THOSE WERE THE DAYS

A Nostalgic View of a Bygone Era

Author: Silviano Barbosa
Source:The PULSE
Magazine of the Goan Overseas Association of Ontario
March, 1996

Recently I was going through real rough period in my life. My heart was throbbing harder, there was a big lump in my throat. I was getting dizzy and all kind of things unimaginable happened to me. I began to develop all kinds of phobia. I did all kinds of tests, all negative. I went to emergency 6 or 7 times. I took some medicine that gave me hallucinations. My soul seemed to have jumped out of my heart, I was levitating while half asleep, seeing things like Almas do Outro Mundo. Every one gave up on me. Finally a doctor concluded I was having stress related problems and suggested I do some kind of Eastern therapy of meditation. So one Sunday early morning, I went to Scarborough Bluffs, overlooking Lake Ontario in search for a good spot for a deep meditation. The ambiance and atmosphere was almost like at a seaside spot in Goa. I closed my eyes and went into a deep meditation remembering Goa of my youth in late fifties. And now before your very own wide open eyes, I present the imagination from my meditation.

Goa in the fifties was a real gem of a place. Secluded, pure, fresh, natural, unadulterated idyllic spot you could call home. Serene, quiet, unpolluted, innocent, crime-free, romantic Goa was not known to many in the outside world except the Portuguese wh o colonized it for 450 years. And for us, Goans it was a real paradise.

Goa tuzo ugddas ieta
Tambddi mati, mollob, doria-vell, xetam,
Dongor, nhoiom, ranam, zonvaram,
Ponnos,ambe, madd, igorzo,ghoram
Nixtem, lonchem, fennim ani chourissam

Life in Goa in the fifties was sucegado (Don't worry, be happy credo).
People well-versed in Portuguese had nice paying jobs in the civil service. Doctors and lawyers did great business. Military personnel had great incomes. Mining business boomed in Goa and made millionaires out of Chowgules, the Dhempos, the Salgaoncars an d the Timblos along with the medicine man Cosme Matias Menezes. The kunnbis who laboured in the mines also flourished. German cars like Volkswagon and BMWs were quite affordable for the well-heeled Goans. The tarvottis eked out their living sailing on hig h seas as butlers, cooks and saloon personnel. English educated Goans went to Bombay, Karachi and East Africa for employment. The rest of the local occupational workers like farmers, toddy-tappers, and labourers barely made their living on low pay. But ev ery one had a swell of a time.

Primary education was in Portuguese. The escola primaria had 4 grades. After the 4th grade, you could go to Lyceum for secondary education. Some went to English schools and tried to complete their matric exams in Bombay or Poona. The village professora ta ught in Portuguese phrases like: "O sangue que corre nas veias e' Portugues", "Papagaio canta-berra, diz papagaio real ,Nossa Terra , Linda Terra, e' Filha de Portugal" made you really feel like you are a part of Portugal.

Konkani language was spoken all over Goa and the elite Goan families spoke Portuguese at home. Even the criada spoke tambddi Portugues. Konkani Tiatro was the only entertainment for the masses. Carnaval or Intruz brought three days of unending frenzy to t he joyful teenagers who adorned young girls with powder and perfume. Some mean boys used plastic guns to spray coloured water laced with banana juice or cashew juice to stain their colourful dresses. Khells paraded with live bands through the villages wit h the drag queen Shali Bai and comedian Shempia Miguel in Salcete vying for the coveted trophy in the Khell competition. This form of Khell combined with Tiatro later gave way to a new genre on stage called Khell-Tiatro. Konkani stage artists like Jacinto Vaz, C. Alvares, Miguel Rod, Remmie Colaco, M. Boyer, Airistides, Nelson-Conception-Anthony, Young Menezes and many others kept people's spirits high.

