Independent Goa Observer

LANCELOT GOMES II

Goans and gossip go hand in hand atleast when it surrounds the love life of Lancelot. MANOHAR SHETTY continues the tale in the form of chain letters.

IN ANJUNA, Bismarck Monteiro, who had overhead the entire conversation, put down the receiver. He turned to his wife Angela and said, ‘I overheard a funny conversation.’

‘Why do you listen to other people’s chatter?’ said Angela.
‘As it is you’re already a little deaf.’
‘I could not help it. It was a cross-connection. But just listen to what I heard. You remember Lancy Goes? The hotel owner?’
‘Yes, yes. He made lots of money in Kuwait.’
‘He got married again. For the fourth time.’
‘What? I don’t believe you!’
‘Believe you me, I heard it almost from the horse’s mouth.
And this time he’s married a Hindu, only eighteen years old.’
‘Only eighteen? But he must be sixty-five! He was in the Lyceum with my brother. What the men folk are up to these days! It is all because of TV!’
‘His first wife was Anjali Vaz, from Canada, I think.’
‘No, no, not Canada - Australia. What happened to their daughter Monica?’
‘She went to Bahrain. I heard she got divorced and lives with a married man in Bombay.’

‘Shee. What people do these days! Broken families mean only disasters. All morals have been lost! Do you remember Father Hubert of Cansaulim? He left the priesthood and married a bar-maid in Portugal. A sixty-year-old baldy marrying someone fit to be his grand-daughter! Shee. All morals have been lost!’

May be morals, Bismarck thought, but not Lancy’s libido. What a horny bugger he must be. He looked at his thin, angular wife who had reluctantly borne two children, sighed, and put on the TV to watch The Bold and the Beautiful, his favourite addiction.

The next morning, alone at home, Angela wrote a letter to her best friend, Fatima Vaz in Loutulim:

Dear Fatima,
Thank you for the sausages you sent with Brother Theo. Fat and juicy they were. I always tell Bismarck that you make the best sausages in Goa. I have said a hundred times, why you don’t start your own small side-business? Make also some balchao and misquit and you can start Fatima Foods. All rubbish they sell in the cold storage. Look how Oslinda Botelho from Aldona has prospered. Her stuff, pickles and everything is selling like hot cakes. God has been kind to us - we do not need small business. But you have to think of your children and their needs are always growing and growing. What will you do after Alfred retires? He is a good human, but good people don’t prosper. What promotion they have given him in that deluxe hotel even after so many years of honest service? You only tell me.

As I have said before, nothing ventured, nothing gained. There’s corruption and corruption everywhere. All the ministers and leaders are making money. Lakhs and lakhs they are making from bribes from big builders and the mining people who have already destroyed Goa and destroying it even more while the government is turning a blind eye. Why?

Because even the government, including the chief minister, is in their pockets.

My son Patrick has started a real-estate business. He’s doing very well now and knows all the tricks of the trade. What to say, money makes the world go round.

But look at the spiritual corruption. Morals have gone to the dogs. Just yesterday Bismarck was telling me of Lancelot Goes, the multi-rich departmental shop-owner. You may not know him, but the scoundrel has married for the fourth time! All hush, hush, and to boot a young Hindu girl! A chit of a girl and some are even whispering she’s a minor. A sixty eight-year-old baldy marrying a minor - but you know how people in Goa gossip. Nothing to do, so they gossip and gossip. Bismarck was sounding envious when he was telling me. Men are like that marrying four wives, like Mohammedans. How is your Alfredo? And the little ones Zelia and Zelima what pretty pretty names! I hope you will all come for my birthday next month (September 10). Even if it rains, you all must come. Lots of people are coming From Cansaulim. I will write to you if I need some nice patties and samosas from Margao. I will send a message with Brother Theo, what a humble gem of a man.
Bismarck sends his love.
Yours lovingly
Angela Monteiro.

P.S. You left your red umbrella in my house. It is safe and sound with me.

Fatima was a pious woman, the mother of eight children, The church bell sounded the angelus as she read through Angela Monteiro’s letter. Her eyebrows shot up in lopsided tweezered parenthesis as she thought: ‘Who she thinks she is, criticizing my Alfredo? Just because she is rich, she thinks she can say anything! Does she know what people in Cansaulim are saying about that corrupt sarpanch Bismarck? But the Lord will show him no Mercy.’

After Mass the next morning, she wrote in an aerogramme to her sister Matilda in Safat, Kuwait:

Dear Matilda,
I hope you are in the pink of health. We are as well as can be. My youngest, Mathew had fever few days ago. Now he is better. Dr. Lotlikar was very nice, though he is Hindu. Mark and John are doing well in college. Mark is serious and not chasing the village girls, and wasting money on dances. Luke is in Bombay to do paper work to come to Kuwait. God bless you and Wilfredo for taking him there. He is sincere and honest like his father. My back is hurting from all the housework, which is even more now as both Martha and Mary are working in the office in Margao.

