Anil Dharker joined mid-day as editor in 1988. I was a rookie copy editor at mid-day, then being churned out of a condemned, leaky tin shed in Tardeo, when we heard the announcement. Anil was a star. A familiar face on Mumbai Doordarshan. He would generally interview exotic filmmakers who made boring art films, and sometimes he would interview film stars like Shashi Kapoor. He was a well-known columnist – his television reviews in The Sunday Observer were legendary.

‘New team did things differently’

Anil came to mid-day from (titter, titter) Debonair with an entourage that included the then-unknown Meenakshi Shedde, Jeet Thayil, Hutokshi Doctor, Amy Fernandes and C P Surendran. In 1988 mid-day was still a young newspaper but the newsroom was still rather stodgy and old-school, especially, the desk. Anil and his team changed all that. The new team did things differently.