Dear Fred
Many thanks for your kind words. Forgive me for such a long email reply but
it will help a little perhaps in knowing more about my father, if he is the
Casimiro Monteiro we talking about.
Yes you are right this ought not to be a witch hunt as such but gaps are
gaps, and as you say, they are pre-1961 & post 1961 & ought to be filled, if
not just for my sake, really for posterity, though its 57 years since I first
set foot in Goa and now, its some 47 years since I "left" ("fled" was more like
it if I remember correctly) I was not able to bring forth all the memories that
one is meant to.
Creeping memory loss it is not, I was not able to remember much of my
childhood from my teen years in the mid to late 60's because we were forbidden
by mother to speak Portuguese or Konkani or to discuss anything at all to do
with Goa or India in general. I have a mental block in many ways, one is trying
to read or understand Portuguese or Konkani. I simply cannot let myself read
or learn to read or have anything at all to do with either of the two languages.
I have revisted Goa and I am afraid of coming back. I have not re-visited
Portugal after 1958 either.
Some days it was as if my childhood never happened, and no matter how hard I
tried it was all I could do to remember little bits of it, even though they
only happened a two or three years earlier, I now know why, it is very possible
that this person IS my father, for if he was not, then there were twins in this
family (he had a younger brother I know who lived with us, on & off most of the
time my father was absent, he was no better behaved), my father was violent,
rude & uncaring.
Not a nice thing to say about one's father, but what did he expect us to
think of him, he was never around, and when he was he was not to be disturbed,
we were not allowed to his side of the house, his room was forbidden for anyone
to go into, we had better contact (thank heavens for little mercies, with the
neighbours, though some shunned us children, others did not, we were invited to
celebrations when he was not around).
He was a prolific debaucher, he fathered so many children (locally, that my
mother & I knew of), yes I & my brother Fernando (renamed David after 1961)
must have at least 10 half-siblings via the many "ayas" we had, some lasting up
to 6 months but many left after a few weeks.................. also with the
local womenfolk he & his brother abused.
I remember mentioning this & other things to do with my childhood in my first
couple of posting on Goanet, my introduction on Goanet. I was so pleased to
have found a way out of getting this monkey off my back that I probably blurted
out too much, but what of it I said to my wife, she agreed.
It was history and if its helping me to get this off my chest, what a better
way than to share it with all Goans on Goanet? I was after all torn from Goa,
and never really settled properly in UK afterwards, unlike my brother who was
born in Goan in 1954 (that memory came flooding back to me after my mother died
in 1999, I was four & half years old at the time, just as some other memories
are surfacing lately, I feel quite unnerved by it all).
If I can get confirmation of this man Agente Casimiro (Teles Jordao ???)
Monteiro then perhaps it will explain why I used to piss the bed nearly every
night when I was at Loyola High School and why I was always afraid of going
home............... and why I always found my mothe in a distressed state when
I did come home. I remember once I ran away from LHS just to go see my
mum......... I wish I hadnt, I continued wetting the bed for the rest of the
time I was there, even though Brother Canna at the time was concerned, told me
not to drink water after 4pm and made sure I went to the toilet before bedtime,
I still managed to find the pee, I was a scared child.
But all this aside, it was my mother who was the one that suffered the most
in our family, she could do no right in his eyes, and the rest of the RC
extended RC family who lived within walking distance did not like her either.
She as Church of England, therefore a Protestant & not of the Old Religion,
also not married to my Father (he was allegedly already married but left them,
for my mother), having lived in the UK where they met (in the East End of
London) it was time for him to be arrested in UK, so fled to Goa, where it
appears he found alternative employment.....................
But I thank you for your kind words again, and hope & pray that if its
positive (he is NOT my father), then I have to begin again, to find a Casimiro
Teles Jordao Monteiro in Goa, in the 1950's................. could there have
been two, both with the same name, same time-windows & working for the police
force albeit sometimes in Khaki or Camouflage........ ?? Both Portuguese?
Perhaps a PHOTO of him would be the next step as confirmation for me. I
remember he had a moustache, thick one just over his lip, and slightly on the
corner of his mouth, no beard or side burns, roundish face, jet black hair
(oiled), rather a large man (probably looked bigger to me due to the fact I was
a child at the time), broad shouldered like a swimmer has (I take similar
physical features from him especially the broad shoulders but now a bit
overweight (too many Vindaloos, Mauritian & Indian curries & briani), but
shaved off my moustache three years ago when I remembered this).
One way or another, at the very least if he is NOT my father, then I will
have to restart my search, at the worst he IS my father & I will have this
monkey off my back & start to fill in gaps of my childhood, perhaps even
putting it in print, one day.
Regards
John
"Frederick [FN] Noron ha * फà¥à¤°à¥à¤¡ रिठन à¥à¤°à¥à¤à¤¯à¤¾"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi John, Don't be so harsh on yourself! We don't choose our parents,
and we can't always be responsible for their actions (except those of
our children, in a way). Even assuming he's your dad, I think your
attitude matters more than his!
There are issues involved here though. Understanding Agente Monteiro
is important for filling in the gaps as far as Goan history goes. And
there are many gaps, not just this one, both pre-1961 and post-1961.
It needn't be a witch-hunt, though one could understand the pain of
those who suffered brutalities of whatever form. At the same time,
those at whose hands the brutalities was doled out were mentally
prisoners of those times. I'm sure they believed they were doing their
patriotic duty, 'protecting' Goa or whatever.
When I visited Dachau in 1998, I wondered how anyone could have done
what they did there hardly six decades earlier. But while we do it, we
all have justifications for the violence we wreck on others, even in
the case of Gujarat in 2002 or in Algeria or Vietnam and Indonesia or
Afghanistan, and the many invasions (and toppling-via-military-coups)
that even countries the US has undertaken in recent times.
There is, sometimes, a self-correcting mechanism at play though. Call
it poetic justice, if you want to. The children of many of those who
have strong anti-'outsider' sentiments have chosen to marry people
from the other states of India, for instance.
Just my thoughts ... FN
On 28/03/2008, JOHN MONTEIRO wrote:
Dear Roland, I cannot thank you enough for this, it is a start for me.
I have always known in my heart that the evil of my father was
totally like this, he was a very nasty, ferocious & unaffectionate
man, that was towards his family, my mother, my brother and me.
The rest of our neighbours suffered from his visits also, but my
mother was too timid (it was the 1950's & all women, whether Goan or
Portuguese or as in my mother's case, English father & French mother,
had no rights and no discussions between them, she did as she was
told, no arguments)....
