DIASPORIC RE-VISITATION - Part 3

Fishing Boats at Pomburpa, Goa, India.

Painting in Water-Colour

by

Tony Fernandes

DIASPORIC VISITATION - Part 3

Felicio continued his daily visits to the bazaar to buy fresh fish and vegetables and drank more Kingfisher beer at his favourite restaurant in the town. He visited his relatives and friends, far and near who had invited him for their village feasts. He went sight-seeing and picnics to the northernmost and southernmost beaches with his few old friends and made some new ones.

Lenten services brought back memories of childhood. Taking part in the solemn procession winding its way around the hill-side and around the perimeter of the cemetery with life-size statues of Christ carrying the Cross, and hearing the touching notes and words of the motets sung in Konkani sent a chill up his spine. In enacting the crucifixion elders guided the young men who climbed up on the ladders to retrieve the “body of Christ” while the haunting rattle of the ‘matraas’ echoed through the church,reminding him of his childhood.

After the church services, Felicio, thinking about his childhood glanced around casually if he could find familiar faces of his younger days. Luckily, he spotted a few and met them after the services, and almost failed to recognise one. He was conscious of the fact that he must have appeared a little older himself to them, just like they did to him, though none of them made any comment. Perhaps each one could notice the old missing sparkle in the other. Thoughts of younger days sent a lump up his throat. He made his way home on the scooter thinking about the times when he had covered the same distance on foot. However, better times in later years had followed when his father had bought him his first bicycle.

Of course, none of Felicio’s visits to Goa would be complete without visiting his Alma Mater, situated atop the hill and known as “Monte de Guirim”. This time, a guided tour of the new building followed a long conversation with the Principal and the Headmaster of the school. The new purpose-built wing, which features a novel sky-light, broad corridors and stair-well, is actually built on the very same spot where a humble but massive shed first stood in the early sixties. Felicio seemed to drift far away in his thoughts taking him back in time, remembering his class in that shed, when the Headmaster who was once a pupil in that same school startled Felicio by echoing his own sentiments when he said: “Remember the old days?” “Oh, yes,” Felicio replied, “I still remember those were the days when during a heavy downpour in the monsoon the students would have had to shift to a safer place to avoid the drops of rain ruining their study books”.

Felicio then paid a quick visit to the refectory of his alma mater, and while passing through the kitchen he was pleasantly surprised to see a medium-duty winch on an overhead I-beam track that is now used to lift the huge cauldrons of food from the cooking stoves. Innovative! Before his departure Felicio decided to pace up to the eastern corner of the terrace just below the refectory and next to the garage where once the famed “Land-Rover” was parked - the laterite stone and asbestos-roofed shed, next to the washing-ramp. But something was missing. It was the mango tree.

“Just let me cast one last glimpse south-east towards the beautiful and pristine landscape of fields and green hills of Socorro, Porvorim and Sangolda before I depart” a thought that he heard himself whisper as he gradually panned his head like a movie camera. And he took it all in! The green watermelon and vegetable patches in the distance lay sprawled along the twin roads that led to the hilly slopes of Sangolda. The view had not changed much. “May it always remain so and not turn into a concrete jungle”, he prayed.

Tony Felix (a.k.a. Felicio) Fernandes
Author: Goa – Memories of My Homeland