Few days back our neighbour Hector organized the village dance. (So noisy it was whole night - I could not sleep a wink.) But he suffered a big loss because Clemox Mendes, the big pop singer, charged Rs 80,000 for one hour of his nonsense din. He is singing holier-than-thou rubbish about drugs and corruption, but making pots and pots of money on TV and other shows. Even for close friends like Hector he is not giving any discount. He’s so Holier-than- Thou that now they’re calling him the ‘Pope’ star! Part of the funds was for the orphanage also. Still this cheap monkey did not cut his price! What to say, this is how the world goes round. And do you know that big Bombay man Max Camoes who is writing all goody goody things about Goa in the papers and all? Alfredo confided in me that he owns twenty - 20! - taxis in the super deluxe hotel in false names. I have warned Mary and Martha there are wolves and wolves in sheep’s clothing. Royal hypocrites people are.

Angela wrote to me yesterday. Foolish she is, with a wagging tongue, even insulting my poor Alfredo. She thinks I have all the time in the world to start a business of pickle and prawn balchao! Can you imagine? But you know how she is throwing her weight since she moved into the new big house built on the foundation of cheated villagers. You know what I am talking about. She wrote also of Lancy Goes who I think owns a fishing trawler. You may not be knowing of him, but he has married again for the umpteenth time to a Hindu girl! Some are saying she is a minor and police may take action! What a scandal!

All morals have gone to the pits in Goa. Do you remember your college classmate Monica? She was in Bahrain and now she is living in sin with a married man in Bombay. I heard her first marriage is not yet annulled. Even the priests are affected. It was so sad to hear about Fr Ignatius who was defrocked. I only blame that evil woman Gracinda, who led him away from his rightful path. What to say, even the Church is falling prey to scandal. That is one good priest less in Goa.

How is your Wilfredo? And the little one, Ralvin - what a nice name! I hope Milagrinha is looking after him - servants are so costly even here now. Now they make demands for Christmas presents even. We had a small birthday party for Mathew. Martha put an advertisement in the paper, ‘V R 2 Today’ with his photograph. So cute it was. So chubby chubby he is.

Convey my love to Willy and smacking kisses to Ralvin.
Your loving sister,
Fatima

P.S. Do you remember Gwendolina, Dr Azavedo’s youngest? She got married in the village church to that nice man from Mazagaon, Seby Pinto. They put a cute ad in the paper -’V 2 R 1'. Sweet, no?

Matilda Costa, tired, overworked, and irritable after extricating herself from the usual passes made at her by her Arab boss, saw Fatima’s letter and sighed. ‘Another gloom and doom message from Goa’, she thought. She had a bath and put on the video player to watch a Hindi movie. After a microwave supper with her husband and son, just before retiring to bed, she read Fatima’s letter.

The next afternoon, a Friday, she wrote in her school girlish handwriting a letter to her friend in Bombay:

Hi Bharati!
How are you? I am well and happy here. It’s so hot here but we have AC, even in the car. I saw Madhuri yesterday - so groovy she is in Hum Apke Hai Kaun! And fantastic songs! Have you seen it on the big screen in Bombay? We get all the latest videos here.

Fatima wrote to me, as usual full of gloom and doom. Do you remember our classmate Monica Carvalho? Guess what, she’s living with a married man in Bombay. And her divorce is not even finished! Real chalu she has become. Who would have predicted in college - such a bookworm she was! And do you remember that short dark fellow Lancy Goes who was always ogling the girls like a wolf, on the beach? Guess what - he has married for the fourth or fifth time! A young innocent girl, it seems, and a Hindu, your own jaatwallah! Such scandals are happening in Goa! It seems even the police are suspicious because she’s under-age, only seventeen, I think. Lancy must he thinking ‘the more the merrier’!

How is your hubby? And the kids Ashok and Rita? Ralvin is fine, quite a handful he is. Plump and cute he is. Willy is fine and is slogging his heart out day in and day out.

I will meet you before Christmas this year. Give me more news about Bad Bombay and Bollywood. Have you seen Bombay?

Monisha is really cute, but the songs sound really constipated!
Lots of love,
Yours,
Matilda.

P.S. We are building a new house in Colva named WILMARAL - for WILfred, MAtilda and RALvin. You remember that politician Eddie Mascarenhas? He also has a new house close to us - EDANFRESH - for EDdie, ANgela, and their kids Frank and Esther. It’s a nice big house, but smaller than our house.

Bharati received Matilda’s letter on her thirtieth birthday. Amidst the noisy celebrations, she read the letter hastily. Balloons popped as the phone rang in her flat in Santacruz. It was her brother Dutta calling from New Jersey, USA. The c1amour of cooking and shrieking children almost drowned out his voice.

