MEET OF CATHOLICS AT OLD GOA.

On 29^th of last month, at Old Goa Inst. Of Pastoral Council Hall,  at 5.30 pm I attended the meeting organized under the banner of All India Catholic Union.  Approximately 200 persons males and females attended this Meet which was addressed among others by Dr. John Dayal, Prof. Fernandes, Bishop Ferrao and Dr. Colaco.  The entire proceedings were compered by Jovito Lopes who was instrumental in organising this Meeting to create awareness among Catholics of their future in Goa in particular and India in general.

On 17^th December 1961  when one Laundry man Mr. Esho from Candolim Orda, at 7.00 PM came to know that Indian Troops already entered Goan territory, he started shouting loudly near the Church saying “Jai Swaraj – Jai Maharaj – Jai Hind.  Atam ami tumkam kitem tem dakoitelet, tumcheo Ingorzo ani Kopelam ami moddtelet ani tumkaim kobar kortelaum”.  Listening to his screaming I as a young boy realized what will be our future in our own Goa when my own brothers will try to liquidate us saying we being Christians we are foreigners embracing foreign religion and in one word we were considered as outisiders.

 

Are we really outsiders?  Who are insiders and those who considered themselves as insiders, are they not outsiders by virtue of being settlers on the banks of Indus River, coming from outside that land?  I object if anyone calls us foreigners because of the foreign religion we follow from the Europeans.  I am nether a foreigner nor  a follower of European religion, my religion Christianity is not an European but Asian just as Hinduism which is also an Asian.  If I am an outsider then those who say so are also outsiders because they are not original people from Indus area.

In the said Meeting the speakers voiced their concern of making India a Hindu rashtra by the Hindu fanatics. Though it is a big concern for us all the secularists yet it is not easy because our Constitution is very firm on this point.  These Hindu rashtra pundits want Hindu culture  in India.  But to do this India is not their fathers’ property.  Instead of Hindu culture they must use the word Hindustani culture.  We are in Goa currently about 25% Christians but surely this percentage will likely to go down in the next 10 years.    At that point of time, the Hindu fanatics will pounce on us to impose their ideology and religion on us. As it is now they are prowling on us.  They feel during the Portuguese time in Goa, Christians enjoyed preferential treatment but to my knowledge it is not true.  On the contrary Hindu community enjoyed better facilities then. For example in the commercial segment only the Hindus dominated the commercial industry.  Who were the Goans and even non-Goans who had the monopoly over Mining Industry?  Was it not the Hindus like Salgaocar, Dempo, Chowgules, Shantilal, Bandecar,  Bandodcar and others?  Who was Kakulo from Cadolim having agencies for expensive Cars like Taunus, Ford and others?  What about other agencies held by the other Hindus? 

From the time of 19.121961 when Goa was invaded by Bharat serkar under Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s premiership by giving false promises to Goans, the seed of communalism was sown on the sacred soil of Goa thru the instigation of low grade Hindus by the few high grade Hindus who wanted to liquidate Christians from Goa or dilute the impact of their presence in Goa.  One way to do this was to merge Goa with Maharastra where Maharastra like a big Hindu ocean will not only dilute the Christians and its influence but also swallow them.  The low grade Hindus felt that they were persecuted and troubled a lot by the Bhattkars mostly the Christians. To a certain extent it is right but those “Bastard” Bamon Bhattkars persecuted and troubled not only poor Mundkar Hindus only but more than them it was the Christian poor and Munddkar who suffered from the these Bhattkar.

In the dictionary of Dayananda Bandodcar only among Hindus the Bahujan Samaz people existed. He was a traitor and  fake Bahuzan  samaz leader. He was the communal leader who treated Hindus only as Bahuzan samaz.  Because he was the communal he sided with Hindus only.  It was he who sowed more forcefully the seed of communalism in Goa.  What he and others like him who were spreading communalism in Goa then, now the Bharati settlers are doing in Goa coming from neighbouring  and other Sates in India.  The genuine original Hindu from Goa will unlikely to embark on spreading this type of communalism.  Original genuine Hindu from Goa is humane and secular believing in Goan brotherhood.  It is this class of Hindus who fought against Bandodcar to defeat him in the Opinion Poll.  But unfortunately their crop is dwindling now.  

