GOA’S EDITORS-2
By Valmiki Faleiro
Dr. KSK Menon was a former Army man. As Editor of Goa’s then only English
daily, he
expected army discipline from staff. Woe befell anyone not standing to ramrod
attention
as he trooped in. He provided abundant cue of his arrival: pointedly pounding
his feet on
the wooden staircase and floor of the old office, drowning the drone of Lino
composing
machines on the ground floor.
Always in white (even shoes or occasional sandals were white) – good for the
weather,
he’d say – he never failed to wax his curling moustaches, clench his pipe in
his teeth,
and carry the foreign tobacco pouch in hand to impress the world. Or forget to
pull an
occasional bluff – like his fellow-Malayalee in a bygone era, AB Nair, of
Mumbai’s FPJ.
(When any minion of the then Bombay Presidency came visiting, the legendary ABN,
courtesy standing orders to his PA, pompously took calls from India’s Prime
Minister.
What ABN spoke in that one-way telecon is best imagined.)
When I knew first-hand that his paper seldom reached Margao before 10am those
days
(mid-‘70s), here was KSK telling me he had received a call while shaving that
morn –
from the PM in Delhi – complimenting him on the day’s “excellent editorial.”
KSK’s editorials … oh well, he was a stickler for grammar. As for content, he
relied on
huge ‘reference files’ – edits and reports from the world’s leading dailies. He
was a
devout Catholic who attended Sunday Mass at Porvorim and obeyed God’s
commandments, as much as those of his employer. It was a monopoly newspaper and
any trash, by way of hosannas to the government of the day, in Goa or Delhi,
sold.
One day, KSK got furious. Agriculture Minister VD Chodankar arrived late for a
flight at
Dabolim. The aircraft had begun taxing out of the apron for take-off. Briefcase
in hand,
Chodankar and his policemen ran in front of the plane, waving wildly to the
pilot to stop.
The aircraft had to turn back, de-pressurize the cabin to disarm the doors, to
let Goa’s
regal majesty in.
“Mr. Minister,” KSK thundered in the lead edit the next morning, “the Indian
Airlines flight
to Bombay is not your *carreira* to Chorao” (the isle Chodankar hailed from),
pointing to
the 1970s loss of Rs.80,000/- to the airline from ministerial demeanour. The
gallant Ed
must have got a sound dressing down in the proprietor’s plush cabin. Never
again did
his plume bear such flourish, save describing someone (not in power, of course)
as one
who suffered from “mental constipation and verbal diarrhea.”
KSK once made me a tempting offer. Pursue studies, gratis, at Dempo Commerce and
join his news desk on a then ok salary of Rs.500 pm. Possible reasons: the
paper was
increasing its daily pages from six to eight, despite the lack of felicity of
language in the
existing pages, where the Queen's English was roundly knifed on a daily basis.
His only
daughter, bubbly Mary, might have been a factor, but I was already hooked by my
future
wife.
Though I declined, KSK never wavered in encouraging me to write. Truth is, he
ran short
of contributors. Sunday edition ran just two regular columns, one by *Balsing*
(Chief
Reporter Singbal), the other by that unique wit, Chief Sub-Ed, Balan. KSK
provided me
story ideas and commissioned full-page Sunday features. By the time I
graduated, I had
a bagful of by-lines and some notoriety to get me a better job at Margao’s
‘West Coast
Times,’ then about to hit the stands.
All said, KSK was a man of steadfast principles. He promised his photograph
would
never appear in his newspaper, except once – when he died. To his eternal
credit, he
scrupulously lived by his values.
PS: Three on the ToI saga. With ‘raddi’ value of its projected 32-page daily
edition being
more than its cover price (Rs.300 per year plus free gift), some imaginative
people are
already planning to get into raddi business. Profits-driven ToI would care less
if the
paper reached the reader or was cornered by raddiwallahs at the newsstalls –
higher the
print run, better the advertising revenue. Think about it as a new publishing
model!
ToI failed on its first quarry. The buzz is they’ve now targeted another local
biggie.
And Sujay Gupta declined the ToI offer, but the better news is: he may still be
back!
Sujay is more passionate about the good of Goa than an average Goan … much like
those backstage lady-architects settled in Goa who researched the RP-2011 for
the Goa
Bachao Abhiyan… (ENDS)
The Valmiki Faleiro weekly column at:
http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=330
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The above article appeared in the March 2, 2008 edition of the Herald, Goa
