Saligao Serenade

by Fr Nascimento Mascarenhas

Many years ago, a young man named Felix D’Souza, from Mudd’davaddi in the village of Saligao, was prone to question just about everything he encountered, using a single  Portuguese word — porquê (why). After a while, his entire family was nicknamed Porque – pronounced ‘poorkhe’, although Saligao folk prefer to say ‘porkey’.

The Porque house is very easy to find, for it is today the residence of the former Chief Minister of Goa, Dr Wilfred D’Souza. His Aunt Estefânia from Anjuna married a D’Souza from Saligao – the Porque of this story. Eventually Estefânia gifted their house to her nephew Dr Willy. Of course there was no question of porque in this matter. Read the rest of this entry »

by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas

In the old days there were few mendicants in the villages of Goa. Those that did exist were neither professional beggars of the type one encounters in the cities of India today nor were they unknown vagrants. They were persons from the village, mainly from the labour class. Due to disability or old age, and having no close kin to support them, they were forced to seek alms for a living. Some of them had been rich, but after squandering their wealth in vice or due to some misfortune, were reduced to penury and begging. Read the rest of this entry »

by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas

Our forefathers in the villages of Goa lived for the day, occupying themselves mainly with fishing and farming. Not having any water bodies of significance during the last couple of centuries, the village of Saligao was not witness to much fishing activity. However, fishing was a significant occupation for the neighbouring villages of Calangute and Sirula, and it was from these villages that Saligao obtained its fish. We had salt-water fish from Calangute and fresh-water fish from Salvador do Mundo and Britona. At times we went to Pilerne during the rainy season to fish with makeshift fishing rods and bait; it was an exhilirating experience for us youngsters. Read the rest of this entry »

by Mel D’Souza

During my last two years in high school, I had a new friend – Gerry Lopes.

Gerry had done all his early schooling at the Portuguese Liceum College in Go’s capital Panjim until his dad, Aquino Lopes, decided to move him to the English medium. As a result, Gerry was enrolled in Mater Dei Institution in Saligao, and was assigned a seat in class next to me. Since Gerry was not very fluent in English, it was felt that I could help him under the buddy system.

During our school holidays, we would have sleep-ins at our respective homes. When Gerry slept over at my place, it wasn’t that much fun because my home was very small; small rooms, floor of dried cow dung, and nothing to amuse us other than our mutual interest in whittling models of airplanes and sailing ships. However, sleeping over at Gerry’s was a great experience for several reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

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 Mel D’Souza

 “Baba” was a universal term of affection used in Goa to address a little boy or an adult male who was in good standing in the community. The term would also be used, somewhat grudgingly, when addressing the odd individual who was an embarrassment to his family, but whose misdeeds were not serious enough for him to be thrown out of the house. I suppose he could be called the ‘baba’ black sheep of the family.

Black sheep were few and far between, but we had one in our family. He was my granduncle and his name was Galdinho D’Souza. Read the rest of this entry »

[This article was initially written in 1992-93 by a team from the ward Mollebhatt in Saligao, in association with Fr Nascimento Mascarenhas, and published in the Souvenir of the sesquicentennial celebrations of St Anne’s Chapel (1843-1993). The team comprised Idalina Rego, Lucy Cordeiro, Cassiano D’Lima, Eleuterio Remedios, Vanessa Godinho, and Sylvia & Joaquim Vaz. The version reproduced below was modified and updated by Fr Nascimento in June 2004]

How did the ward Mollebhatt in Saligao get its name? One version is that the place known as Diulacho Sorvo (property of the temple) was a sacred place dedicated to Lord Vetal in the Pre-Portuguese era. In order to have sufficient flowers for the daily morning puja, every house had a flower garden known as fulancho mollo, hence the name Mollebhatt. Some people refer to the ward as Mollembhatt or Mollembatta. There is a traditional dulpod sung in this ward and it goes as follows: Read the rest of this entry »

by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas

This essay describes my walk through the famous Cotula ward in the village of Saligao, Goa, in the month of April 2008. A document of the Saligao Communidade dated 27 March 1759 gives the names of the nine wards originally existing at that time in the village: Salmona, Arady, Sto. António, Dondo-vaddo, Mollebata, Murdavady, Cotella, Vaddlem Marada and Dacutem Marada. The other wards, with which we are familiar nowadays, had their origin much later.  

As you might have noticed, the document I specified mentions the ward “Cotella”. This was later lusitanised into Cotula. In Konkani it is written as  Kotula or Khotla. The chauri or chauddi (that is, the Communidade House of Saligao) was located at Cotula, which was the seat of the village administration. Here was the residence of the Khot, from which the name of the ward ‘Khotla’ is probably derived. According to some, however, the name is derived from Kotwal, the village patil, the forerunner of the regedor of the Portuguese era, who had his office there. The post office and later the telegraph office as well as the first Latin Portuguese school and the Lourdes Convent school were initially set up in Cotula. Read the rest of this entry »

by Mel D’Souza

When the Portuguese set out on their mission to convert the local population in Goa to Christianity in the sixteenth century, they offered first class citizenship to the converts. My ancestors had the choice of retaining their Hindu religion or becoming Catholic. Although their attachment to Hinduism was strong, they gave in. With all the privileges that were offered by the Portuguese, I suppose it became a case of the spirit being weak, and the flesh willing. Read the rest of this entry »

by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas

MIKU. That’s what everyone in the village called him. His neighbours would sometimes endearingly expand that to Miculo, but no one ever referred to him by his given name, Joao Baptista Coelho. In fact the nickname Miku was bestowed upon him by his grandmother Angelina, lovingly placing him in the care of St Michael the Archangel.

Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, this simple, cheerful man could be seen ambling around the hills and fields of Saligao, grazing cattle, singing happy songs and eking out a frugal existence from the land. His father left for Bombay when Miku was still a wee lad, followed soon by Miku’s two brothers, all three never to return. Miku stayed on in Tabravaddo with his sister Angela (Anju), his mother and his grandmother. Read the rest of this entry »