One of the speakers mentioned how our enemies are jealous of the assets of the Church and if they get a chance they will pounce on it first.  Hence, Church should be more vigilant.

Yet another speakers deplored the disunity among Catholics in Goa.  In this regard, Church leaders like Pe. Vigars and Pe. Curs must play their roles in the villages by preventing the Catholics from fighting against one another, including settling court cases amicably thru the intervention of the Church leaders.

A.Veronica Fernandes.  

CHAOTIC CANDOLIM GRAM SABAH.

By abruptly closing the today’s Gram Sabah of Candolim Panchayat and with the taking over the Panchayat administration by the new committee headed by Blaze, there appeared to be confusion.  Since my returning back to Goa 3 years  back this is the first time I see most chaotic meet though excellent input by the people attended this Meet where Damian Telles from Orda turned out to be the hero of the day.  By posing extremely important and relevant questions with the fluency of both the languages namely Konkani and English as he is the professional DJ & Compere, he proved that he is knowledgeable man in many of the issues Panchayat should handle but unfortunately not handling.  With the excuse of time constraint, the new Sarpanch Blaize depriving the people from asking relevant questions. At least sufficient time should be given to the attendees to get satisfaction to their queries.  

Candolim Panchat Ghar

Another hurdle the Sarpanch put to the people was to ask almost every question in writing. This looked to be unfair and I don’t know under what clause of Panchayti Raj the Sarpanch acted thus, though the representative of BDO was also present.

The Meet started in a very amateur manner by the amateur like Panchayati members headed by the Sarpanch. There was no agenda circulated to the attendees in the beginning. Besides there was no electricity in the hall nor was there a Fan facility.  Only after a lengthy delay for starting the Meet perspiration and sweating of the people in the hall was stopped.  The venue of this Meet today was one Classroom of the government school in my village which incidentally was my last classroom in 1962 March when I finished my Portuguese education there.  The name and everything remained the same from 1962 till now.   

Candolim government primary School

Good that Michael Lobo the local MLA and Dpty.Speaker was present for this meet to throw light on many contentious issues otherwise I don’t think anyone on behalf of Panchayat  would answer many of the queries of the people especially on ODP and CRZ. Blaze lacks the required tact and knowledge to handle and take the people with him and thru his negative body language approach and challenging type of appearance he indicated his weakness.  Because of this attitude of his, he, I feel may provoke anybody ether in the Gram Saba Meet or during his encounter with any of the villagers in his office.  The next 5 years will remain complicated. He should learn some ways of handling the public from Michael Lobo who has improved a lot acquiring all the best habits to deal with the public.

Public life is not a joke to handle, to fit in the Chair of a Sarpanch one must be a real born  Lazarus or Peter and not any Ladru or Pedru.  Today our system of public handling is collapsed because our illiterate, immature, illicit leaders are become unfit for this job.  Today what is important is money and money and more money acquired thru illicit means.  And entering into politics at Panchayati level and then at State Assembly level will flood you with ample of opportunities to acquire illicit wealth by extorting bribe from the public to build Bungalows, Restaurants, Hotels and purchase expensive Cars?  Government must first inititiate enquiry of how they acquired such a massive wealth.  From where they got these money to build the financial emire?

The villager Mr. Cheddo presenting a Bouquet of Flowers to Mr.Lobo 

There was one question raised by one villager asking MichaelLobo “why there is no control over the bad activities of the Touts spread everywhere in our village who while supplying guests to the hoteliers also supply drugs and prostitutes.   Here Lobo and the Sarpanch looked  a bit sympathetic towards Touts but in one voice very vociferously the attendees demanded from Lobo to put an end to the Touts in our village because they said “we are more interested in protecting our morality”. It should be known that just because of money one should not supply one’s wife, daughter and sister. 

