Really sorry to hear about the death of Fr Planton Faria from Eugene and Nelson. I met him only a few times, but did respect his work, his writing and his efforts.
He was one of the priests who wrote a lot, and of direct interest to me (as a collector of Goa books) was his work on his village of Cuncolim in Goa. Both his knowledge and love for the place showed in his labour of love. By the early 1990s, Fr Planton must have realised what a poor job Goa was doing in training the next generation of journalists. So he himself launched a training programme under the aegis (if I recall right) of the Diocesan Centre for Social Media Communications. Classes were held on Sundays in a classroom at the Mary Immaculate School, Panjim, again if I'm not getting it wrong. That was the predecessor to the journalism training schools we have today (attached to colleges like Xavier's, Dhempe's and Don Bosco's) ... and even more is required. It was the foresight of people like Fr Faria who saw the ball starting to roll. I recall volunteering myself to teach there (having just returned from a useful scholarship in Germany and feeling the need to give back), and Fr Faria (who didn't know me personally) was quick to accept. He gave me a slot to focus on photography, which then too I was interested in. If I'm not wrong, some who attended those classes became journalists subsequently. Another death (actually, two) making big news in the today's papers was that of the wife and daughter-in-law of Mathias Vaz (Maureen Printers, Santa Cruz, Tiswadi). What was even more shocking is that the double murder was allegedly caused by Vaz's daughter-in-law's brother, and newspapers said a family property dispute was believed to have been behind the killings. I've known Vaz since the late 1980s, when we were printing a Goa Union of Journalists (GUJ) souvenir at his small printing press. As usual, we arrived at his doorstep late, but Vaz turned night into day and used every trick in the book to get out our souvenir on time. If I recall right, it was delivered minutes before the actual launch! Vaz himself is a very unusual Goan, hardworking to the core, and I've known him very co-operative and supportive and a man with his heart in the right place. Untypically, he did his PhD in Portuguese while in his 60s, spent time recently studying in Portugal, and had taken on a job at a Tamil Nadu university, which was receiving students from Timor, and Portuguese skills were needed to communicate with them (I may have mixed up some details here). He has been involved with many campaign initiatives in Goa. A friend eagerly agreed when I said, "This is very sad, it should have not happened to a man like him." FN +91-832-2409490 or +91-9822122436 [email protected]
