सब गंदा है पर धंदा है ये!!!

Call us fools. Dumb-asses. (Some of you do that anyway, but say it once more pls). For one whole year now, we missed a story, that was staring at us right in the face.
It was only a few days ago when we were reading up one of Mayuresh Pawar's 100 % non adulterated article that it finally hit us.
All this while we were under the impression that when Herald owner Raul Fernandes (pic) had applied for a casino licence (the BJP was in power then) the formalities had been carried out either in his name or some other company he had floated.
But we were stumped when Mayuresh's story on April 14 and The Navhind Time story on March 28 read that in fact it was the Raul-owned Herald Publications Pvt Ltd which had applied for a casino licence.
Now this is really shocking.
Say, tomorrow if Herald Publications Pvt Ltd (the company which owns the Herald newspaper) is issued the licence, the company would end up running both a newspaper and a casino simultaenously? (Can you imagine a floating news desk?) You heard of anything more bizzare? But damn... we've had mine owners running newspapers!!! ;)
Anyway there are a couple of points we were trying to make.
We have been a bit late in picking up this lead, so have any readers noticed how Herald has treated casino-related stories? Stories, edits? Anyone knows... do write back your comments.
This paradox brings to our mind an anecdote involving Sunaparant editor Sandesh Prabhudessai and Churchill Alemao at the latter's cabin.
Churchill was... we think the Industries minister then (not very sure about this) and was lobbying hard for casinos. There's one thing about Sandesh and you've got to grant him this. When he starts talking, you can only listen, cause you can't do much else. You are literally spellbound.
So where were we... hmm ok we journos were munching batatawadas ordered from Tato and Churchill was bulldozing his argument. "Casino... will give jobs. Employment zatole re." (the casino lobby had put him on the job already) Around then Sandesh rallied around with an amazing spell of sustained sarcasm.
"Sure, casinos will create all sorts of jobs in Goa. So all the unemployed Goan women would have a great avenue to become prostitutes and hey, all unemployed Goan menfolk can start about pimping them to the rich casino clients." This is a small bit from that conversation which could recollect. But trust us, Churchill could not say much in response. At the end, he just mumbled something to the effect of, "Jobs zatele re... Kidde oloyta re tu!"
Phew... back to the present.
Now that conversation creates a pretty queer pitch for Sandesh in today's clime. Guys, V M Salgaoncar and Bro Pvt Ltd have also applied for a casino licence. These are the big boys who own Sunaparant. Wonder if it would present the same kind of predicament to Sandesh now, as it did when he confronted Churchill on the casino issue. Hope he puts across his anti-casino point-of-view to the dapper Dattaraj, with the same kind of zeal he had confronted Churchill with.
Come to think of it guys, life really does hold you by the collar and place you at these strange crossroads. Look at this now two of the most visible and voluble journos (Sandesh and Herald editor Ashwin Tombat) who are known known to wear the Left ideology on their sleeves, now edit newspapers run by bosses who are hell bent on starting casinos in Goa.
Weird man.. weird... So life's not much different than a roulette then, is it?