The village feast was a time of the year to remember. First came the Fama then nine days of novena with a powerful pregador at the evening salves. Then came fireworks of gornado and foznem and pauss with kombie tantem at the vespera followed by pig killi ng and cooking of sannam and sorpatel. On the feast day, early in the morning the loud village church bells, the foznem and the eerie alvorada band woke everyone up. Children, adults, senior citizens, all dressed in colourful dresses and in suits (no kaxt ti today), most with brand new shoes and new dresses specially for the feast, brought a touch of class to the village feast. Then you go to the church, buy wax candles, give esmola to the beggars, go to the fair, young girls pinning paper flowers on your lapel for some donation of a few paise. Then you go to the fair for khajim-bjojim or chonnem, where you get fistfuls of free samples "Chonnem vhor" or you go to the kermess for some cerveja. Gamblers going to the dice table, losing some money. You also m et and wished "Boas Festas" to some long lost friends or relatives visiting you or your neighbours. Parents giving 4 annem pocket money to the kids to buy some sweets, candies or aiscrot (icefruit) or xarope or lemon soda. Once you come home, you drink a nd load up on two or three dishes of pork sorpotel, booch or vindaloo, sannam, fennim or St. Pauli Girl cerveja. Then you share the chonnem from the feet of the patron saint. And in the evening you go to Tiatro or for a dance. (You don't think of mortgage and bills, No mortgage in Goa, even for beggars, the hut is free and esmola is enough, no welfare needed, thank you!).

A perfectly normal day in Goa starts this way: Early in the morning, the church bell tolls, but who cares at 6 a.m. Later the chirping of early birds wakes you up. As if this was not enough, the villager poder wakes you up with his jingle bells and then I have to go to buy 3 kanknnam, two paoms (undde) and three kunddia bhakrios. So my sleep-walk is over and I go brush my teeth with charcoal or with that erronda tallo branch in my teeth followed by the rinsing with warm well water. Then I go you know wher e with my tambio and pigs come running mad as hell racing each other attracted in the direction of freshly exhuded morning perfume. After that it is time for a nice jug of hot tea brewed in a charcoal laced mud burkulo. The tea comes with sugar and milk a nd some chapattis. After a couple hours it is time for pez with lonchem and khollantlem tor or if nothing else is available, my favourite kalchi koddi which comes with a warranty of a sure-fire guarantee of a heavy down-pour on your wedding day (And I can personally vouch for this).

Later I go to the market to buy fish. There are bangdde (4 for 1 eskuz, escudo), tarle, peddve and sungttam. While coming home I buy bhoje, boram, morondd, canddam and jagmam. Then I come home, eat rice and curry and all bones and remnants go to chicken, cat and dog. The hot nis water from rice goes to the pig with cunddo from rice husks. Nothing gets wasted in Goa. (we have no garbage collection, so we do not pay taxes).

In the afternoon we have tea again with manddoss or dalli or rice bhakri with coconut chunn baked in banana leaves In the evening we go to Margao, for a nice football match between Vasco Sports Club and M.C.C. Then we come back on that familiar Ford carr eira, with the professor or Padre Tio sitting in front and driver stops every where when someone shouts "Rau re" and the kilindor (cleaner) takes money without issuing ticket

We had to be home to recite Aimori before the Ave Maria church bells toll, then at 8 p.m. the rosary starts. Maim shouts in the midst of rosary "Arey dar damplam mure? Noman Mure, kurpen bhorlole....". After that we eat our supper and go to sleep on the m at on the floor, which was recently covered with disinfected cowdung (What?, you can't believe it?) The we pray again (God must be tired of hearing these Konkani prayers all day long) before we go to mat (not bed). We don't sleep right away. Now it is gr anny's turn to tell us a story of a Raja and Rani and kunvor and wealth, after which we go to sleep without hearing the end.
And in our sleep, we dream about Africa, America and London, where the streets are paved with gold and happiness.

And just at that time, I am awakened from my deep slumber by this stupid cellular phone at the Scarborough Bluffs.
My meditation was over and in a couple days my stress disappeared.

Silviano Barbosa is a writer and a poet and lives in Woodbridge,
Ontario Canada with his wife and three children.
He is working on a novel entitled "Lusindia" to be published soon.

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