Independent Goa Observer

LANCELOT GOMES III

Will the chain letters stop? Or will the news of the scandal continue to rant the air? MANOHAR SHETTY continues the tale to a fitting finale.

REMINGTON QUADROS, Editor of the newsletter S0S (Sons of the Soil), cold and lonely in his bleak two-room tenement in Mississigua, fumed as he read Dutta’s letter.

‘Pucker thinks I’m lucky!’ he raged. ‘That Bamon Richie Rich, always calling me to the States, but doesn’t lift a finger to help. That son of a Portuguese bootlicker! And wasn’t he crazy about Carmelina - only, his pop intervened and shunted him off to the States. And that fucker Nitin ‘Pansy’ Goel- he hadn’t even divorced his second wife, a minor. And he’s gone on to his fourth! Bastard bigamist! Bloody Indian bigamy laws – with So many problems, what do they care about bigamy? And poor, sweet Rita ‘ His fierce eyes clouded over when he thought about her.

Later that week, he editorialized in the new edition’ of SOS:
GOA - Going, Going, Gone...

It is well-known that the degeneration of Goa has steadily gone downhill - now it is accelerating at breakneck speed, like a tourist Sumo taxi on Anmod Ghat. A jungle of five-star hotels, financed by self-serving Capitalist Outsiders, have mangled Mother Goa’s coastline, making an utter mockery of environmental laws. Politicians from the Left, Right and Centre have been bribed left, right and centre, leaving the common man high and dry, adrift in the (few remaining) sands of time. Truly the Mammon-hungry builders have left their footprints on the Sands of Time! The lot of the common man has gone from bad to worse to desperate since the ‘Liberation’ of Goa in 1961.

Despite the loudspeaker-type announcements (a la our tiatrist tempos) of liberalization of the economy from the Corridors of Power, rampant unemployment is the order of the day. Even though the powerful builders and hotel industry lobby promises jobs to our youth, it is well-known that only lowly menial jobs such as waiters and bell-boys are given to our youth on a meagre pittance. All the topmost posts are reserved (a la Indian Reservation Policy) for Outsiders. The Powers-that-Be promise the earth to our people and it is the earth that they deliver, viz. dirt, mud, muck and potholes. (And, to boot, Grand Canyon-type ravines in the exploited-to-death mining belts of Bicholim and Pale - which rugged majesty no tourist gets to behold.) But all is not lost, S0S pledges its support to its namesake, namely Sons of the Soil of Goa. We will continue to strive courageously to preserve the Goenkar’s unique Cultural Identity. Victory to the Sons of the Soil! Salt of the earth!

While drugs are there to stay to corrupt our youth forever, a new dastardly menace has invaded our pristine shores. It is an unspeakable crime - but speak up we must, or forever bear the burden of guilt.

Yes, it is Child Prostitution, catering to the, sick minds of the Wild White West. Along with AIDS, drugs, massage prostitution, and Kentucky fried Chicken, this is our latest ‘Import’. The rot has truly sunk into Goa’s Golden Sands! The authorities continue to turn a blind eye to the physical, and now moral, decay of Goa, the ‘Rome of the East’. Before the next century heralds in a new age, Goa is doomed to become the ‘Tomb of the East’!

And now yet another evil, nay, heinous crime against society looms large in ‘The Paradise That Was Goa’! Reliable sources continue to provide information to S0S on the degeneracy of Goa. It is not just Kashmiri terrorists and smugglers who have found a safe haven in Goa. Now a new species have crept into our beloved land - the Immoral Bigamist!! The law enforcers appear to be least concerned over these tragic crimes. The incompetent police, too busy with taking bribes from foreign tourists for petty traffic offences, are ignorant of the extent of Bigamy prevalent in Goa!

The tip of the iceberg was detected by an intrepid scribe who reported to S0S that a well-known, unscrupulous businessman, an Outsider who has sucked the blood dry of our Golden Goa for over ten years, has recently lured into his clutches a young innocent RC from Merces. Although he has not freed himself from the bonds of matrimony in his previous marriage to a minor, he has, disregarding all norms of society, shamelessly hitched himself for the fourth time to another ‘holy’ wedlock. Can S0S remain silent over this Unholy Alliance?!

