Gift of Liberation The memory of Goa’s liberation if of special significance to me for one special reason. As we know the Indian army marched into Goa on the night on Dec 19/19 and before dawn Goa was free. My family was happy that a new dawn had risen over Goa as a special gift to my mother. It was her birthday. Every year we celebrated the twin event,
On Dec. 18, my father returned from work. Hw seemed to be in a good mood. At dinner time, he told my mum, “Escolastica, tomorrow you will get a good gift. Something very iimpotant if going to happen. I will keep it a surprise.” As kids, we were amazed to see dad in a jovial mood, something unusual with him. We were left wondering whether something important happened to him, perhaps a promotion, at his work. It was the first day of work, a Monday. I was 12 years old, and the first-born in a family of five children. I was anxious and the rest of my siblings were just dumbfounded. We had no inkling of what was coming. Gia’s freedom struggle wasn’t new to me, as the subject often came up in our house. We were what they called then, a nationalist family. My father worked in the Navy, in a civilian capacity. He wasn’t a part any of the several organizations which espoused the cause of Goa’s freedom. But he did go many of the meetings, especially at Institute Luso-Indiano (ILI), a favourite venue located in the Dabul lane, before the St Francis Xavier Church, which had the St. Sebastian Goan School attached to it. We were members of this parish. I don’t exactly remember the year\ or do I remember if it was before Liberation or before. But I believe it was before 1961 that my dad’s cousin, Felix Valois Rodrigues, came to our house one morning with a grown beard and looking like a desperado. As kids we were rudely shaken to see a man we had never seen before welcome him with a full embrace My dad sat Felix on a chair. As Felix related his tale with listen with amazement. It seemed like a story from a film. Felix had escaped from the Portuguese prison and walked across mountains before landing either in Belgaium or Hubli. He then took a journey to Bombay and his first stop was our house at Kalbadevi Road. He was arrest edon Sept. 19, 1953 at Colem railway station. He came from Karachi, now in Pakistan, to join the satyagraha arranged in Margoa on Sept, 21, 1954. He later became a journalist and worked in Delhi. He contested the parliament elections from the Salcette constituency and lost.. He got the Tamrapatra in 197. Felix expired in 1982, and a friend point out to a report in a newspaper while having tea in Bombay’s Bastani restaurant. I was in India just a year after I migrate to Canada. Coming back to Goa, true to my father’s saying, her birthday was greeted with bombs and fireworks in Goa. Our celebration was greatly enhanced by the event in Goa. Eugene Correia
