Darryl D'Monte was my first editor, when I joined the Times of India in 1988, and the thing that struck me about him was what a generous spirit he was, towards people who were so young. I was only 24 then, and he had a very young team of reporters. But, he did not have the insecurities or the pomposity of the older editors. He was generous with his views and encouragement, and that made a huge difference.

He was also one of my first mentors and gave me my first page one byline. There is a story to that. A month after I had joined, Sachin Tendulkar was about to make his debut for Mumbai. Now,Darryl had no interest in cricket, but I told him that I wanted to go and see his match. Four hours later, when I came back and told him that Tendulkar had scored a 100 in his debut, he went and told the sports desk to put this on the front page.