Bernado Colaco wrote: "Audrey Casmiro I think was a Miss Goa." That's true, and later a top model in Mumbai. But Audrey used to play in the late 70s whereas people like Elma da Cunha was a champion in the early years of the decade. Fatima Pinto do Rosario who Colaco writes,"was another good player from Porvorim," was so-so if I recall correctly, and didn't win anything much. If I mistake not, she is now Fatima D'Sa the ex-MLA.
Deepa Mhambrey now Awchat, was the big champion after Elma who swept away everyone else. Incidentally she is now the owner of the famous Goa Portuguesa restaurant in Mumbai. Incidentally, I remember Prasad Kirtani playing for Dempo College but not Luis Tavora (who I thought was at Dhempe Arts and Science.) Luis honed his skills at St Anthony's H. S. Monte de Guirim, whereas Aditya Tarcar was a People's H. S. player and definitely was Dempo's star player when they won inter collegiate champrionships for many years. After the early 70s when table tennis peaked in popularity, it slowly stopped being a very popular sport, and nowadays there are comparatively fewer active players compared to then. I think one reason for this was that in the days when Vishnu and Subhash Kolwalkar were champions all the players used more or less similar equipment of fairly simple bats covered with pimples. So there was a level playing field. But then the richer players, mainly from Panjim, began importing quite sophisticated Butterfly, and then Stiga bats with Yasaka Mark V rubbers from abroad which could impart a terrific amount of speed and spin which the Indian bats which could simply not handle, and that was what the village children could afford. That and the fact that Panjim had a very good coach in the form of B.S. Chavat who knew to systematically train players, meant kids from rural areas could not compete with them so they stopped playing competitively. While good equipment and training is essential to progress at the national level, I think any sport requires a critical mass of numbers if it is to throw up good players and this became a problem, as village Goa ceased to be interested in table tennis. A similar thing happened with badminton as only the wealthy could afford the super light Yonex racquets. A curious exception among indoor games is chess which hardly had much of a following in the 60s and 70s but has now grown fairly popular. But by and large, nowadays its another world altogether of course, as it is the mobile phones, computers and bikes that kids prefer playing with, rather than table tennis or badminton. -- Augusto Pinto 40, Novo Portugal, Moira, Bardez, Goa, India E [email protected] or [email protected] P 0832-2470336 M 9881126350 * * * Read Selma Carvalho's warmly-received book *Into the Diaspora Wilderness*, a journey through Goan life in Africa, the Gulf, England and North America ... gripping and well-told real-life stories. See http://selmacarvalho.squarespace.com/ Buy in Goa via Broadway Book Centre, Panjim. Ph 9822488564. * * *
