http://www.navhindtimes.com/articles.php?Story_ID=09177
Edwin Saldanha: his spirit lives on by M Braganza While the alumni prepared to host a Quiz Competition in an institution where he had taught , Edwin Saldanha quietly slipped from "current affairs" to "history" on the tenth day of August, 2007. As with all things in his life, the transition took place in an orderly manner with his keen sense of time, place and people. I knew the man closely for 35 of the almost 90 years he lived. Most people know his book "Successful Goan Home Wines".His book on wines has the flavour of "Eddie" or "Mr. Saldanha", as one knew him. It is almost like his footprint in the sands of time. Take the title of the book. It is by no accident that the first word is "Successful". I have not known him to attempt a single thing in life and not be successful in doing what he set out to do. He restored an old statue of St. Britto in the school where he taught me the basics of drawing. He did not attempt to make me an artist as he, rightly, saw no potential in that direction. Instead, he taught me scouting and took me under his wing as if I was his own. The President of India recognised our joint effort and awarded me the President's Scout badge. There were three more boys and eight girls who were successful in getting a similar honour. He stuffed penguins for NIO when he was seventy and painted life size portraits of Vijaya and Madhura Sardessai when he was more than eighty years of age and had cataracts in both his eyes! That was Eddie: successful. Eddie's neighbour and student-for-life like me, Frederick Noronha, quotes him as saying, "My book is the only one in the whole world that tells you how to make wine from tropical fruits." [See full text at http://www.goasudharop.org/ebook/34teacher.htm ] If one wants to make wine of any fruit in Goa, it is there in his book. At his funeral, his only son, Kevin, had this to say," When we were preparing to leave Kenya in the late 1960s, my uncle Eugene offered to sponsor him and us out to the US to which Dad replied that his one wish was to 'bury his bones' in Goa. After almost 40 years, that wish will come true as we lower Dad's body into the sandy soil of the Saligao that he loved so much." Eddie was every bit Goan! At the end of his eulogy, Kevin had this to say as irreverently as his Dad, " I hope no one has smuggled a 'bangddo' into the church… because Dad irreverently joked with us saying that if we really missed him when he died, all we needed to do was to dangle a fried mackerel over his coffin to resurrect him. His love for Goa was intertwined with his love for sea-food and his knowledge on buying, cleaning, filleting and cooking fish was legendary." Even when circumstances [with all five children in America and his heart firmly in Goa] made him to shift to Vijaya Ashram in Arpora, he visited home to see that it was in good shape. It was from here that his body was taken to the cemetery for the last rites. Eddie's heart and soul were always in his home! His wine making ability was as legendary as his ability to do almost anything: buying, cleaning, filleting and cooking fish, besides anything else he could lay his hands on, was legendary. His nature was not poch-pochitt like that of a watery grape or watermelon, it was more refined like a fruit wine. He gave of himself in metered doses so that the receiver may appreciate its worth. The years spent in the Jesuit seminary before he met and married the wonderful lady of his life, Phyllis, may have had a role in this. His spirit was that of sacrifice, like the sacramental wine. Years will dim the memory of Edwin Saldanha as it does of any great man beyond his generation and the GenNext. His book will definitely see reprints or plagiarism or both. Even if that does not happen, every time someone raises a glass of home made Goan fruit wine it will be a silent toast to his indomitable spirit! -- Frederick Noronha Journalist http://fn.goa-india.org In Hyderabad. Ph 040-23132176 SMS: 9822122436
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