Dubai: One of the men who has played an active role in the daily production of Gulf News almost from the start is Pazhaniappan Kalathilparambil (Pazhani), 52, a senior printer.

Pazhani does not leave work until the newspaper and all its supplements have been printed, bundled up and are ready to be distributed across the nation and beyond.

Pazhani joined Gulf News on June 1, 1980, and has been working in the production and printing department for 28 years.

"One of my teachers from college worked at Gulf News in the accounts department. I was living in Kerala at the time and one day he rang me up and said there was a job opening as a helper in the production department. I have been working at the newspaper ever since," he says.

He shared an apartment with another family in Jumeirah and when he got married in 1982, he managed to bring his family to Dubai five years later.

"As a bachelor I would spend my free time watching television and reading books because I was a member of the library at the British Council."

Back then the newspaper was new and its circulation was still growing.

"We had only one shift a night that would work on the 16 pages of Gulf News. Now we have grown and have three shifts. I have seen the paper develop over the years and remember how things changed," says Pazhani.

Daily tasks

One of his daily tasks as a helper was preparing the printing press and starting it up so it would be ready for production.

He has since been promoted to senior printer and Pazhani's duty now includes coordinating other staff members and working with people from other departments to make sure it starts on time.

"Thirty years ago, we would get to work at 8pm and not leave until 3.30 in the morning. But now we use the latest technology and printing is faster, even though there are many supplements," he says.

These days the only reason production will ever start late is if the plates (used to transfer an inked image onto newsprint) are late or if there's a problem with the machine, Pazhani explains.

There were only five people working in the department when Pazhani first joined. "During the early days it was like a family and all the departments were very close, but now that feeling has gone since the newspaper has got bigger," he says, adding that today there are more than 35 people from diverse nationalities in his department.

Over the years he has seen the end of many printing presses.

The most memorable one was the manually operated Hunter machine. In the early 1990s Gulf News purchased the Albert Frankenthal machine which made the job a lot easier as it was faster, and would automatically count the number of newspapers published.

The machine the company now uses is fully computerised, the right commands have already been entered. The machine prints out the correct font and colours, and cuts the pages according to the specifications.

"Technology has certainly changed my job, as well as other aspects of my life. When I first arrived here, I never made frequent phone calls home as it was expensive. I would only make calls to Kerala in cases of an emergency because it used to cost Dh7.50 a minute. I wrote letters instead. But nowadays I can call my family twice a day."

During the early days it was like a family and all the departments were very close. But now that feeling has gone."

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