Despite having to operate with a skeleton-crew in a makeshift office, morale remains high in the Malaysia Nanban office.

Presently, the popular Kuala Lumpur-based Tamil daily has 32 staff, which is significantly less compared to its original crew of approximately 80 people.

"The morale in the office is very encouraging," said S M Periasamy, the general manager of Pernerbitan Sahabat (M) Sdn Bhd, which is the publishing company and newspaper license holder.

"All the workers are very committed to bring up the paper and many of them are having lunch in the office. They are also sharing each other's workload," he said.

A controversial fallout occurred in recent days between Edenline Sdn Bhd, which was heavily involved with Malaysia Nanban 's operations, and Pernerbitan Sahabat.

On 31 Aug, Pernerbitan Sahabat began operating outside Malaysia Nanban 's old premises in Kuala Lumpur. Approximately 25 staff joined the new office, a handful of them from Edenline.

Back to normal

Subsequently, there was difficulty in consistently publishing the newspaper over the past week in its normal full-colour 16-page format.

The newspaper was reduced to 12 pages last Friday, and also on Monday and Tuesday this week.

"Today (Wednesday), we are very contented that it is back again, like the same old Nanban ," said the elated Periasamy.

"For the past one week, we have been struggling. We have the manpower, but the setting up of the new office remains a problem," he said adding that sleeping hours had been adversely affected since the controversy.

Initially, Pernerbitan Sahabat temporarily borrowed the office space of its sister company Nayanam , which publishes a weekly magazine, and produced Malaysia Nanban for Sept 1.

Periasamy then had to personally buy ten computers for the staff to work on, and locate a suitable office space, which was ironically just a few doors away from the original Malaysia Nanban office.

"We have limited facilities and infrastructure, thus to bring up the newspaper is a big problem. We used to be in two buildings and had six floors. Now we only have one floor, but we are still managing," said Periasamy.

Support from Nanban's

Periasamy said that support had been encouraging, as several former colleagues and friends had joined the office upon learning about their plight.

He has also been receiving many phone calls from well-wishers as well as SMS's from individuals who call themselves ' Nanban 's' ('friends' in Tamil).

Periasamy said that sales were slightly affected over the past week, due to content and cut-down in pages. However, he was informed that sales had picked up today.

"Hopefully, over the next ten days, we would go back to the 'relaxing' atmosphere we once had in the (old) office," he said.

Asked if Pernerbitan Sahabat would still take in the remaining Edenline workers who has not joined the fold, Periasamy said the door would still be open for the next two to three days, as he thinks he has enough staff for the moment.