Chapter 12: The proof of it all... Tony MartinTony Martin, the better-known pen-name of Anthony Barretto, worked his way through Goa's English-language newspapers, before shifting to education. He has gone into self-publishing, and, in his own modest and low-profile manner, has managed to put out books with a print-run of 5000 copies (amazing by Goa's standards). Currently, he is working on a website on Canacona. Just an out-of-school teenager that I was, life then posed a 'Catch 22' situation when one first landed in Panjim. Without any experience, it was difficult to get work. Yet, at the same time, it was difficult to get experience because I couldn't get any work. So one fine day armed with a recommendation from the late music maestro-priest Fr Lourdinho Barreto, who hailed from my village of Galgibaga in the southern extreme of Goa, to Fr Freddy for the post of proof reader I arrived at the Gulab office. This got an I'll-let-you-know from the editor. Well at least I knew what job I was looking for. Then, with a fantastic helping of luck I got a job with the Herald -- oops actually it was with Norlic India, the firm shown as the employer of those doing the proof-reading of the Herald, in those days. The job was as a proof reader, and the date was August 12, 1985. To us, whether it was Norlic India or Herald did not then matter, I was getting my bread, so there was no point complaining about missing the cake. But along with my bread, I also got a taste and a first-hand glimpse of what I had only heard of earlier -- exploitation. Obviously the Norlic India tag was meant to deny us the applicable scales for proof-readers. We were almost like daily wage factory workers. Accept it or leave it. With pressing financial constraints, and at that time there wasn't even a functional union in the Herald (it came sometime later, and have worked in fits and starts) the option was clear: shut up and do your work or speak up and get kicked out. All said just-enough-to-survive Rs 400 a month was still a luxury. So I got myself testing the waters in the novitiate of journalism. For a tender 'naal' (coconut) like myself the sub-editors of the time -- Anthony, Rico, Godwin Figueira and sports editor Nelson, to name a few -- were exceptionally good. If I had peanuts for salary, I had gems for seniors. For most people proofreading is basically checking spellings and omissions by the typesetter. It was not much different here. On the few occasions we, the humble proof-readers, particularly Jack, ventured to show our mastery in punctuation and grammar, the concerned sub-editor would get furious, of course in a playful way. Often we would end up exposing our ignorance to the world. Ignorant or well-informed, those two years in the Herald were years of youthful exuberance and bliss.