A MOTHER'S STORY by Tony Fernandes

'The Transom'

Line Drawing by

Tony Fernandes

THE TRANSOM OVER THE DOORWAY

A short childhood memoir about a mother's unique protective instinct.

Dedicated to all Mothers who protect their children in times of danger.

Excerpted from my book:
 GOA - Memories of My Homeland
(Poems & Short Stories) ISBN 0-9735515-X
Published & Printed in Canada 2004 Eclectica Publications Ontario
Reprinted in Goa - Pilar Training Institute 2005

The roof shook, the doors and windows rattled, the ground rumbled. The breeze hissed through the curved clay tiles.  The little boy woke up and saw his mother sitting in her bed. Glancing towards the 'JAZ' alarm clock on his study table he saw it was just about past midnight. “What’s wrong, what’s happening mother?” he asked. “There seems to be a big storm under way, son”. “Come here and stay close to me” she said trying to shelter the flame of the kerosene lamp on her bedside table with the palm of her hand. “Or may be better still we should stand there under the main doorway just below the transom as it seems to be strong”, she continued as she rose from her bed, and tightly clutching her son’s hand she rushed towards the main door in order to stand under the transom of the doorway.

Suddenly, there was a flash of light that shone brilliantly through the glass panes of the transom above the door. It was immediately followed by a very loud bang that shook the doors and windows. It was of course lightning and thunder, he realized. The boy, looking up as he clung to his mother’s arm, saw her staring intently at the crucifix on the opposite wall while he heard her murmur a prayer: “Please help us, Lord.”

Her earnest prayer seemed to drown under the loud patter of rain, that he could hear from the outside, beating down on the roof tiles. A moment later they could see water dripping in a corner across the room from where they stood. Soon water started dripping in various other places, drop by drop as if to keep the beat in perfect timing to the constant patter of rain along with the frogs in the fields with their endless cacophony while the boy stood bravely by his mother's side.

Slowly his mother walked to the kitchen and brought several pails to catch the drips of rain-water. The early monsoon storm subsided after a while and everything fell silent.

Then the boy asked: “Mother, why did we stand under the transom of the doorway during the storm?” His mother replied: “Because the doorway is always the last to collapse, son. At most times, the roof caves in first, if it should at all fall, in this case it did not. God has saved us”. “That’s probably the reason,” she continued, “why you see in almost all the great paintings depicting ruins, that somehow the doorway along with the transom or the lintel, and a pillar or two, are the only structures still standing.”

And I was that little boy.


Some of the old houses in Goa are made of laterite stone bricks while others are constructed using cast mud-bricks, with the roof consisting of curved tiles or patented inter-locking red tiles placed on a grid-work of rafters slit from the trunk of the coconut tree, wood and bamboo. The houses are famous for their white-washed walls and their unique entrances and distinct styles of windows and doors fitted with transoms and lintels. The houses comprise of standard balcão (entrance balcony), vosro (family room), sala (living room), kudd (pantry), and cozinha (kitchen).