My complete profile

I began my career as a journalist with the Goa Today in the late
Eighties. Next an opportunity arose to write for the Marine Times,
Bombay, a fortnightly I recall and the Shipping and Transport News,
Bombay, a daily, both of which I eagerly grabbed because they were the
best opportunities then. I free-lanced for the Sunday Free Press
Journal, Bombay, got appointed as the correspondent of the then
Maharashtra Herald, wrote a couple of articles for Sunday the Calcutta
magazine, was the stringer for The Telegraph, Calcutta and later for a
longer period for the Amrita Bazar Patrika, Calcutta. I was also Chief
Reporter of the Gomantak Times when the paper arguably played the most
forceful role in ousting the then Speaker Dayanand Narvekar over a
molestation charge.

My first big break, if that could be called one, was to be Special
Correspondent of the Mid-Day, Bombay. I followed that with a move to
Bangalore as Senior Reporter of the Indian Express and later as the
Senior Business Correspondent of The Pioneer. I really was the senior
most reporter around so looked upon as an interloper!

My next pit stop was the Economic Times in Madras I joined as
Principal Correspondent. I relocated to Hyderabad later with the same
paper to become Special Correspondent eventually, the high point in
the life then of any foot soldier walking beats doing the real McCoy.

During my long stint in Hyderabad I achieved another acme launching a
new daily called the AP Times for the owners. My Hyderabad spell
included a job as Assistant Editor of the Newstime heading the
business bureau. Much later (July 1997) I became the correspondent of
the Gulf News, Dubai covering Andhra Pradesh.

The Economic Times was my most eventful period as a journalist but it
also opened my eyes to the real freedom of the press that is
mythological like Moses parting the Red Sea. Individual freedom never
existed just the freedom the publisher and editor apportion to you
that at day's end means nothing really. In Madras when I wrote a
biting half-page on Jayalalitha (reproduced here) the Puratchi
Thalaivi held back the government's cheque for an advertisement
supplement the Times of India had published.

Hyderabad was where I decided I wanted out of the rat race and here I
am now thanks to Google doing what I should have done much earlier.
Because, Hyderabad was where a senior Times of India editor Monu
Nalapat told me politely I didn't fit into the 'good corporate
citizen' persona the Times group expected of its paid journalists.
That did not mean I had to be shadowed by the Hyderabad Metropolitan
Police, it meant I had to be in the shadows, subservient. The then
Economic Times Brand Manager also told me in New Delhi I would never
make Resident Editor of the Hyderabad edition. I never was. That was
the nearest I got to become chief ass-kicker, a genre I have
confronted all my life. Hyderabad also got me invited by the German
government to write on Germany's achievements in environmental
protection.

But Hyderabad towards the end did allow me to write a hard-hitting
weekly column in the Deccan Chronicle thanks to its harder-than-nails
editor AT Jayanthi till she decided the paper had to move on without
Lion Roars. But they were truly rip-roaring times and I was often
asked why I was such a misanthropist. As a journalist I will always be
on the other side of the fence, disparaging as hell; never sitting on
it, continuing to expose corruption and politicians and big builders
that trample on the honest-to-god original landowners, because that to
my mind is the package deal. You will always have corrupt politicians,
avaricious businessmen, and somebody has to do the job of exposing
them. Though I am not too sure about journalists sitting on my side of
the fence either. Our numbers have dwindled.

Hyderabad and the Economic Times also took me to the Andamans and
Nicobar, Cochin, Calcutta and Goa writing for the ET's Corporate
Dossier section. It took me into the nitty-gritty of business
journalism and produced the best in me. In between I found myself on
the editorial board of the Mumbai NGO's magazine Humanscape. For two
years till now I wrote regularly for the Business India from Goa. I
can claim also to have written once for the Times of India -a
travelogue on the Sapphire coast of Karnataka. But I just had to go
solo sooner than later because of my genetic makeup and what my newest
column Eye Spy that appears in the Gomantak Times Monday's and
reproduced here is all about. I did try to convince the Gomantak Times
to call it Lion Roars. The Lion will continue to roar however through
this blog.

When I am not writing, I travel, and can claim to be a backpacker. I
have backpacked solo through Sri Lanka, Kenya, Tanzania-Zanzibar,
Uganda, Mauritius, Seychelles, Madagascar, with a friend to Thailand,
Macau, Hong Kong and China. My travels have taken me to Paris, London,
Dublin, Madrid, Lisbon and much of Germany.

I have a fascination for rivers and lakes, cruised 640 miles from
Chongqing to Yichang on China's Yangtze river, sailed overnight from
Mwanza to Bukoba in Lake Victoria in a passenger ship, skimmed at top
speed in a 'long tailed boat' in the Mai Kok river from Chiang Khong
towards Thaton, boated down some of the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok,
bobbed up and down in a tiny boat on the real source of the Nile in
Jinja, Uganda and cruised up the Rhine for several hours in Germany. I
have written for the Outlook Traveller Kerala guidebook on Sulthan
Bathery 'A farewell to arms' and on Bekal 'Anchored in stone.' I also
wrote on Goa's Mollem National Park 'Goa's wild side' for its
guidebook 'Wildlife Holiday in India.'


Lionel Messias
Independent Journalist
0832-2280935, 9822152164, lionroars.goa@gmail.com