Goa, the way she was...
I think back to the mid-fifties and a lot more adventure. My father had
taken what was called his 'long leave'. We embarked on the "MV Asia" in
Mombassa, Kenya's natural and beautiful deep-berth harbour. We disembarked
after five days and nights at sea, at the first port of call, which was
Karachi, and spent time with some relatives there, before dividing our
holiday in two parts... I flew by a plane for the first time... a very large
plane I thought at that time... a trundling Dakota, run by the Portuguese
colonial authorities between Karachi and their military airport at Dabolim.
Those days the runaway couldn't have been that much broader than any of the
narrow roads that weave through a Goan village... There was no electricity
in those days, so I remember being a little frightened by the big, dark
house, and the huge shadows thrown by the oil-lamps and the talk about me
having to be careful about snakes.... Calangute in those days was a fishing
village with no more than twenty houses at some distance from each other. I
don't recall seeing walls anywhere.... I remember all the adults and their
friends sitting around and singing Konkani songs and getting sentimental
because soon the holiday would be over and they'd have to go back to their
jobs in Kenya. [Hartman de Souza, GT]
The above has been transcribed from Joel D'Souza's "Daily Goa Newsclips" of
October 26. I don't know who the author of that article (Hartman de Souza)
is. But I must point out that he is wrong in referring to the "military"
airport that the Portuguese authorities maintained at Dabolim. Since its
inception and until its "takeover" by the Indian Navy, the Dabolim Airport
was always a civilian one, and there never was a single Portuguese military
aircraft at that airport.
Jorge
- [Goanet] Dabolim Airport Jorge/Livia de Abreu Noronha
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