‘Hello, Bharati, ‘happy birthday! So, how are things cooking out there?’ he said.
Radiant, Bharati gushed, ‘Lots of cooking still to be done - everyone’s here! Thanks awfully so much for calling, Dutta. It must be prime time there?’

Dutta laughed. ‘What’s prime time when I’m calling my little sis on her thirtieth birthday? How’s mum, is she there?’

‘No, she’s fine but couldn’t stay. She’s gone back to Mapusa.’

‘Oh, what a pity. So what other news back home?’

‘Nothing much... Oh yes, just today I got a letter from Matilda in Kuwait. You remember her?’

‘Remember her? Of course? She was my first date. Bloody nervous I was!’
Bharati laughed. ‘Yeah, you could never dance! You remember Lancy Goes, the creepy ogler?’

The din around Bharati rose.
‘Who?’ said Dutta.
‘Lancy Goes... It’s really noisy here!’
‘Oh yah, “Pansy” Goes. I remember him well. Who doesn’t remember him? Settled down in Goa, didn’t he?’

Distracted by the mounting noise around her, Bharati said, ‘Yeah, well, it seems he’s married again! For the fourth time! To a minor. It seems the police are after him.’

Jeezuz! What the heck’s going on in good old Goa! I remember the first and second but you don’t know them, Amrita -” Ambrosia Amrita” we used to call her - and of course, at Portuguese mix-breed, Carmelina. But who’s the latest?’

The noise rose to a deafening level. The phone crackled, an at that moment Bharati’s five-year-old daughter began to tug at her saree, crying and complaining about her brother, Ashok.

‘Rita!’ Bharati shouted in exasperation. ‘Just wait a moment, will you?’
‘Rita?’ said Dutta. ‘The same one from Merces? Dr D’ Silva’s daughter?’
Bharati, pacifying her daughter, didn’t hear Dutta. She said, ‘There’s so much noise here, Dutta! I can hardly hear you.’

Anyway, let’s not spend dollars on idle gossip. All the best to you and mom and the rest of the gang. Bye and keep in touch.’ Dutta rang off.

In his twenty-first floor apartment Dutta Virgincar, MD, tall, cadaverous and grey-eyed, son of a pig-iron tycoon, pondered over the news about ‘Pansy’ Goes. ‘Sonofabitch’, he thought. ‘Always scoring with the chicks! And a bloody outsider too - all the way from Rourkela or some such one-horse town. The bugger even learnt Portuguese.’

The same night, back from the hospital where he worked, Virgincar wrote to his friend Remington Quadros in Mississigua, Canada.
Hi there Remy!

How’s life treating you there, pal? Freezing, I reckon, like me. But I’m putting in solid work and sweating it out for my moolah. And these days I’ve got someone to keep me warm, a nurse, a true-blue Yank from Philadelphia. Cold from the outside but like fire underneath! Not for marriage, of course. These Yanks, if they find someone more loaded, they drop you like a hot brick.

Somebody else we both know, though, has entered into ‘holy’ matrimony again. You remember ‘Pansy’ Goel in college? I got the news straight from my sis in Bombay - the gringo’s married again! For the fourth goddamn time! And guess who the prized catch is this time? You just won’t swallow this - remember ‘Lovely Rita Meter Maid’ - of course you do, you were crazy about her. That’s the one he’s caught in his net (bed!) this time. She’s definitely not a minor - that’s what Bharati thinks. Must be around 26, right! We last saw her six years ago, remember, at Viren’s birthday bash in Calangute. Great looker. I hope you’re not broken-hearted pal. (Anyone keeping your bed warm out there?) You’ll always be the Born Bachelor.

By the way, I may not be a Bachelor Boy much longer. Mom’s lining up a few girls - all Brahmins of course, though you know I don’t believe in all that caste stuff - for me to check out next year. May be it’s time I settled down in Goa - before one catches AIDS! You should see the Negro patients I have to treat. I’m not a racist, of course, but these guys from the shanties are bloody ungrateful for everything that’s done for them. You should see the gunshot and knife wounds. You’ll flip. You’re lucky, man, with that cosy job in the post-office. Anyway, ‘Pansy’ Goel has thrown egg at our faces. We should have called him ‘Randy’ Goel! But maybe the ‘pansy’ tag got to him and he set out to prove us all wrong? And talk of secularism! And, by the way, wasn’t there something fishy about his divorce from that mestiso, Carmelina?

Anyway, bye for now and why don’t you try your luck in the US of A? Think about it.
All the best
Dutta

P.S. Why don’t you write something about it in S0S. These damned outsiders are taking over both our land and now our gals!

(To Be Continued)
Courtesy: Govapuri, Bulletin of Institute Menezes Braganza

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LANCELOT GOMES II

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