Sitting for a fruit-and-toast breakfast on the fourth floor of the 20-storey tall Brac Centre Inn at Dhaka, the name-plate of the maitre d'hotel caught my eye.
"What's you're surname?" "Gomes," ventured Julian. Aha! A colonial cousin, one thought, barely able to suppress a smile. My friend Paul Gonsalves of Bangalore is also Bengali. His father was a bishop with some Anglican denomination. And then there are also Malyalees whose religion and names has been influenced by Portuguese colonial expansion in Asia, such as my lawyer-friend Colin Gonsalves of Mumbai. For long, the Portuguese connections with the Hooghly (there are some 13,200 links on Google, see http://tinyurl.com/g6nzj ) have been well known. But sometimes we don't link the past with the present. Turns out that Julian Gonsalves is a Bengali Christian. He had infact spent years at the Gulf Hotel in Doha Qatar, and was very good friends with Thomas Dias and another D'Souza. From Goa, of course. The globe is smaller than you think! He racked his brains but regretted he couldn't recall further details of his old time room-mates and friends. We had a brief chat, and he mentioned his work at the Sheraton in Dhaka (earlier Dacca), when West Pakistan and then East Pakistan had a bloody war, with the latter seceeding to form Bangladesh. "If you can tell me which part of Goa they're from, it might be easier to locate your friends," I ventured. But a lot of water has flown down the Hooghly since. So if anyone knows a Thomas Dias or a D'Souza who worked in the Gulf Hotel, tell them their friend Julian Gomes says hi. -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Frederick 'FN' Noronha | Yahoomessenger: fredericknoronha http://fn.goa-india.org | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Independent Journalist | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9822122436 ---------------------------------------------------------- Pics from Goa: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/popular-views/ _____________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. Goanet mailing list ([email protected])
