Saligao Serenade

by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas

Many Christians dream of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land someday. For some the dream actually becomes a reality. My school companion and friend Salvador Isidoro Mascarenhas from Mollebhatt, counts himself among those fortunate ones, when, about a year ago in April 2009, he, along with another couple from Saligao (Epifanio and Perpetua Fernandes from Tabravaddo/Bairro Alto) and twenty other Goans flew to Israel for a pilgrimage tour of the Holy Land.        

A few days before the pilgrimage, Salvador paid me a visit at the Holy Spirit Church in Margao. During the conversation I reminded him that Marie Dantas and her husband from Saligao/UK had placed a marble plaque, with the Our Father inscribed on it Konkani, in the Church of the Pater Noster (also called Church of Eleona – Mount of Olives, in Greek),  which Queen Helena, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, built in the fourth century. Read the rest of this entry »

by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas

As the well-known American priest and psychologist Michael Garanzini once said, “Children are excellent observers but poor interpreters.” They observe everything that others do, but they are poor interpreters of these actions; they know exactly what you are doing but they don’t know exactly what it means.

A lady in Saligao once told me of the time when her father had died. She was still a child then, and had observed that her mother did not cry at all on that sad occasion. Many many years later when the topic happened to be discussed, her mother explained to her: “I was trying to keep that traditional stiff upper lip for the sake of the children. I wanted them to know that their father was in heaven and that death isn’t a tragedy. I didn’t want to show my own grief, especially not to the children.” So she kept back her emotions, and her little girl concluded, “You didn’t love my father, did you? You didn’t love him at all. I loved my father and you didn’t!” And so, the little girl landed up hating her mother for years. And it was all based on a child’s excellent observation and faulty interpretation. This lady told me that the incident affected her deeply and she barely communicated with anyone else for many years, until she heard Fr. Desmond D’Souza (from Nigvaddo, Saligao) speaking on “What happens to people when they communicate effectively.” Read the rest of this entry »

by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas

In the 1940s and 50s one means of transportation that all were familiar with in the picturesque Goan village of Saligao was the boilanchi gaddi (ox-driven carriage). Only a few people could be accommodated in it. The man driving the carriage was known as the gaddiekar, and the ticket cost just four annas.

My friend Dominic Peter Francis Fernandes from Anjuna gives a nice description of the boilanchi gaddi: “The gaddi was made of wood. At its rear end, it had a half-door entrance with a metal step below, and two small windows, one on each side. It had a bench on either side with a sitting capacity of two persons each; but three would usually squeeze in. Read the rest of this entry »