports has been my first love, reporting on sports has been an add on. Except for a brief stint on the sports desk of the Free Press Journal, my main grounding on the news and reporting desk was with the Times of India, Bombay, and then on The Navhind Times and back to the Goa page of the Times of India, Bangalore edition, as a stringer, where I also did a lot of sports reporting. I believe that sports journalism helps a lot in the shaping of a good all-round writer, simply because it gives one a free reign to use descriptive language and a variety of verbiage, ordinarily not suited for general reporting.
Be that as it may, I was fortunate enough to work as a correspondent for many publications. Of particular mention was the Indian Post, run by the Singhanias in Bombay and edited by that time by S. Nihal Singh. The paper was to run into trouble later on and later had to close down. By this time, Vinod Mehta had taken charge as the Editor, and subsequently quit, to start The Independent, belonging to the Times of India group. Many of us with the Indian Post joined the editorial team under his leadership in 1989. Incidentally, the Executive Editor, Dina Vakil, who left The Independent to join the Times of India, thanked me in a letter dated May 4, 1990 for my support to the newspaper. I have my utmost regard for all these three, Nihal Singh, Vinod Mehta and Dina Vakil, for their personal gestures.
Among the other major papers where I served as correspondent, were the Financial Express for nine years, the Afternoon, the Tribuna of then Portuguese Macau, a news agency from Lisbon Noticias de Portugal and the NCWC News Service, Massachusetts, USA. It was hard work, and when I look back at those times, I am amazed how I was able to keep to my schedules and enjoy doing it.
Such challenges apart, it has been a great party always and I had a wow of a time.
Chapter 21: From journalist… to publisher
Niraj NaikNiraj Naik, known for his coverage of rural and remote Goa in the 'nineties, is today publisher and editor of the Digital Goa. This fortnightly, the only specialist publication of its kind in Goa — covers the IT industry in the state. He has worked in the Delhi media, and was located for some time in Malaysia.
Without doubt, one owes one's career in journalism to the emergence of Konknni (Devnagari) journalism with the launch of Sunaparant. One was then still a college-going lad, having very strong views on the number of issues. The Konknni agitation was at its peak and I was a staunch Konknni supporter. On a parallel track, one had also started questioning not only the obvious excesses flowing from religious fundamentalism but also ritualism and, subsequently, the very concept of God.
It was a time when I was also leaning towards socialism. Contrary to the projected image, life around you in Goa can tend to get suffocating. Given my rural background, I wouldn't have had confidence to write in the English-language newspapers, and the bitterness generated in those days over the language issue prevented me to opt for Marathi.