Mississauga (pronounced miss-iss-agha) is a satellite city of metro Toronto, home to about 2 million souls among whom are a large section of the Goan community. It has an above-average economic demographic with Goans probably no more than 1% of the general population.
No surprise that most Goan functions are held in Mississauga and Goans in all parts of the world who know someone in Canada would find that they probably live in Mississauga. Being invited for a Ladainha, my first impulse was to decline, but the missus insisted that we go, as she wanted to revive some fond memories of her mother organizing ladainhas in front of the chapel adjoining their ancestral house in Orlim. I was glad we did. Here is a brief internet description of a ladainha: Ladainha or Ladin is a thanksgiving ritual among the Christians of Goa. The Ladin which literally means a litany to the Virgin Mary, is a religious function of thanksgiving to god for material and spiritual benefits that have accrued or are sought for, by the persons sponsoring the Ladin. Preparations for Ladin would begin with the purchase of grams, branco wine, candles, coloured tinsel paper in the local market. The family altar is bedecked with flowers, creepers, crotons laid out in vases. The gram soaked in water since morning is then put on the fire to be boiled and coconut chips are sliced to be mixed with the boiled grams. The Ladin consists of a litany sung by every one present, to the accompaniment of the violin, singing of hymns and prayers. The village choirmaster or a local violinist conducts the show involved in the singing of the litany. My own memories of ladainhas are irreverent. For me they were occasions where you made the village belles stand with you and your friends in the back rows where you could joke and flirt and perhaps make a tryst for the big feast dance that was to follow. An opportunity to eat the servings of boiled grams with coconut pieces that I am sure were a throwback to the Hindu 'prasad' of our ancestors. A chance to have the swigs of feni that were liberally dispensed to the plebians while the uptight patricians among the crowd retreated to the nearest big home for a more Portuguese alcoholic spirit. Our Goan roman citizens of that time turned a haughty nose on the humble feni which was considered the lowly drink of the working and lower classes. It was my chance to be one among the Kunbi Joao, Minguel and Pedro - the salt of the Goan earth not to mention the tiller of the field and the harvester of the seas. But more than that, the ladainha was a musical feast for the ears. The village church violinist was the music section of the orchestra whole and sole and everybody else was the choir. The night air was rent with rich and earthy baritones of a few males who didn't have the patience to wait for the feni at the conclusion and had already partaken of some in their house - a sort of wine tasting to get you in the mood before the event. They would be offset by the haughty tenors and there were the matrons - mothers of nubile daughters who as much kept a roving eye on the crowd to spot new material for their girls as sang praises in alto and soprano to the heavenly mother. Not to be outdone, the frisky females would try their shrill mezzo-sopranos and contraltos if not their falsettos. A rendition for the musically discerning this was not, but what the voices lacked in training, they made up in volume and faith. If the Virgin were to hear it all in heaven, she would, unlike Elizabeth Regina, say "we are pleased". And so in that spirit, was the Mississauga ladainha in the church of Martha and Mary. The voices were lower, in their western finesse lacking the earthiness of the ones in Goa but the element of faith was the common thread. There they were, the aging figures who in their own times must have participated in the Goa ladainhas, but along the journey did not lose their faith and devotion for the mother of Jesus. They sang, in praise for where they had reached and implored and beseeched in plea for the well being of their families in a land other than their own. They prayed too for their beloved Goa, that the rack and ruin they saw on the internet about their Goan earth be halted and even reversed and then like any true Goan, they retreated to the church hall for the boiled gram and the hot coffee that had to take the place of the feni they whispered about. Male eyes were turned to me, somehow expecting that I would conjure a bottle from thin air, but I had to disappoint. And then we all melted away in our cars in the cold and rainy Canadian spring night with thoughts of things we had left behind. Roland Francis 416-453-3371
