By the time I arrived in Goa, the Herald (formerly O Heraldo ) had celebrated the third anniversary of its re-incarnation as an Englishman -- but it was not yet out of the birth pangs. It often looked like a one-man show. The six-to-eight page broad-sheet was Rajan Narayan's play-field, and he played with gusto -- solo at times, fast and loose frequently. His output was phenomenal. He wrote the lead story, the front-page anchor, the edit almost everyday, six days a week, for several years. Besides, there also was the long-winded 'Stray Thoughts', on Sundays. Life at The Navhind Times was sedentary by comparison. In keeping with the image of Goa being a land of laid-back lotus eaters, the NT staffers were under no pressure to perform. Being the dominant daily, news came naturally to the NT. In those days, it operated out of a small rented building, adjoining a bar and restaurant, on the outskirts of Panjim as the new building near the Panjim market was under construction. The bar and the building belonged to the then Mayor of Panjim, an affable man whose employees entertained the NT staffers on credit. The editorial staff got an off-day after two days of work -- that's 10 offs a month, which was a luxury that journalists in other papers could not dream of. The first thing that struck one about the English-language Press in Goa in those days was its utter lack of respect for the readers' intelligence. I'm sorry if this view offends anyone, but the small-town mentality, the self-serious posturing and the patronising editorialisation of news reports were all too obvious in both the NT and Herald. But there ended the similarity. In other respects, the two papers were a study in contrast. Herald was technologically superior. Having introduced computers ahead of the NT, its printing was neater but the paper was replete with errors -- typographical as well as factual. The NT too had its share of typos. But it made few factual errors, because, as critics would say, it seldom reported facts! The NT used vintage Lino machines for composing and its antiquated printing machine broke down quite often. The morning paper hit the news-stands well after 10 am on such occasions. The printing was awful -- full of black patches, missing letters and blank spaces that challenged the imagination of the reader. Still it retained its readership, mainly because it was perceived as the more credible of the two.