In his zeal to propagate the interest of Marathi, he has even neglected the success of his newspaper which has been falling in circulation. Tarun Bharat, published from Belgaum in Karnataka, has taken away 6,000 out of the 18,000-odd Gomantak circulation. Yet Athavle has such a strong grip over the owners, the Chowgules, that he even overseas recruitment. No Christians are employed in that daily. Apart from editing O Heraldo, Rajan Narayan, a former editor of Imprint, now speaks from political platforms. Narayan has become more a pamphleteer than a journalist. He often attends the strategy sessions of the KPA. He has at times tried to maintain a balance but has failed because he is viewed suspiciously by the Hindus and because the Christians patronise him. Rajan Narayan is a professional doing a job and taken up with a cause which he would just as well drop like a hot brick if he got a better challenge somewhere else. However, the turn he has given to the O Herald has taken its circulation to 12,000 from the 4,000-odd it was selling before he took over its editorship. "I don't make any pretensions that I'm being objective," says he. "I'm here to fight for Konkani." Come what may, the two Narayans, both non-Goans, are slugging it out through reams of newsprint. And both are accused of polarising Goa's good people as never before. (The Week, Jan 18-24, 1987) The figures noted above of the Herald's circulation don't seem to be very accurate. It was more like a few hundred in its Portuguese days -- specially towards the fag end of playing the role of being the "only Portuguese language daily published in Asia". But Row Kavi raises a point long back which probably didn't get the attention it deserved. By the time the 1985-87 language agitation was drawing to a close, this writer was a chief sub-editor at the Herald. Perhaps the cynical games visible all round convinced one about not getting caught up in the meaningless emotionalism that was ruling both linguistic camps. Basic questions were not being raised. What primarily was a caste-fuelled was being fought out along linguistic lines. Many of those who took up these issues -- as subsequent events showed -- were more keen on cornering a share of the spoils for themselves and their kin, rather than really empowering the commonman (and woman) to utilise a language they could be more at home in. Rajan's own role was critical in shaping the language issue the way it worked out. The average Catholic became a hard-core, if later disillusioned by the subsequent twist of events, supporter of the Konkani camp, without quite understanding the unstated issues involved.