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  Lalita Pawar When I went out for the interview that day, I was a little scared. This is usually not the case when I am going for an interview or a press conference. A person – especially a political VVIP or a celebrity – holding a press conference is sometimes arrogant and tough to handle for a novice reporter.  When asked a difficult or awkward question, the person may tend to insult the questioner instead of answering the question. But that does not necessarily cause us journalists to panic. The reason why I was scared of conducting this interview was the image and persona of the person whom I was going to interview that day. The person I was to interview for the Unique Features agency that day was no other than veteran actress Lalita Pawar. This incident must have happened around 1992. The day before, I had spoken to the actress on her residence landline telephone and fixed an appointment with her for the interview.  Speaking at the time, she had given her home addre...

Goa, Daman and Diu Goa, Daman and Diu have been a part of my life since my adolescence for several years. This is despite the fact that I had never visited nor was sure of the exact geographical locations of Daman and Diu tiny territories. Names of these two territories along with Goa have been included in my higher secondary certificate as this public examination was conducted from 1975 to mid-1980s by the Goa, Daman and Diu Board for Secondary and Higher Secondary Education. The only far remote connection I had to Daman and Diu was that these territories were part of Portuguese India, comprising Goa, Daman and Diu for over four and half centuries. This legacy of Portuguese colonialism had kept the three territories united even after Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru through a military action liberated these three areas from the Portuguese rule on December 11, 1961. After their merger into India, Goa, Daman and Diu turned a Union Territory although Goa was on Maharashtra’s coast...

When Panjim and Goa faced a lockdown in 1980s It was a tradition among all of us reporters attached to the Press Room at Goa Secretariat in Panjim to assemble at around 9.30 am daily. Goa Secretariat was then located at the historic 16th century Adilshah Palace, the oldest structure in Panjim built on the banks of the Mandovi River. The press conferences or briefs by ministers or the senior officials at the Secretariat or press conferences at city hotels would commence at around 10 am and conclude by 12-30 pm, unless they were followed by lunch. Then we would break for lunch at home, followed by a mandatory brief siesta ( Siesta or दुपारची वामकुक्षी is not the sole monopoly of the पुणेकर alone !) and assemble back at the Secretariat press room at 4 pm. Keeping in with this schedule, that day I had boarded the Panjim bound bus near my residence in Taleigaon. As I was boarding the private city bus, the bus conductor threw the bombshell . ''सोगळे ध्यान द्या हांव कित...