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BRIEfnCOUNTERS: TALES OF ANOTHER KIND, KIDS' STORIES BASED IN GOA
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Tales from Golden Goa
Anita Pinto Ph 225 0594
1998, pp 36, Rs 50
WHERE WAS I in 1998? To "review" a book six years after it was published
might be giving a new definition to the inertia that has become a cliche for
Goa. Anyway, a daughter with a ceaseless appetite for having stories read
out to her is a good enough excuse.
By some quirk of fate, Anita Pinto's *Tales from Golden Goa* was
published in the year Riza was born. Now that she's nearing six,
suddent stories for children takes on a new meaning. And a new
urgency. After exhausting *Magic Pot* (the made-in-Kerala, Manorama
group's excellent magazine "for nursery/primary school children"),
it's time for *Junior Chandamana* (the mag for children under-nine).
Sometimes one has to make-do with *Chandamama*, spruced up and with
much more colour than we knew it with as kids, but a bit too 'heavy'
for youngsters. *Gokulam* and *Lollipop* and a range of others are
inexpensively available; but you never know what catches a child's
fancy or gets hit by her bias.
The other day, I dug into my collection of Goa books, which Pamela manages
quite stricly as librarian. Anita Pinto's 36-page, well-coloured book(let)
seemed just suitable for a bout of dinner-time reading.
Anita is a daughter of the Goa diaspora and a product of the (still
unacknowledged) melting-pot that is this small region. Her father,
William Coelho, was a history prof at St Xavier's College, Bombay.
Her mum, Nur Fazul, was a artist who studied at JJ College of Art,
as Alexyz introduces her. Anita is one of the the ex-Xaviers-and-
Sophia's gang that returned to Goa in the 'seventies; as are
cartoonist Alexyz himself, environmentalist Claude and lawyer Norma
Alvares, advocate Jos Peter D'Souza and (I'm not quite sure here)
the late journalist Norman Dantas. Like them or not, many went on to
do things in Goa that wouldn't have happened without their being
here; one has to admit that even if it's today fashionable to
criticise NGOs and those who don't quite traverse the beaten track.
Anita's book is devoted to her husband Nico. She writes: "'I have a dream',
he said, 'to bring Goans back to Goa.' I hope my stories will realise a
small part of his dream."
Her stories take us to a missing pig at Calangute, an adopted boy's
Carnival, a kindly grandfather at Bastora, a runaway chicken at the
Friday Market at Mapusa, a sick child Raia who loves her 'kakon'
(typically Goan ring-bread), the age-old legend St Francis Xavier's
crab (which, interestingly, parallels the story of Hanuman and the
squirrel), Benaulim and its mosquitoes, the flooded fields of
Saligao, a young boy's impatience for *nevreo* (the traditional
pastry) at Ganesh Chaturthi, a turtle at Palolem (wouldn't Galgibaga
be more apt?), the San Joao fest (what a coincidence, reading it on
the very day of the fest), a fruit-stealing monkey, little Mehmood
who helps at his father's shop in Vasco, Kamla Maushi at Candolim,
and granny Imelda Colaco awaiting eagerly for her family's letter at
her palatial house in Margao. ("Perhaps I should make a phone call
tonight," thought Granny Imelda. "But I can't hear properly now and
with their Canadian accent, I can't understand a word they say." She
sighed.)
By the time Riza situated the story of Patsy's pig at Calangute, she was
intrigued. "Is this a real story," she wanted to know. Next, moving over to
the Carnival was even more surprising. "Do they know King Momo?" she asked,
wide eyed.
It was obviously taking time -- for both of us -- to get used to the
idea that Goa and the local villages could make a good setting for
children's stories. For long have our minds been colonised; the fact
that Goan writing still can't make it (the response to Lino Leitao's
comments are telling) only underlines this fact.
To make matters worse, Goa is a long way off from sorting out its own
misunderstandings and contradictions. We are not willing to come to terms
with the reality that Goa is, has been, and probably will be, a melting pot.
One look at the text-book is enough to show how the characters and
situations hardly reflect the diversity of Goa. For many of those going
through them, they could be as alienating as ever.
Anita Pinto has done better; even if her own slim book is biased
towards the Catholic, coastal, 'Old Conquest' side of Goa.
Nonetheless, there is some fair amount of diversity. The
illustrations are attractive; the artist could have however tried to
visualise the settings better (the picture set in Saligao doesn't
look anywhere near the real thing, for instance).
Priced at Rs 50, the slim book by now seems reasonably priced. Thanks to
inflation. One wonders how it fared, or whether like most other books from
Goa was little noticed when published, and out-of-print by the time people
began to take note and enquire where it was available.
To end, here's Anita Pinto's poem from the back cover. Interesting,
even if we're still stuck in the highly romanticised Goa shaped
by the imagination of the expat, both outside Goa and after
returning home:
GOLDEN GOA Little brown faces / Turned to the sun /
Swinging copper pots / And slingshots / Shooting marbles /
And tall stories / Tapping feet / To lilting music /
Wrapping time / In leaves of gold.
To this / I'm sold.
It's been raining heavily once again since yesterday in Goa. Now, the sun is
peeking out from behind the clouds. The kids are getting impatient, and have
got to run for their evening walk. Well Bosco, that is today's reason/excuse
again for an abrupt ending ...
--
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d88888b d8b db Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa India
88' 888o 88 f r e d @ b y t e s f o r a l l . o r g
88ooo 88V8o 88 http://www.bytesforall.org
88~~~ 88 V8o88 Phone 0091.832.2409490 Mobile 09822 122436
88 88 V888 784 Nr Lourdes Convent, Sonarbhat Saligao Goa 403511
YP VP V8P Writing ... with a difference, on issues that matter
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