Thanks Bita. Enjoyed reading your story. And hope you did not mind
me analyzing it. Of course, could have continued with Guilherme Dias
the owner of the house in the story and now the Mary Immaculate
Girl's H.S. I did study him when I was commissioned by GCCI
centenary book. May be when I get into the mood of writing.
Love and good wishes.
Maria de Lourdes
On Mon, 15 Jan. 2024 13:57:00 +0530 Isabel Santa Rita Vas
wrote
>Many thanks, dear Victor and Heta. I enjoyed writing down these
early memories.
Warm regards,
Isabel
Virus-free.www.avast.com
On Sun, Jan 14, 2024 at 4:11 PM Heta Pandit
wrote:
Thank you for this. Dear Isabel! Even I measure my life in the
houses I’ve lived in and the cats and dogs who were partial to their
chosen territories.
Love always Mog Asuni
Heta_____________________
Please visit our Instagram #goaheritage for more on Goa Heritage
Action Group
#grindingstories for more on Songs sung over the grinding stones
On Sun, 14 Jan 2024 at 5:01 AM, 'Victor Rangel-ribeiro' via The Goa
Book Club wrote:
What a bautifully written piece, thank you, Isabel! Very
nostalgic.Mog asuni!Victor
On Friday, January 12, 2024 at 11:34:00 PM EST,
Goanet Reader wrote:
Isabel Santa Rita Vás: I Count My Life By Houses
Isabel Santa Rita [email protected] I rarely travel across
national or international borders, butI have travelled houses, a
handful of them. They tellstories, the houses that home you for a
few or very manyyears. How do you count your life? By countries?
Achievements? Occupations? Social change? Politicalupheavals?
Births and deaths in the family? Houses embraceall these and more.
The first house I experienced was called A Casa da
Ponte (House of the Bridge). Yes, they own their own names,
as people today seem to have now recognised mainly for the
purpose of postal addresses. 'Next to the Tamarind Tree'
won't do as an address, I notice. But a house owns other
names as well, besides the official one on the name plate
on the doorway, a true name often discovered by the
children who live in it. Another house of ours is called
Caixa de Fósforos (Matchbox). But let's not crowd the
canvas, one house at a time is wide enough for me.We were
all born there, my two brothers and I. The familylived in this
rented house for forty years, grandparents,parents, uncle and aunt,
brothers and me and household help. When the owners re-claimed it,
we left. But it has neverleft us, the house of our early years.It
was situated at a cross-roads, this Casa da Ponte, wherefriends and
relatives coming from Bardez and Salcete couldeasily drop by as they
arrived in Pangim city. They climbedthe short winding staircase to
the first floor boldlyconfident that the welcoming old man at the
veranda would bedelighted to see them.The welcome would always
translate into a coffee, a meal or along natter at the Mesa de Chá,
where so much got talkedabout. It was situated by a water-body, a
narrow riverbranch of the Mandovi, to which we sometimes accompanied
ourDad with a fishing rod and bait, catching crabs and fish.Down
this river came sailing the canoes that brought coconutsto our home
from the village. It stood by a bridge, notsprawling, not an
apology for a bridge, either, but adignified little bridge with a
story of its own. At thecentre of it, to the right, there was a
small shrine thatpeople called Sankollioh, and where they left
marigolds forthe deity.It was built overnight, this bridge of ours,
literally bynight, by moonlight, maybe, probably by workers led by
theJesuits. We had heard we could still glimpse them at work ona
full moon midnight. But maybe that was only a tale, whoknows. We
did stay up, lids heavy with sleep, but couldnever see much. But it
didn't matter, the bridge was afriend.At its starting point a
traffic policeman directed thecarreiras, the cycles, the bullock
carts laden with salt, andthe cars; lucky man, they never crowded
the road to give hima headache, even though this was such a crucial
junction. The policeman had mixed feeling for our house:
our house-bulbul mimicked his traffic whistle and
confused him sometimes. But then, on festival days my Dad
left a case of beer for him at the traffic umbrella as
apology for the bulbul and thanks for his enduring service
and that was all part of the story.How do houses tell stories?
