THE ADVENTUROUS SENIORS OF CUMBIEM MOROD

     THE ADVENTUROUS SENIORS OF CUMBIEM MOROD     

          One of the first brave men and talented seniors from Cumbiem Morod with a firm determination to venture abroad for employment was the resolute Mr. Miguel Mendes, who worked for an oil company in Kuwait in the late 1940’s. He was considered as a pioneer and a role model for the village. A very modest and soft spoken man, he was very unassuming. A father of 7 children - one of his eldest daughters, Terezinha, taught us Cathecism in Sunday School. The village people admired him for his humility and kindness. He was talented in music and played the violin by ear - a talent that he has handed down to his grandson and namesake Michael Mendes along with his brother Savio.

          When Mendes Senior returned home on his vacation, the entire village seemed lively. He would have all the village folks at his house for a sung Ladainha (Litany). On Sundays he would hire a bus for all the village kids for a fun trip to Calangute beach followed by a wonderful treat of snacks and cold-drinks thereafter at sunset. He would also reserve a day for a long trek for prayers to his favourite cross on the top of the nearby hills of Canca/ Verla.

THE LEGENDARY CROSS:  http://tonferns.blogspot.ca/2012/04/blog-post_4991.html

          On his vacations to Goa during the early 1950’s, the Mendes residence was the first one to be lit up by the wonderful ‘Aladin’ lamp of yesteryear, that lit almost the entire village. It was in their house that I first had first heard the sound of vinyl records on on an HMV (His Master’s voice) gramophone. Vinyl records by Konkani singers like C. Alvares, Minguel Rod, Anthony Mendes, Jacinto Vaz and Kamat de Assolna and Pat Boone’s ‘Remember you’re Mine’ were the one of the first ones that I had heard and seen spinning on this incredible invention of that era.