Yuletide Scenes

Christmas Cheer

Let the spirit of love

gently fill our hearts and homes.

In this loveliest of seasons

may you find many reasons for happiness.

Season's Greetings

and a Happy & Peaceful New Year

MERRY CHRISTMAS

The Blessings of Peace

The Beauty of Hope

The Spirit of Love

The Comfort of Faith

May these be your gifts

this Christmas Season

MERRY CHRISTMAS

EVERY SUNRISE

GIVES US

ONE MORE DAY

TO HOPE & PEACE

AN ICY STORY

WHEN MOTHER NATURE

IS IN CONTROL

&

LIFE STANDS STILL

WHEN BOUGHS TAKE A BOW TO MOTHER NATURE!.

TO THEE I BOW,

MOTHER NATURE.

Feasts of Yesteryear

Guirim, Cumbiem Morod

2nd January 1966

Preparing for the feast

of Holy Name of Jesus - 

at the Chapel dedicated to St. Anne.

BACK IN TIME

The chapel is white-washed. Decoration seems to be in progress. Atop the folding ladders is your sincerely in favourite checked blue shirt, assisted by two other young guys. One of them is Sikander (a.k.a. Shiko). The holes for the poles were dug by none other than Benit Titi, God bless him too. The white lace curtains and linen drapes were kept in a special steel trunk at Beatrice Mana's house in immaculate condition. The camera that I used was a Samoca II, made in Japan. The slide film was Kodachrome 64 ASA 36exp. The transparencies could be projected on the wall. The slide film was processed by Bombay Film Colour Labs at Dadar 47 years ago.

Kodachrome colour reversal film from Eastman Kodak was a process-paid film available in the 1960’s in Indian sub-continent and in the Middle Eastern countries. During my years in Goa and Bombay, I sent my film to the Bombay Film Laboratories at Dadar in Bombay for processing in slides; and when I worked in Dubai, I sent them to Hemel Hempsted Labs in the United Kingdom. In later years I got the slides developed at the United Film Laboratories in Ajman, U.A.E.

The trend of colour slides declined over the years, and finally disappeared from the scene.

The added joy of taking pictures using colour slide films was that one could have a slide show for family and friends to watch at home by using a 35mm film slide projector. Thus one could not only have personal projection of slides at a evening get-together with family and friends, but could also have prints made from the slides as well if required. Though the cost of making this choice was expensive, it was fun as a hobby. The reason behind this extra expense was due to the fact that the colour labs had to first make a negative from the dia-positive slide, and then make a colour print from the negative.

The advantage of using slide film was the clarity, a balanced skin tone and general fine picture quality. The benefit of using medium speed 35mm 64ASA was less grain, resulting in exceptionally sharp pictures.

Mamacita! Donde esta Santa Claus?

Mamacita! I was a 12 year old kid when 12-year-old Augie Rios had a hit with the Christmas song 'Mamacita' in 1959 which featured the Mark Jeffrey Orchestra. Years later I played it for my kids over many Christmases that went by. Now my sonl and my daughter-in-law play the same song for their little son - my lovely grandson Ari who loves it too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK77rxuXK5s

ANCESTRAL GOAN HOMES

Traditional Goan Home
Line Artwork by Tony Fernandes

Middle class homes such as the one shown above were constructed with mud bricks or manually mud-cast walls. There were then finished off with mud-slurry with trowels and painted white.

They consisted of a sitting room/prayer room (Konk. 'vosro), large hall (sala - Port.) usually with a bed at one end. Most of the houses had a bedroom behind the vosro. The bedroom had another small room (Konk. 'kudd') that served as a storage area for provisions with an attic (Konkani: 'ma-o') above it. A narrow corridor from the 'vosro' led to the kitchen with an adjacent bathing area (Konk. 'mori'). The kitchen at the rear opened into a compound wall or a fence made from bamboo poles and palm leaves. Trees such as the guava, drumstick or moringa (Konk. 'mooshing'), vegetable and other medicinal plants served as reinforcements to the fence. The roofing tiles used in these houses were semi-circular red clay tile variety. Longitudinal rafters cut out from the coconut tree served as supports, and lateral ribbing made from split bamboo poles fastened to the rafters with coir rope were used in turn to support the tiles.

These houses were built by tenants (Konkani : 'mundkari') on properties which were owned by landlords (Konkani: 'battkar'). The mundkars in return looked after the property. Some of these folks also worked for the landlords - in their houses or looked after the landlords' other properties elsewhere.

The out-house of such homes was far away - usually along the perimeter of the village wherever possible. 

Tonferns MacGyver

Handyman for all seasons