While no one questions this Rabid Romeo’s virility one must question his rabbit Immorality. S0S is bound hand and foot by the laws of this land, but yet not to speak out would be the act of a coward! It is the paramount duty of SOS to our brothers and sisters in Golden Goa to expose the Dark Deeds of the Dastardly Bigamist - the Outsider culprit ‘NPG’ and the poor, innocent victim, ‘RD’ of Merces!! May Justice Prevail! ‘Truth Will OUT!’ be Ever Our Motto!
God bless our Beautiful Land! Goa for Goans!!
Dev Borem Korum. .
Your ever Vigilant Editor and Keeper of Goa’ s Moral fibre,

REMINGTON BENHUR QUADROS.
Quadros published a hundred-odd copies of the four-page newsletter every six months or so. Besides the fulminating editorials (under the heading ‘Bird’s Eye View’), the pages contained news about weddings, births, dances, inter-village football and other tournaments staged by Goans in the UK and Canada and an obituary column. This column was the most avidly read. Some copies were sent off as complimentaries to people in Goa, Uganda and UK by Quadros. This particular issue, denouncing the ‘Dastardly Bigamist’, reached the house of Vincent Braganza in Sutton, Surrey.

Braganza, a retired railway official, had settled in the UK in the sixties. After a breakfast of kippers and marmite, he told his English wife Elizabeth, ‘This man, Quadros, he seems to be going over the edge. Here, just read this.’
Elizabeth read the editorial and laughed, ‘It’ll probably cause a storm in Goa!’
‘No, I don’t think so. Nobody takes this junk seriously. Jolly bad show though. But I wonder who this NPG with his four wives is?’
‘Why don’t you ask Oscar Menezes? He’s from Merces isn’t he?’
‘Good idea.’

The following Sunday Braganza met Menezes at a GAA (Goa Abroad Association) meeting. The meeting, as usual, had deteriorated into a wordy war between members. They could not decide on the referees for a football match between Anjuna XI and Benaulim Boys. Finally, the members opted for an English referee as he would be ‘fair and neutral’. The menu for the St Xavier’s Feast day also provoked much acrimony with one group of women championing sorpotel with pig’s blood and the other believing it tasted just as good and was more ‘refined’ without it. A fiery debate also followed on whether to use’ deseeded green chillies’ or the’ original red hot Salcete variety’ for the chicken cafreal. The meeting was adjourned with the decision on the ingredients of the sorpotel and chicken cafreal deferred till the next ‘Get together on the gala occasion of the Ex-President of GAA Caetano Pimenta and his Ever Loving wife Anastasia’s Golden Jubilee Wedding Anniversary Celebration’.

On their way out, Braganza, who had steered clear of the controversy, asked Oscar Menezes about the initials NPG and RD. Menezes thought for a while and said, ‘Could it be Naresh “pixie” Ghorpade?’

Braganza said, ‘That’s impossible. He died six years ago.

Menezes shrugged, ‘Can’t think of anyone else. Some playboy he must be! Haven’t been to Goa for a few years now. The divorce rate there will soon match Britain’s. And RD? Could it be Rosy Dourado? Anyway, I have a cousin in Merces. I’ll post this to her. She’s a first-class gossip. She would know for sure.’

Two weeks later the newsletter arrived at Filomena Rodrigues’s old bungalow in Merces. She shivered with pleasure when she read the editorial and the initials of the ‘culprit’ and the ‘victim’.

It was she, later that evening, who broke the news to her neighbour Maravilha da Gama, at the Panjim fish market. Maravilha was haggling over the price of a glassy-eyed mullet with a large fisherwoman bedecked in gold necklaces which rested in serpentine spirals on her hillocky bosom. ‘Did you know,’ Filomena said in a breathless undertone, stuffing silverblack mackerels into a plastic bag, ‘Nikhil “Pinky” Gole has married again?’

Maravilha almost dropped the mullet and gasped, ‘What? Again?’
‘You just won’t believe,’ hissed Filomena, eyes coruscating like a ell’s. ‘It’s his own secretary this time and she’s over forty plus! And he must be only twenty-six! And just you guess what, and this will shock you, she’s a Catholic!’
Maravilha pressed her crucifix into her chest involuntarily. ‘Oh, Lord’, she exclaimed. ‘A forty-plus Catholic woman? What is the world coming to? And to that young rake!’

After some more haggling by Maravilha, the two parted company, promising to ‘put their heads together’ over the scandalous business’ later at home in Merces.

Maravilha posted a chain-letter and crossed herself at a wayside shrine as she trudged towards the bus-stand.

Courtesy: Govapuri, Bulletin of Institute Menezes Braganza

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LANCELOT GOMES III

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