He wakes up in the morning, his left foot on the ground and walks out of the bedroom. His muscle memory makes him unlock the front door. As he does that, his reflexes make him bend down, without even looking, to touch the daily familiar feel of soft paper. '0 Heraldo' in hand, his day begins, and life resets for another day. He breathes, he lives, he reads, and he feels…. His Herald.
Many of us do different things. Some report, many edit, still others rewrite, others take photographs and videos, some update websites and social media, others work on columns and letters written to us, and yes, a team also fields calls, weathering criticism or accepting praise, as the due may be.
From midnight to the next midnight, there is someone in Herald or its support system doing his or her job at any given minute. As the reporters finish their task, the desk takes over and then the larger production team. The entire universe of printing takes over, followed by the logistics of dispatching your Herald to your town, village, and newsagent and then to your door.
Beyond ordinary, simply ‘mission’-ary
This isn’t a job just done by so many hands and hearts and by ordinary people doing something extraordinary. It is done by dreamers on a mission that looks simple – being the Voice of Goa, every morning.
Those of us in Herald are obsessed with what does look like a simple mission. But 125 winters have taught the legion of Herald’s editors, reporters, writers and readers that being a Voice is a function beyond exercising one's vocal cords.
For Mãe, & asmitai
As it turns 125, O Heraldo enters the legion of publications that have walked this path. Of being a people’s paper – of, by and for the people, chosen by them to carry their dreams, aspirations and pleas for justice. It has indeed done its duty of being a newspaper , the harbinger of news, but generations of families, across Goa – each new generation, echoing the previous – will vouch across eras, regimes, languages, and scripts, that their O Heraldo has dutifully performed its everyday task of being a responsible vehicle, and a spirit that acts as a shelter, a rock and protective arm as well as a clenched fist and a pen- wielded as a mighty sword, for its people, and beyond them, for its land, it’s Mãi Mãe (mother in Konkani and Portuguese) and its asmitai (identity)
With each dawn, each of us at Herald wakes up to see if we have passed this twin litmus test – of fighting for our motherland and preserving Goa’s identity.
In conversations, at gatherings, at weddings and funerals, at marches of solidarity or during voting for identity, O Heraldo is in the room, in the conversation, a part of the narrative, a gentle wave assisting the tide, the wind beneath their wings and the erect lighthouse – ravaged by the storm, but resolute in its glow.
Yes, we have heard this before but no Goan will ever tire of hearing and recounting this again: What is common among the language agitation, the opinion poll, the people’s agitations against unfriendly projects, the draconian anti-people regional plan, the fight to preserve our land, our rivers and forests, the fight to save our fish and our fisher-folk, our Mhadei, Mandovi, our Zuari and our Sal, our original airport, our language and also our neglected and orphaned script, and across every village and town and courts, where justice is given a platform?
There is one common thread – O Heraldo.
Each issue is a goal worth fighting for. More than a story, or a feature or an article, but a campaign. And it is led by the people.
They own Herald. They ARE Herald
Across Goa and India where Goan hearts beat for their motherland, across the sea, in countries where those of Goan blood live, from Australia to America, from England to the Middle East, from Canada to Portugal.
Each of the missions is boosted by the courage of Herald’s editors, reporters and its owners, a courage that naturally comes from the people’s trust.
For 125 years, your paper has showed truth to power. And in doing so, it has asked those who are elected to do the right thing.
One is reminded at this stage of one of the biggest heroes of world journalism. In her latest book, ‘How to Stand up to a Dictator’, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, who faces criminal charges that could make her end up in jail for standing up to dictatorial rule in the Philippines, introduced two Filipino terms, delicadeza, and utang na loob.
Delicadeza is doing the right thing when you wield power. O Heraldo strives to tell those who are elected servants of the people just that. Do the right thing.
Utang na loob, literally means the debt within, where you look at the sacrifices made for you and you in turn ensure that the system you elect doesn’t become one of patronage and corruption.
Here, and in the last 125 years, we have bowed in humility to recognise the debt we owe to the people of this land, for giving us this opportunity to serve you, of the sacrifices made by countless Goans for their land to ensure that system they have elected doesn't become one of patronage and corruption.
Today, despite surmounting odds, that come in the way of doing that, we pledge to the owners of O Heraldo – the people of Goa – that we will continue to do that for the next 125 years and beyond.
Irrespective of how dark the tunnel is, there will be light, there will be light, there will be light.