>From Bars to Brothels
Dharmanand Kamat
It was the mild Goan winter of 1959; I was studying in the
fourth standard of a Marathi school, Shri Shantadurga
Vidyalaya at Verem, a coastal village of the Bardez
subdistrict of Goa. There were seven students studying in
that class. My other classmates were Anand Salkar; Ajit
Naik; Bernard; Ajit Bhatkully; Shrikrishna Dhume and Avdhoot
Borkar.
One day, at around noon, a black Chevrolet car came and
stopped in front of our school. A uniformed officer alighted
from the car and spoke to our teacher. As soon as he left,
our teacher told us that Governador Geral (Governor General)
was visiting our school and we should give him a standing
ovation.
Thereafter a smart looking European gentleman came
out of the car and headed straight towards our
class. As instructed by our teacher, we got up to
welcome him. He came to each one of us, asked our
names and stood near the blackboard and kept
watching us for a few minutes. Then he instructed
the accompanying officer to get some school bags
from the car.
The officer came back with some school bags, which the
Governador Geral Manuel António Vassalo e Silva presented to
us and advised us to study regularly and become good
citizens. That bag contained a few exercise books and a
compass box. This incident had a remarkable impact on me. I
hoped to meet him again after my studies. But there was no
occasion to.
On December 18, 1961, the Indian Army marched into Goa and,
with their tanks, trucks and ammunition, landed on the
Betim-Verem road in the evening. For children like me, it
was a thrill to watch the armoured vehicles. Indian army
men, speaking in Hindi, befriended us by allowing us to sit
atop the tanks.
On December 20, 1961, we saw photos in the newspapers of the
Governor General surrendering before the Indian Army at
Vasco. I thus lost the hope of meeting the last Portuguese
Governor General again. But destiny had a different plan for
me.
* * *
During my school days at the Progress High School at Panjim,
and later on at the Dhempe College, I would write on various
issues in Marathi dailies, the Rashtrmat and Gomantak. In
1972, the News Editor of the All India Radio's Panjim Station
Vishnu Naik was looking out for an enthusiastic and hard
working young man to work as a News Reader cum Reporter for
the station's Konkani bulletin. He picked me and virtually
groomed me for six years.
Because of my assignment, I got an opportunity to
travel all over Goa, from Naibagh in the extreme
north to Galjibagh in the extreme south, and from
the Cab de Ram to Fort Aguada. This assignment
gave me an opportunity to study the culture,
geography and social ethos of Goa. Since I read
the news bulletin in the evening — at a time when
radio listening was still very popular in Goa — my
voice reached each and every nook and corner of Goa
and even the bordering states of Maharashtra and
Karnataka. I can proudly claim that, after our
first Chief Minister Dayanand Bandodkar, I was the
second person to tour the entire of Goa.
In 1979, we at the All India Radio received an intimation
that the last Portuguese Governor General Vasal e Silva would
be visiting India, and particularly Goa. He should be given
appropriate publicity.
In the meanwhile, I had joined the second English-language
daily, the West Coast Times, as a Reporter. I had also been
elected as the General Secretary of the Goa Union of
Journalists, the trade-union and professional body of local
journalists. We decided to invite Vasal e Silva for a
Meet-the-Press programme. The GUJ delegation accordingly
called on him at the Raj Bhavan, the gubernatorial residence
then also called the Cabo Raj Nivas, and extended him an
invitation for the programme which he readily accepted. We
gave suitable advance publicity to his programme.
As promised, he came and revealed valuable information on the
administration of Goa under him and what exactly transpired
on December 18, 1961 and his subsequent surrender before the
Indian Army.
He told the gathering that when the Indian army penetrated
into Goan territory on December 17, 1961, he had been
instructed by the Portuguese ruler and strongman António de
Oliveira Salazar that he should fight with full strength,
and, if need be, he should destroy bridges and some of the
major landmarks in Goa. He narrated that he was an engineer
and he was of the opinion that an engineer is supposed to
build and not to destroy. That's why he personally saw that
there was minimum damage to the communication system in Goa.
With him, when he came to meet us, he was carrying a green
diary. I was anxious to know the contents of it. I told the
former Governor General that, twenty years ago, I was a
schoolboy in Verem, and he had gifted me a school bag
containing exercise books and a compass box. He got up from
his seat and embraced me and started kissing me all over my
face. He said; “I had never thought that I would return to
Goa and would see a child whom I had met in the school and
would be able to interact with him.”
Like any large-hearted Portuguese national; he gave me his
diary to read. There were interesting tidbits of information
on what was going on in the Governor's palace and his
movement from Dona Paula to Vasco on that fateful day in
1961.
The diary contents mentioned his earlier engagements — like
attending a wedding in the Dempo family; an appointment to
mine owner. V.D. Chowgule and a visit to Canacona. He told
me that on December 18, at around 11 o'clock, he left Panjim
for Vasco. He had crossed the Zuari river and was waiting at
the Cortalim ramp to move his vehicle from the ferry boat.
Suddenly, diverse vehicles of prominent citizens stopped to
tell him that the Indian Army was marching towards Goa, or
had surrounded Goa, and he should move to a safer place.
The diary contained general information about his movements
in Goa; interaction with people and his feedback to Portugal.
On the next day, Goa's newspapers gave wide publicity to this
programme. The same evening, newspaper offices received a
press statement from former Member of Parliament from South
Goa, Adv. Mukund Shinkre, of the MGP, who stated that Goan
journalists had prostrated before the former ruler who had
surrendered to the Indian Army.
As the General Secretary of the Goa Union of Journalists, it
was my bounden duty to reply to this allegation. We called
our meeting and censured Advocate Mukund Shinkre and stated
that journalists are borderless people, and that in quest of
news, they are free to move anywhere — from bars to brothels.
--
Dharmanand Kamat is a veteran Goan journalist, who after his
early stint in Goa, shifted to Delhi.
Published in 2025 in ... And Read All Over (Frederick
Noronha, editor). Available via mail-order (within India)
from +91-9822122436 (WhatsApp msg).
