In the second round of interviews, my first encounter with Rajan, it took this then raw third-year college kid quite some to gauge some clues about the identity of this man shooting across the questions. Only a syllable or two gave hint of his South Indian origins, and with his formal clothes, he could have easily passed off as a scion of a landed Goan family. Rajan did seem a bit embarassed to make the offer of Rs 300 as the payment for a trainee sub-editor. But money didn't matter, and the joy of becoming a journalist while still in college more than sufficed. In any case, this princely sum was thrice what one then irregularly earned as an articled clerk to a chartered accountant. This offer was made on the spot, and accepted as instantenously. In no time, we got that that telegram calling on us to join 'immediately'. One recalls rushing into the colonial styled offices of what was to become the Herald -- we then didn't even know what the paper was to be called, whether it would survive, who owned it, or whom we were working for. Within minutes of each other, Bosco Souza Eremita of Santa Cruz, Flavio Raposo of Carenzalem, Oswald Pinto of Aldona and myself took up our seats on the bare sub-editor's table, learning the basics of a profession that some continued in. Bosco seemed to be disillusioned that journalism offered so little scope for creative writing; but he stayed on and worked his way through Goa Today, Gomantak Times, the Portuguese Lusa news agency, and the Jesuit-run UCAN, apart from The Week and others publications. Flavio opted for a life in academics. Oswald Pinto went across from one form of reporting to another, and stuck with working at the less-insecure 'reporting' section of the state legislature. Reminiscing old times still brings back a smile. We remain friends. But this was not always the situation. You could argue whether it's a Rajan-influenced legacy, but at our time the staff would often be at loggerheads with one another. It could have just been a faulty manner of encouraging subordinates to improve in their performance, but promises of promotions to more than one candidate, and repeated if unfair comparisons with one another, sometimes did leave strained relationships among the staff that otherwise worked together fairly peacefully. But there were the plusses for working in a fresh new paper too. In the initial days, Rajan was almost a godfather. "How much are the $%#@$%s paying you?" he would sometimes ask juniors. Often, a recommendation from him actually got translated into a raise. He had his style of encouraging juniors. This, coupled with the acute staff shortage at the Herald then and frequent resignations from staff, meant a junior sub-editor could get enough of an ego-boost to do the front-page layout within a year or so of joining!