Back to the summer of 1978. As our 'unholy trinity' of Aleixo, Shekhar and me daily sat at the Govind Poy house on Abade Faria Road, Margao, preparing for our final B.Com. exams, I missed Kaka Singbal -- a.k.a. Balsing, the Sunday columnist and Chief Reporter of NT -- and Sripad P. Madkaikar, who at one time or the other published most of Goa's dailies. Both had called at home earlier in the day. Kaka left a note saying he had something "interesting" for me and would I kindly see him soon. I met him at his Patto quarters early next morning. He said he had quit NT and joined a newspaper that was going to be published -- from Margao! He said the proprietor, Panduronga (Chalebab) Timblo -- Papa to most of us -- had made a blanket offer: whatever the NT offered me, he would offer more! I immediately went to Navhind Bhavan. Dr. K.S.K. was seated with Fr. Lactancio Almeida, then Editor of Vauraddeancho Ixtt. I explained that it would help me cope with my Company Secretary studies from the comforts of my own home in Margao? The ex-Army man perennially dressed in cool white almost sprang from the chair, his neatly waxed whiskers bristling with rage: "Are you going to that W.C. s**t Times?" He tried a different line, "Are you going to join my competitor and stab me in the chest?" And yet another, "Remember I am the P.A.C. (Press Advisory Committee) chairman for another three years -- and as long as I'm around, I'll ensure you don't get an accreditation!!" I was painfully aware that I was reneging on a promise, that by joining a competitor, I'd hurt the hand that had, in good measure, groomed me. But Company Secretaryship was my object -- not journalism -- and I honestly imagined that studying the course material and sending out its Response Sheets would be better done from home and without working on shifts, as I'd at NT. [I was, eventually, recompensed with poetic justice. I hadn't reckoned that joining a fledgling -- nay, nascent -- publication as its Staff Reporter, with added responsibility of news-gathering in South Goa (which meant re-writing copy from mofussil correspondents who largely hailed from a vernacular background) would be so engrossing an affair that I ended up sending not a single Response Sheet to the Institute of Company Secretaries of India!] The West Coast Times (WCT) began churning out dummies by late-June 1978. My die was cast on June 6, 1978, by way of acceptance of the appointment letter, personally signed by Papa (Panduronga Timblo) himself. One of the most promising publishing ventures in the history of Goa's print media was about to take off?