On Wednesday, April 9, 2025 at 02:24:26 AM GMT+5:30, Frederick Noronha
<[email protected]> wrote:
Absolutely delightful Derek. Loved it. Am certain that the book will be a
sellout. Patricia Pereira-Sethi
2, Market Street
Derek Almeida For as far back as I can remember, life for me started at 2,
Market Street, Belgão. It was a quaint road with rows of houses on either side.
Most of them were single storied with an occasional two storeyed one. Like the
one where Teacher Eve (name changed) lived. It had a wooden staircase that led
to the first floor. It squeaked as we climbed the stairs and the wooden floor
gave out loud thumps when we walked around.How do I know all this? It's a valid
question. I know this because my brother and I went every evening for tuitions
to her. Teacher Eve genuinely believed that it was her duty to make fine,
clever men of us all through proper instruction and some spanking.Mrs D'Souza,
who lived opposite us, also had a two-storeyed house. We were in and out of her
house so often that one would easily get the impression that we were related.
We were not. We were just good friends and often went for picnics together. I
have some black and white photos to prove it. Our favourite picnic spot was
Asoga. This outing started with a dumney ride to the railway station followed
by a train journey to Khanapur and a really long and tiring trek to the picnic
spot which was on the banks of the Malaprabha river.By the way, a dumney is a
bullock cart with a carriage on the top to seat passengers. It was dark on the
inside and the bullocks were really slow. This contraption did not have shock
absorbers so every crack or pothole in the road sent shock waves right through
our backsides. The journey in a dumney always started with a fight for window
seats. Being the smallest, I usually lost.If a dumney was not available then
the next best mode of transport was a tonga which was drawn by a horse, like
the one Basanti had in the film Sholay. This had spring shock absorbers and was
a little faster but if the horse was left standing for too long it crapped and
that made us laugh until the stench hit our nostrils. Then, we pinched our
noses and laughed harder.The only time we saw animals other than a bullock or a
horse was when the circus came to Belgaum. The great big tent, which was
usually erected on station ground was mesmerising. We would run to the site
during the afternoon school break and peep through the cracks for a `deko' at
the elephants, hippo, tiger and more horses.I lived at 2, Market Street along
with my aunt, cousins and a few boarders. It was quite a big house, or perhaps
it looked big because we were little. It had a hall, three bedrooms, a kitchen
with a storeroom attached, a loft for storing things, a `chula' in the back for
heating water and making guava jam, which my aunt did once a year, I think. Mrs
D'Souza also had boarders. I think everybody had boarders back then.When I look
back at my time in this street the one thing that now strikes me as remarkable
was the drains which comprised neatly cemented open gutters running down the
front of the row of houses. At the beginning of the drain was a water pipe
which was opened once a week by the Cantonment worker to flush the drain. This
was the time for paper boats which launched in the turbulent waters. Some
capsized and we ran along the street following the ones that survived. They
don't make drains like that anymore.Of the many friends who lived on the street
was Alan, who lived with his grandmother. His parents worked in Mumbai and they
would visit from time to time. It was a time when everyone who wanted to do
something with their lives went to Mumbai. The rest stayed back and did
something else, like work at the post office or become a priest, which I gave
some thought to when I was older and still clueless about where my life was
heading.I assumed the Jesuits would be grateful to have me in their order and I
remember having one meeting with a priest called Fr Ambrose at the Jesuit
house. It didn't take him long to figure out how clueless I was and conclude
that I would be a huge loss to the Jesuits or any other religious order for
that matter. Fr Ambrose was a smart dude.A note about the Jesuit house. It was
more like a castle. A spooky one. It was a two-storied granite building painted
in dull grey like the gloomy monsoon sky. It had Dormer windows which exuded
mystery because they were never open. It was enveloped in a cloak of silence
and we came to believe that it might harbour a few ghosts of some priests who
never made it to heaven. Every time we passed the house to return from A-ground
after six in the evening we ran like mad and stopped only after we were out of
the main gate.It was in the parlour of this house that Fr Ambrose interviewed
me, but by then I realised that it was not so mysterious after all. It was just
very dull and boring.
