Goa

The last week I was at Goa and visited Margao once again. Goa for me is deeply immersed in nostalgia, the sweet and pleasant memories of childhood. We have stayed for about ten years in Goa from 1968-69 to 1976-77 and I did my primary schooling till the 5^th standard at the St Josephs Convent, Aqen Alto, Margao. In August 2010 also I was there and at that time I went to my school and residential locality. This time I visited the city park and market place. The flight to Mumbai from Goa is at 2.40 in the afternoon and on both the occasions I had the entire morning at my disposal at Margao.

Goa of my childhood is a rugged, humid and mountainous place generously sprayed with the red Chira stone, dense with cashew, coconut and mango trees, traditional houses of stone and tiled roofs along with modern apartments, colorful tribal Gawdas and fun loving local Kokanis, sunday church goers and evening temple bells, public transport buses and my fathers’ jeep, boys crazy about football and gilli-danda, all my Christian and Muslim friends, nuns and fathers at school, popular festivals being Christmas and Diwali, the traditional beheading of Narakasur by Krishna and the Durga pujo by the Bengali diaspora, incessant rains for five months but no water stagnation, hot oven fresh bread and grated coconut Hooman curry, my on demand Phantom and Amar Chitra Katha comics, going for Tarzan movies with father and Rajesh Khanna’s with mother, my special friends Purshottam Patel, Anil Apte and Munaf, Purshottam and I had a fight and didn’t speak for a month; one day he followed me with his bicycle apologized and we were friends again (we were tiny kids of 5 or 6 years age), strict sisters (teachers) at school and the caring beautiful Neela didi at home, going with my mother to the city park and eating south Indian dosa at Kamat hotel, walking long distance (due to my tiny legs) to reach a friends place but the school was next door, participating in annual dance and drama in school competition under the direction of Manik teacher, other special friends Baaja (Shubhadra), Chandrakant and Girija, the Illustrated Weekly and the Sunday Standard, the smell of bangda, tarle and pomfret fish, popular industries being the saw mills and ore mines, the sadness in my heart due to my father’s regular heavy drinking and my mother unhappy crying, their constant quarrel loud and bitter, the fun moments of climbing trees and playing marbles, the very unhappy times when I got beatings with a belt from father and with her boney hands on my back from mother, the carefree roaming in the jungle for cashew fruit, the great achievement when regularly standing 2^nd in final exams and receiving big picture books as gifts from the school, I could speak three languages fluently Konkani, Hindi and Bangla, pocketing small change when sent to buy grocery and using it for collecting stickers, match box cover and lozenge, the loud Chatterji uncle and his small wife - their son was a good friend, my brother Biki was born in Margao, the simplicity innocence and confusion of my sister Soma, travelling by train during December to Raniganj for a month holiday, Mankurad mangoes which tasted better than Alphanso, bombing scare during the Indo-Pak war; as soon as the siren sounded all lights were shut off and we went under the bed; car and jeep headlights were colored black upto the middle, tortoise flesh was sold in the fish market, plates filled with sweets used to go from house to house during Diwali, we used to sleep in the afternoon for an hour after school listening to Hindi songs on the Vividh Bharati.

Incidents, occasions, events, feelings and emotions; of various colors and magnitudes pass through my mind whenever I think of Goa. These memories I cannot forget. The smell, the sound, the sun and wind are still very real and they bring up a smile, sometimes a laugh, and sometimes a tear. Those days have long gone but still they remain fresh as if new. On this occasion I sat in the city park for some time, remembered my parents and thanked them. Structurally the park still remains the same but now there are more trees and flower plants. Margao has done well to keep the park alive even after thirty five years and pressure on urban space. A lot of things have changed but overall everything still remains the same. I observed my attachment towards my memories, my craving for the tension free days of childhood. I realized how much I have changed and yet still I wished to remain the same Suman of the past.