The other critical question posed by the members of public was apathy by the Public Information Officer of Candolim Panchayat in not giving reply to the RTI of the local. Besides, many more issues were raised by the public but the Panchaya ledership looked a bit shaky.  As days and months and years go, they will be more and more shaken because from what I  witnessed today thru the fury of the locals who came in such a big number, the locals in Candolim have aroused.  At one particular time, when the former Sarpanch Sandra unnecessarily poked her nose when Damian was asking the chair some clarification, asked Damian in the Hitlerian voice, “are you the spokesperson of Panchayat?  Who  are you? You are nothing?  You just shut up there, you know nothing, stupid woman".  Sandra was the former Sarpanch and now an ordinary Panch.   

                  

                                                                                                                                      

                                               Mr. Michael Lobo seen addressing the Meet

Before concluding this piece, as asked by Cheddo, let me tell the Panchayat members majority of whom are old ones, that they must come out openly how they have given licenses to the big hoteliers to construct their hotels without the provision for Parking areas.  Was it done thru receiving the bribe and if yes who was responsible for this “Chori”?  If what I said is wrong then they must tell the hoteliers that they have no right to park their fleet of cars on the public road and block the roads for public.  Now in Candolim Ximer there is one more big hotel is coming, are they going to have their own parking area away from the public road?  The hotel built next to Holy Cross “Mandd” is making a mess of their cars on the public road in front of Azilo and in front of Novetel Hotel Ximer it is very risky to cross the road.  

After the Gram Sabah, some villagers approached me to form a Constituency Forum.  For them my advise is this, it is very good idea because we have to control the working of the current stupid local leaders but to do this we have to have first Candolim Forum.  Is there any one coming forward? I have no trust in Panchayat leaders nor any other current leaders to do something extraordinarily good in our village especially those naturalized leaders and those “kalche porche potte” without wisdom, maturity and firm roots in Candolim. They all combined together will destroy the greatness of Candolim which is known to give birth to the world renowned hypnotist Abade Faria, the Pinto Revolutionary Priests who opposed Portuguese rule in Goa, Dr. Gustavo Monteiro a social worker who laid the solid foundation for Candolim Foot-ball activities and who was the first Candoicar Legislator during the Portuguese time when he represented our locality in the Goa Legislativo Council and his priest brother Pe. Chico Monteiro who alone single handedly defied the invasion of Goa by the Bharat serkar of Nehru. When the grandeur of our village is so high, don’t you think we must have our local leaders having high grade intellectual caliber and not “Chors and Bamtte” who are good to play “Ghoddeancho khell”?

A.Veronica Fernandes.

BEAUTIFUL KONKANI OLD SONGS.

There was a time during the Portuguese rule in Goa, qualitative Konkani songs were recorded at Emisora de Goa by the highly qualitative Goan Tiatrist Singers who are dead and gone now.  Some of them like Alexinho de Candolim, Kid Boxer, M. Dod de Verna, Remie J Colaco, Souza Giao, A.M. B. Rose, Minguel Rod, Young Menezes, Miss Mohana, Georgina Jacques and many more have created special niche in the hearts of Konkani lover Goans entirely because of their beautiful, wisdomatic and informative songs they rendered.  Their recorded songs are priceless and the present generation should be kept aware of these songs.

However, the present management of All India Radio Panaji due to reasons best known to them only have stopped airing these songs.  I hope they are not destroyed nor got destroyed. By all means they should be salvaged and if necessary transferred to CD’s and played regularly. 

There are lot of stories going on that this  priceless treasure is spoiled due to neglect but personally I don’t believe this.  However, little clarification from the concerned people would be an appropriate solace for those who doubt the existence of these songs. In these songs one can enjoy very good lyrics, excellent way of singing and beautiful musical score.  These attributes made these songs beautiful.  Besides, these beautiful Konkani songs rendered by the great stalwarts of yesteryears adds more beauty and greatness to Konkani Language. It is these songs that enhanced the importance of Konkani language.  

  

A.Veronica Fernandes.