Dear Valmiki Faleiro, Please do not mind the formality with which I address you. I use your full name because the last time I dared to use just Valmiki you slapped my already tender wrist. You will of course use the excuse that I mistook you for another Valmiki who happens be a priest. What, I ask you, have you got against priests? Is it not an honor in Goa any longer to be mistaken for a priest?
Anyway, that is not why I write this letter. First let me explain my tender wrist which will gradually lead to the subject of my letter. I have to confess that I have been holding glasses and glasses and bottles and bottles of the evil liquid for many years. This has caused it to be tender. Can one blame it given all the strain it has been taking? Again, I digress. It is not priests, nor wrists that I want to talk to you about. Why you and not anybody else on Goanet? You are my hero and can be my salvation, for it is you who have so successfully kicked another evil habit though the consequences of that habit are far less dire than mine. The principle and method of "kicking it" however remains the same I hope, and that is why I seek your earnest advice. To emphasize the evil of my habit, let me tell you an old folk-tale that my grandmother would often tell me. Why she chose to tell me that particular story, I will never know. Perhaps in one of her more saner and/or lucid moments, she foresaw what evil was going to do to her cherished grandson. Her story went like this - there was in Goa a man who used to beat his wife, gamble till the morning and drink like a fish. Hopefully not all three things together since it would be difficult though not impossible to juggle them at one time (comments entirely mine). Having pity on the poor wife, one day an angel appeared to her. She told her that she the angel could stop 2 of the 3 vices of her no-good husband and that she would leave the choices to her. The woman thought and thought in the best logical manner (though this is so unlike a woman - comments again entirely mine) and said to herself "his beating hurts me and leaves me with bruises, his drinking makes me ashamed of him, but I can live with his gambling as my father can support me." At this stage my grandmother really gets enthusiastic, the punchline approaching. She says that the angel granted her the 2 wishes. But it so turned out that due to his gambling, he took up again to drinks and started beating her up whenever he lost, which was everyday. With a flourish she points her finger at me leaving unsaid the moral of the story which is never to gamble. Determined to take grandma's advice seriously, I never gambled (maybe not having money had something to do with it) nor beat my wife (she goes to fitness classes and practices karate), so I chose the least innocuous which is to drink. I have kept this habit well within control but ever since going on Goanet, the habit has worsened. I don't know whether to blame it on all these Hitler discussions, or people asking for foaming and frothing crucifixtions, or talk about Rock Solid Moral Codes (I never had any codes, let alone them being rocky or solid or moral), or whether to blame it on my suggestion for a Mothers/Fathers day, with Mario supporting it (a sure way of it not being accepted) and Mercy throwing cold water on it while chiding me to honor them throughout the year. I hope I have adequately described my problem to you as I took so long to do it. I know also that you may be tempted to tell me just to avoid Goanet and all will be well. However, since money (or the lack of it) has always been such a big part of my life, I need the cheaper option of giving up drinks and saving money as well. Please work the same magic that you worked on your tobacco and apply it to my alcohol. In hope of sobriety, Your brother in willing sacrifice, Roland Francis. _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