Sometimes by the tales about theneighbouring houses. We knew all
about the rather largedwelling further up the street that was
demolished and soldat an incredibly low price. It had no buyers, you
see. Itwas kind of haunted, we knew. Whatever food was served
inthat house turned to excreta. You don't believe me? It'strue, the
owners had traded in slaves, everybody said. Andso their fortune had
come with a curse attached. Thesethings happen.We often ran down the
street to a one-door shop not far fromthe house, where we could buy
coloured paper to make kitesand cover our school note-books, and the
owner of the shopwas a rather invisible gentleman whose name was Mr.
Bhale, Ithink, but was known to all as Mr. Bholo; he was
invisiblebehind the stationery he sold, papel lacreado, writing
paper,books and notebooks and pencils and gum, all in riot at
alltimes, but to him magically accessible, sort of. At home
wesometimes drove Mum crazy by our disregard for order and
weresternly rebuffed and warned not to be a Bholo, or else.
The Casa da Ponte sitting room led up to a terrace that
opened to the wide sky. That's where we climbed to fly
kites on breezy October evenings, generally accompanied by
Dad, a co-conspirator. At times we clambered over the
house tiles to the horror of neighbours who shouted across
their roofs to Get Down Right Now Children You Will Fall
And Break Your Heads.The house was as layered as the times
it lived in. It hadtwo other entrances, besides the main one. One
was theservice entrance, where all the vendors arrived with
theirbaskets of fish and vegetables, no need to order online,
youknow? They sat and chatted comfortably in the kitchen
beforeproceeding to the neighbours'. Nustem zaiem ge!!!?The other
small entrance was for the disposal of night-soil. The bhanghi came
with a large tin and cleared the toilets,the septic tank had not yet
been invented in the city. Hedisposed of the waste in the river. He
kept the city clean. Sometimes the man was so drunk that his wife
came instead todo the job. She had a cup of tea and got on with her
work. On the way to that small terrace there was a
landing, where Laurente, our cook, had his room; that's
where he wrote his tiatr scripts. We watched one of his
plays, my aunt and I, and I remember we laughed until we
cried. Laurente Cunha, your name will not go down in
history books. But Laurente, children remember.When
December 1961 came by, rumours grew into franticwarnings: leave the
house by the bridge. All bridges standin danger of being blasted,
dynamite has already been plantedin place, so that advancing armies
are deterred.We packed a few bags and moved to our village. But
historywas kind to us. The bridge stood its ground above theflowing
river as history was made. A Casa da Ponte wasrelieved to welcome us
back home a couple of months later. We didn't live there much
longer. We moved to another housewhere the traumas of a new age had
to be worked out. But ACasa da Ponte lives with us. Who designed
it? Who built it? So dear is it that I commissioned a painter to
paint me aportrait of her. Now, many houses later, she smiles at
mefrom her frame. Does she remember us? Does she count herlife by
the people she houses?--Isabel Santa Rita Vás has retired as a
teacher of EnglishLiterature. She is a member of the Mustard Seed
Art Company,an amateur theatre group that is based in Goa. Both
teachingand theatre have been exciting journeys she has
thoroughlyenjoyed, says Ms. Vás.This is an excerpt from All Those
Tales (Nellie VelhoPereira & FN, Eds). Goa,1556 ISBN 978-93-95795-
65-4. 2024. Pp242. Rs500 (in Goa). See cover
here:https://groups.google.com/g/goa-book-club/c/wkYAQ4D2VA0
orhttp://t.ly/kan08If you'd like to join the Tell Your Story group
that offersmentoring in writing, click on the WhatsApp link
belowhttps://chat.whatsapp.com/C5ge87N4WeJAW54oUXqnBO
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