Title: Heaven Knows Your Future, Mr. Fernandes By: Roland Francis Source: Goan Voice UK Daily Newsletter 24 March 2013 at www.goanvoice.org.uk
When the majority of Goan families had little in the way of affluence, they had each other. Mother and father raised their brood usually along with an unmarried and disadvantaged relative and sometimes a posko or poskem - an adopted child that may have crossed their path unintentionally. They stopped all activity at the evening Angelus bells, then gradually recommencing until later when they would all huddle together for the family rosary. After, Dad would open the small wall cupboard to pour himself a shot of well matured feni while Mum and the children would help lay the dinner table. While the parents had their own chairs, others would squeeze on the wooden benches beneath the simple spread of rice, vegetables and some curried or fried fish. Retiring to the cemented balcony at the entrance to the home, they would stretch and talk under the starry skies until sleep first gently nudged the most tired. Whatever troubles beset the family would rest solely on the broad shoulders of the parents who would never drop even a hint to any of the others even if the problem belonged to one of them. It seemed prayer, toil and St. Francis would solve everything and even when it didn't there were no recriminations that destroyed the family peace. Mum and Dad eventually aged to infirmity. It was the custom of the eldest son to take over their care and he did the job uncomplainingly without expectation of any reward of asset transfer which in any case would devolve to all of the sons. That's just the way it was, Portuguese civil or family law notwithstanding. In any case the assets, mainly the land and house amounted to almost nothing. Brothers and sisters maintained the family bond and passed it on to their children. Eventually all that changed with the times. The price of land and homes in Goa escalated to dizzying heights. Families grew and accommodation got beyond the reach of average incomes. In the fight for space, elders are the first casualty. Goan Christians are mostly working folk. Except for a few, they are hardly entrepreneurs or business people. With high inflation, increasing medical and education costs and rising gasoline prices, belts have to be tightened and the old and infirm are the first to suffer. In certain areas where property prices have especially skyrocketed, families prefer to sell ancestral property, divide the proceeds and go their own way. Couples want to be independent with no added responsibilities. Father and mother cannot manage on their own and in a short time end up in old age homes. In many cases the younger adults have to relocate to other cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad or Gurgaon because they are either in transferable jobs or have found employment in these booming cities. Goa has no meaningful opportunity for the well-educated and skilled except in the stagnating and unregulated tourist sector which lacks any kind of self-discipline. They are unable to take their parents along because of their uncertainties in these newly expanding cities. Jobs in India are no more secured than in more advanced countries. If the stress levels in these parts are high, in India they are higher since employers while their hands are somewhat tied in the west, have unfettered slave driving opportunities in their outsourced destinations. Then there are Goans who see their future in immigrating to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and lately the UK in large numbers. They need capital to tide them over the initial difficult phase and they tend to entice or force their parents out of their ancestral home with the promise of providing them with a place to live with them in their new countries. Once settled, those old folks become either babysitters or a burden and a nuisance to their good life, or perhaps they are still struggling and their parents would seem to add to the problems. In some countries where medical costs are high as in the USA or where senior or long term care homes have to be partly paid for as in Canada and the UK, problems are aggravated. Thankfully, Goans long established in the Diaspora, especially those from Africa who came with young children in the 50s to the 70s are relatively unscathed from such issues. The parents now old, have worked here for a part of their lives and their friends and support circle live among them. There are no unmanageable expectations and no emotional trauma of sudden separation from a community they have lived a lifetime with. Everybody wishes that when they get old, a heart attack, stroke or rapidly spreading cancer quickly takes them away. No one wishes to linger in suffering or worse still be a burden, either financial or otherwise to their loving children. But the reality is that we live longer than ever before and until euthanasia becomes as common as cremation, or Pope Francis threatens excommunication on unwilling children unless they take good care of their ailing parents, we should all hope to die younger, not older. Thanks are due for valuable input from Marshall Mendonza of Poona and Bombay, Company Secretary and a good cyber friend. =====================================