The 'spooky' Jesuit House.Photo Deepak Pillay.So back to Market Street. Alan
was our friend for many reasons, the main one being his possession of a trunk
full of comics. So we always tried to be on the right side of Alan, which was
easy because he was a cool chap before `cool' became mainstream.Like there was
this time when he was dashing across the street to come to our house to play
when he struck a bicycle. We heard a yelp and expected a lot of crying because
on close examination we noticed one of his teeth hanging by a thread. But he
didn't. There was a tear or two but no crying. We helped him dislodge the tooth
which was fun and made a big thing of asking him to show the gap to us and
other friends. After that, losing a tooth became cool.Alan was also quite
religious. One day some of the bigger boys got hold of a gun, a real one and
shot a sparrow. Alan was miffed. He was determined to give it a burial worthy
of a sparrow. So he dug a hole in the space between his house and the main
road. Not Market Street as it totally lacked the space for religious antics. He
placed the bird in the hole, gently and then declared that by tomorrow it would
be in heaven. Then, he threw in a pink rosary to make sure.The next evening
after school we rushed to the burial spot and dug it up to ascertain if the
sparrow had gone to heaven. It was still there covered with ants and other tiny
creatures. It wasn't a pretty sight so we buried it again with another rosary.
We said an `Our father' to the best of our abilities, a few `Hail Marys', a
`Glory Be' and buried the bird for the second time.We did not open the grave
again because we did not want to be disappointed, but more so because we were
afraid that if it was still there our belief in `heaven' would go for a
toss.That's how I remember Alan. Those were the days when we wore shorts to
school and pretty much everywhere else and played marbles.Market Street
branched out from Independence Road near the corner of St Paul's High School
and stretched all the way to what seemed like eternity. We seldom got to the
end of the street. The furthest we got was to Roland's house which was at the
point where the street joined Khanapur road. Roland's house was on the first
floor which was accessed via a narrow stone staircase and a door on the left. I
always wondered how his parents managed to get their furniture, beds and all
into the house through that narrow staircase. They never told me because I
never asked them.
| |
| Market Street today. Photo Deepak Pillay. |
Roland was more than a friend. He was a family friend. Even though we share the
same surname we are not related. Years later I got to know that we came from
the same village in Goa, which is Assolna.He would come quite often to our
house to play and one afternoon asked if we were interested in taking a look at
the buffaloes owned by the Noronha family. This family supplied milk to almost
everybody in the area. Very often I would sit outside our house and wait for
the Noronha milkman to return the milk bottles. They used to supply milk in two
types of bottles, one with a red striped cap and the other with a blue striped
cap. One was low fat and the other high, I can't remember which was which. It
was a long time ago.Talking about buffaloes, it was during Diwali, I think that
all the buffaloes were adorned with garlands and with their horns painted
bright orange, taken in a procession. We all waited till the end because the
last to come were the bovines owned by the Noronha family and they were huge,
almost like hippos.It was after one such procession that we accompanied Roland
on a trek to get a second look at the Noronha buffaloes. We walked down to the
police station junction, took a left on High Street and went all the way to
Havelock Road. Then we took a mud path which led to a huge open space known as
`dhobi ghat'. At least, that is what Roland called it and it stuck in our
heads. (By the way, when I write `we' it usually means me and my brother and
sometimes, Alan).Dhobi ghat was the place where all the dhobis washed the
clothes and hung them to dry. It was like acres and acres of land covered with
thousands of clothes hung from lines of twisted rope without clips. The method
of using twisted rope to hold the clothes in place was sheer genius.So, we
walked across the open space to the place with a large granite shed where the
buffaloes were kept. Roland first hoisted me on his shoulders to take a look
through a horizontal open window. I remember touching the head of the buffalo.
