When Antonio Costa became the premier of Portugal, there was a great hullabaloo that he was a Goan ( and brahmin )because his father ( though born in Lourenco Marques ) had residence on Abade Faria Road in Margao.
Now that Antonio Guterres has been nominated to the post of the Secretary General of the United Nations , Goan connection , though feeble, is being proudly bandied about because his wife was born and baptized in Goa in 1960 just before the Portuguese relinquished their hold over Goa in 1961, Catarina Marques de Almeida Vaz e Pinto was born in Goa in 1960 to Luis de Castro Vaz e Pinto and Maria Jose Simoes Marques de Almeida. One notices that her father has three surnames de Castro,Vaz e Pinto and her mother has Simoes, Marques de Almeida. So Catarina could not begin her life with six surnames, so her parents decided to drop de Castro and Simoes from her baptismal name. . About Catarina's Goan connection apart from birth and baptism in Goa, one would like to know whether her parents ,for example, were either from Benaulim or Saligao , for that would make her a true daughter of sandy soil of Goa.
