WRONG NUMBER

Its never easy being a babe in the woods.
Unless you have a good mentor to see you through the early days, its tough. Perhaps one of the major reasons -- remuneration apart -- why mofussil correspondents fall prey to temptations, is the unavailability of a mentor at hand to guide them, in their early days on the field.
Like this incident which happened in a Bardez town these elections with a correspondent of a local English daily.
A portly candidate contesting these recent election was struggling a bit and was desperate to find favourable coverage in English language dailies. He saw this lamb come his way. A complete fresher of a mofussil correspondent who was just finding his journalistic feet. The candidate -- who eventually lost -- gave his cellular phone to the kid, claiming it would help him getting in touch with folks while running about.
Dunno if he realises what he has done yet. Perhaps he has knows. Perhaps if he reads this, he will know others know it too.
It's a remarkable coincidence that a senior reporter who used to work for this same newspaper was known to have accepted a mobile phone as a gift from Luizinho Faliero (when he was chief minister), at a time when cell phones were available at a premium.