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  HOW COLVA (GOA) WEATHERED A TIDAL WAVE BY ARMAND RODRIGUES Salcete in Goa has a coastline of about 20km.   Colva happens to be on this coast.   Towards the latter part of the 19 th century, a violent monsoon storm barrelled towards the shore.   The low-lying areas of Colva provided a ready-made conduit for the raging waters to move inland, relentlessly, past paddy-fields, in the direction of the church of Menino Jesus .   All indicators called for the worst outcome.   The villagers were overwhelmed.   If the destructive waters reached the church and encircled it, the clay walls of the church would get soaked and collapse in a pathetic heap.   In a panic, it was all hands to the pump.   Neighbouring villagers were asked to help. My grandfather and his five brothers, who lived on the periphery, in Betalbatim,   pitched in without hesitation.   These were subsistence farmers with only a very scant idea of how to tame a turbule...

HAROLD GEORGE D’SOUZA ONE OF LIFE’S GREAT GUYS Another Star Next Door This celebration of a great buddy has been lo ng overdue. I have been slow getting off the mark for one unforgivable reason or another. His fans have been quite vociferous: write the story! At last, here it is.  Harold with his Community Service Award for 31 years of dedicated service to the community Harold George D'Souza: always with a smile Harold George D’Souza picking up one of the many trophies he has won in his sports career in Mombasa Kenya.   IT IS one of life’s greatest gifts when you meet someone who is a very special human being: genuinely popular with everyone he has met, naturally honest, completely unassuming and humility personified. You would think anyone with the happy baggage of all those accolades might be overloaded with a tendency to trip here or there, but not HAROLD GEORGE D’SOUZA. He was blessed with great parents. George D’Souza was a great club man and a public spea...

  HELTER SKELTER BEFORE THE MONSOONS IN GOA   BY   ARMAND   RODRIGUES   In Goa, monsoons provide a welcome respite from the opulent heat and stifling dust of summer.   From June to September, torrential rain, ferocious winds, thunder and lightning are a constant.   The dust settles, the air is cleansed, the parched land becomes a huge sponge, the drying wells, river-beds and ponds are replenished, the life-giving waters are garnered in rice paddy fields.   The thunder and lightning chase away evil spirits lurking in the shadows and are the stuff for spooky grandmothers’ tales for kids.   Other than inescapable work in the paddy fields, a sense of semi-hibernation envelops the populace, as outdoor pursuits become subject to the vagaries of the weather, or as occupations linked to tourism come to a seasonal ebb. Take a walk back in time to appreciate what people had to go through before the advent of the drenching downpours.  ...

  LOOKING BACK AT AN OLD-TIME FUNERAL IN GOA By Armand Rodrigues   Morbid as the subject may be, not many of us can claim to remember what a typical funeral was like, in Goa,   years back.    Some may have been too young to remember, and others may have missed an opportunity as they were abroad.   Money was always the first concern when anybody passed away.    Neutral as Goa may have been,   the war meant that money and the necessities of life were in short supply.    Also, very few people kept money in a bank and, in any case, the solitary bank anywhere around was in town, which was several kilometres away.    So, if you did not have enough funds hidden in your almirah or mattress, you had to borrow from the neighbours, and deposit some items of jewellery with the lenders, as surety.   Funeral homes were unheard of, and so related survivors had to attend to every facet of the funeral themselves.  ...

 

  Requiem Mass in Thanksgiving for the Life of     Cresenti Florence Daniel Fernandes     10 th March 1935 – 31 st July 2020         Monday, 17 th August 2020, 11.00am   St Anthony of Padua Catholic Church 5 Garratt Road, Edgware HA8 9AN Principal Celebrant: Fr Norbert Fernandes Concelebrants:   Fr Tony Fernandes & Fr Kevin Ryan                        You can shed tears that he is gone Or you can smile because he has lived   You can close your eyes and pray that he will come back Or you can open your eyes and see all that he has left   Your heart can be empty because you can’t see him Or you can be full of the love that you shared   You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday   You can ...