Cheers Dears By Augusto Pinto Aunty Ponty
Dears, It was hot and humid when I took my dog Laskar out for a morning walk. With summer setting in early this year, Laskar's bounding strides quickly tired me out. When we reached Aunty Ponty's Bar I felt like having a soda. Actually, the joint has some other nondescript name but everyone calls it Aunty Ponty's after its owner Priscillina Pontes. Aunty Ponty opens her bar as early as 6.30 a.m. to provide an uttaro to the alcoholics who line up outside waiting for her. [Uttaro is the first dose that chronic alcoholics require to start the day after their fitful booze-induced sleep.] As I entered, one of the early morning drinkers came up to Aunty Ponty and said, pro-offering his glass, "Aunty - one for the road." Aunty snapped at him," Jose Piedade Lawrence! You will not get one for the road, one for the gutter or one for the grave. You have a wife and 3 children. You need to work. Off with you - and once you've given your day's wages to your wife, we'll see." Sheepishly JPL said,"Yes Aunty." and went his way. Looking at me Aunty Ponty said,"Hello Gusto. How's Laskar?" Laskar wagged his tail in reply. Ordering my soda, I said,"How's business Priscillina?" She replied,"Gusto, demand here is inelastic. No global recession can affect us." As you might guess from this brief remark, Aunty Ponty is not your run of the mill barwalli. She has Post Graduate Degrees in Economics and Psychology, and takes a keen interest in issues related to education. I asked her,"Do you enjoy your job here? You could have become a lecturer, isn't it?" "Gusto why should I join that pathetic profession? I used to teach, and after I got married my mother-in-law asked me whether I'd like to continue. I firmly refused and opted to take over the bar. Here, I am the counsellor of many who really need it. I offer more moral and spiritual education than those lackeys we call teachers in some of the cesspools we call colleges." "What Priscillina!! This is Goa, not some Bimaru state where kidnappings or rapes are rife and where a Prof. Sabharwal can be beaten to death." Aunty Ponty let out a hollow laugh."Nonsense! You have no clue as to what happens in our 'Halls of Learning', Gusto." "Like all of Goan society, our colleges too have a seedy underbelly. Believe it or not, there is ragging, MMS blackmail, sex, booze and drugs to be had, and violence is never far from the surface. Politics is rife. The staff are jokers - not just the peons and clerks and not just the temporary teachers, many of whom are paid a pittance and from whom one cannot expect much given their insecurity. But even the permanent staff care for nothing except their salary. Visit any college staff room and listen - the talk is only about the Sixth Pay Commission scales." I said,"Don't the teachers understand that this will lead to disaster?" "You know Gusto, the novelist Upton Sinclaire once wrote that it is difficult to get someone to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. The other day Principal Deshmukh of the Dumbo College of Magic came here for a drink. He mentioned that a teacher from his college was brutally beaten up. I asked him why and he replied that the teacher had found a boy misbehaving. When the student was pulled up, he caught the teacher by the throat and slapped and punched him around." "So what action did Principal Deshmukh take?" Aunty Ponty said,"Action? What action can a coward like that take? He was selected for his post precisely because he is spineless and will crawl even before he is asked to bend by his masters. To call such a person a dog would be an insult to Laskar here." Aunty Ponty continued, "However I did ask Deshmukh your question. He replied that he had no intention of interfering as the boy might have political influence. He was going to appoint an inquiry committee and by the time they come up with a report, if they do come up with a report that is, he would have retired and gone back to Maharashtra." I had finished my soda and Aunty Ponty gave Laskar a sweet, so we strolled back home. I thought that Aunty Ponty was wise to become an honest respectable barwalli rather than a disreputable lecturer. Unlike some. Till next time then... Cheers (ENDS) ============================================================================== The above article appeared in the March 11, 2009 edition of the Herald, Goa