She turned to look at me and I scrambled back. Then Roland hoisted my brother
and after that the two of us hoisted Roland.On the way back Roland stepped into
a pool of cow dung and we all had to go back to the shed so he could wash his
foot in the water tank. And that was that.Market street had a lot of families
in the milk business. They all had cow sheds in their houses and one had to
pass through the shed to get to the living quarters. It was quite scary. We had
to do this often to meet a friend, Keshav, who went to school with us. The
milkmen usually parked their cattle on the road during the day where they were
washed and fed watery stuff in buckets.Practically, every schoolboy who lived
on the street went to Teacher Eve for tuitions. She literally ran a school in
her house with over 50 boys neatly segregated into classes. We were scared to
death of her because she believed that the only way to stuff history,
geography, math, science and English into the head of a boy was with the cane.
And thanks to her, we all came out smarter for it. I remember standing first in
the final exam in third standard, all because she never let go. I never
repeated that feat ever again. Those were the days when corporeal punishment
was part of the school syllabus and parents believed that an occasional kick in
the pants got you better marks.There was Billy, who was related to my cousins
but lived somewhere in an area populated by bungalows with massive compounds
and several outhouses. At tuitions Billy often got the thick end of the stick.
Nonetheless, every Sunday Billy would go to church and pray for Teacher Eve. He
would pray that one day a knight in shining armour would trot down Market
Street on a horse or buffalo, sweep Teacher Eve off her feet and carry her to a
place at least 500 miles away from Market Street. It eventually happened, but
not as quickly as Billy had hoped. Billy wasn't great at praying.Finally, no
story of Market Street would be complete without a mention of Michael's Shop.
It was located in one of the front rooms of the Britto residence and was our
go-to place for almost everything, especially a very hard sweet which was in
the shape of an egg and looked like an egg on the inside. It had to be broken
into smaller pieces with a stone.Michael was a genial fellow who sat in the
shop and passed his time cutting old cigarette packets into strips for smokers
to light their cigarettes with. Very often he would let us into the back of the
shop through the side entrance where we helped ourselves to jaggery.On one such
occasion we were stopped by an elderly gentleman with black horned glasses whom
we knew as Uncle John. We boldly told him that we had Michael's permission and
he, even more boldly, told us that it was his shop not Michael's. We were
shocked to discover this truth, but continued calling it Michael's Shop, much
to Uncle John's dismay. He couldn't, for the love of God, figure out why, when
or who renamed his shop as Michael's Shop.And then one day, when I was in the
third standard, I think, we got another shock when we were told the house we
lived in did not belong to my aunt and that we would be moving to BC 45 in
bungalow area, which was closer to Billy who was still praying for Teacher Eve
at that time.A giant of a man named Fakira took charge of loading all our
belongings onto bullock carts. Even though he was lean with sunken cheeks and
hair sticking out of his ears, he had the strength of ten men. He was what we
called a `gaundi' because he undertook cement work and came every Christmas to
whitewash the house. He seldom smiled, and ate a lot of paan. He continued to
do work for my aunt at the bungalow. And then, one day he stopped coming. We
thought he had died, but he hadn't. He just faded into the background as people
shifted from whitewash to paint. Every now and then we would catch a glimpse of
him walking on the road in his favourite baggy shorts, long-sleeved shirt and a
turban neatly wrapped around his head. We still looked at him in awe because he
could whitewash a house in a day and single-handedly move large cupboards with
ease. They don't build men like Fakira anymore.We left 2, Market Street behind
but carried memories with us. Some faded with time and some remained. It was a
good life, even if for a brief moment in our journey through life.Derek
Almeida, journalist and editor, worked at the senior level at almost all the
English-language dailies of Goa. He also undertook a lot of writing assignments
and crafted a weekly humour column, for over 20 years. Currently he's working
on his first graphic novel. He believes Belgaum shaped him into the person he
became. Derek lives with his family in Porvorim but always dreams of going back
to Belgaum.
This is an extra from the Belgao book, which will be discussed at the XCHR's
History Hour on Friday, April 11, 2025 at 6pm. The event is open to all.
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