Ben Antao ben.an...@rogers.com In the 1950s, when I was twenty and burning with desire to be a journalist, Bombay had no college of journalism, unlike today. So I spent hours at the USIS Library at Churchgate, boning up on such topics as news writing, reporting and editing in books about journalism I found on the shelves. Why did I want to be a journalist? Because I saw in this career an opportunity to travel as well to change the world. Is there a young idealist who doesn't dream of this?
The travel part stemmed from reading books by D.F. Karaka, then editor of the *Current*. In one book I found this description of the qualifications for a journalist: one who knows something about everything and everything about something. How could I possibly know everything about something, I asked myself, and something about everything? No way, I thought. In 1959, while still working full-time at the Bombay Port Trust, I enlisted the help of Agnel D'Souza, sports writer for the *Indian Express*, and presented myself before sports editor C.S.A. Swami at the paper's offices at Sassoon Docks in Colaba. A kind-looking and retiring personality, Swami agreed to try me out as a freelance reporter. Two other senior sports editors on the desk, Parthasarathy and Pedro, rotated day and night shifts. I knew about field hockey, soccer, table tennis and athletics, but I'd only heard about tennis. I took a day off from the Port Trust and went to the university library at Rajabai Tower, where I'd spent many hours during my college years. A female librarian helped me find a book on tennis; I spent a good hour reading about this 'gentlemen's sport' and took down notes. As it happened, a major tournament was on and Rod Laver won in straight sets. My 50-word report appeared in the next day's paper. The payment was 12 annas per inch, and 12 annas is what I got. However, sports reporting can get cliché-ridden after awhile; I longed to be a general reporter. One afternoon Agnel and I dropped off a bus at the Museum stop when Lambert Mascarenhas, editor of the *Goan Tribune*, happened to cross the street. Agnel, who had been doing the Tribune's sports page since the fortnightly began publication in 1956, introduced me to him. Imagine my surprise when, in the fall of 1960, Lambert wrote asking if I'd like to take over the sports page. How did he know my home address? I then realized that a couple of months earlier he'd published a short piece by me, 'Fear God, Not Man'. I was delighted and went to see him at his Ballard Estate office. Lambert was businesslike and told me he wanted a general story about Goan sports in Mumbai and a sidebar of any human interest, if possible. He'd pay me Rs 30. "Just bring me the copy on the second Wednesday of each month," he said. "You don't have to come in on other days." My consuming interest in journalism prodded me to hang around his office. After a couple of months he said: "I'd like to talk to you but I'm very busy." "Is there something I can do? I have the time," I said. "Do you?" He looked around his desk, cluttered with press releases and other mail, and handed me a sheaf of papers. "Can you type these, please? You may have to rewrite some, but keep it short. Use the typewriter in the outer office." With my eye on becoming a general reporter, I grabbed this opportunity. Since I'd signed up for the MA degree, with lectures held morning and afternoon, I had persuaded the Port Trust to transfer me to the Docks Department, where the shift allowed me to work evenings from 5 to 11:30 pm. Seeing my passionate interest in newspaper work, Lambert began to let me cover public meetings about Goa's freedom issues, featuring well-known Goan intellectuals like Editor Frank Moraes, Prof. Armando Menezes, Prof. Francisco Correia-Afonso and Valerian Cardinal Gracias. He also allowed me to write profiles of prominent Goans; most of the time he suggested the names, but accepted my suggestion about doing a piece on Prof. Frank D'Souza, who was my English professor at Siddharth College. I wrote a glowing profile, which Lambert liked very much. Before long I was spending whatever free time I could muster at the *Tribune* offices, doing my sports page, the profiles, news briefs and transcribing Lambert's editorials, which he wrote in longhand. Occasionally, Lambert would also invite me to sit across his desk while he wrote his much-loved column, 'Musings, Mood and Memories'. I felt admired and my work appreciated. During this time I also got to meet many important people in the 'liberation movement', including Berta de Menezes Braganza, daughter of the renowned journalist Luis de Menezes Braganza of Chandor; Prof. Aloysius Soares, president of the Goa Liberation Council and the *Tribune*'s first editor; and Irene Heredia, who wrote the women's page. I had met Tristão de Bragança Cunha in 1955 and often attended the public meetings he addressed at the Cross Maidan. In January 1962, Lambert went to newly liberated Goa for a visit and left me in charge of producing two issues. This being my moment of glory, I was elated beyond description, and took a month off from the Port Trust to devote myself fully to this challenge. Prof. Soares came into the office after the first issue. "I liked the issue you brought out; it's good," he said, handing me his notes for his next column. The compliment meant a lot to me for I was trying to imitate his style of writing, which was fashioned after *Time* magazine's. Six months later, Lambert went back to Goa for good. But in October 1962 he came to Mumbai to ask me to join him at Goa's new daily newspaper, *The Navhind Times*s, of which he was appointed joint editor. I felt in a bind: I wanted to complete my post-graduate studies, yet was reluctant to pass up an opportunity for full-time work in journalism, a career for which I had been preparing for more than five years. I explained my dilemma and said, "If it's all right with you, I'd like to be your paper's Bombay correspondent until I finish my studies, and then I'll decide." "Fine," he said. *The Navhind Times* began publication in February 1963. I sent in sports stories from Bombay, as well as a feature on the artist Francis Newton Souza who had exhibited his paintings at the Taj Gallery. However, the itch began to scratch relentlessly, and so I called it quits at the BPT and joined *The Navhind Times* in June that year. It gradually occurred to me that the two requirements for a journalist, whether editor or reporter, are insatiable curiosity and a hunger for knowledge. In other words, a reporter has to know something about a topic and everything about some topics; he has to be both a generalist and a specialist. If you really want to cut it as a journalist, you should be prepared to be both. In another book I came across this line: 'Facts are sacred, comment is free'. As I was soon to discover, this truism is fraught with ambiguity and uncertainty. Facts may appear to be true but they can also be manipulated. I witnessed this manipulation during the first general elections in Goa in 1963: as a reporter I could choose to slant a story in a particular way. Moreover, space in the newspaper being always limited, that forced me to write to a certain word count, compelling me to sacrifice many facts and indulge in self-censorship. I remember the one-sided coverage in favour of Congress that *The Navhind Times* carried during the month-long campaign for the elections held on December 9 that year. I was part of it. As it happened, the Congress was wiped out without winning a single seat in Goa; the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party won 14 seats to the United Goans' 12, with two independents also being elected, and another independent winning in Diu. Congress won a lone seat in Daman. Today, of course, with the widespread influence of the Internet, journalists face a formidable challenge to get their facts straight. There is so much opinion and misinformation floating around through emails, blogs, and self-generated websites that readers and viewers are hard pressed to decide what is truth and what is fiction. So you still want to be a journalist? Good luck! ------------------------------------------- Ben Antao is a journalist and fiction writer living in Toronto, Canada. His email: ben.an...@rogers.com This is an extract from the book *From Mind to Keyboard*, available at Golden Heart Emporium, Margao, and other outlets.