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There is a section of pseudo-patriots who would like us to remember Goa's history before 01 March,1510 AD., the day Afonso de Albuquerque captured what was thereafter called 'Ilha de Goa'. The rightful ruler of the day ,Adilshah Ismail, knew the place as 'Pajkhalli' and today we call it Panaji. It is [ as yet undisputed]history that Yussuf Adilshah of Bijapur, a part of the Bahamani Kingdom of the Deccan, had annexed Goa[ or Gopakkapatna] in 1489-90 and made Ela [ Velha Goa or Old Goa] as his local capital. The history of Goa immediately before the entry of the Portuguese is of a Muslim kingdom. There is a funny twist to history of Goa in 1510 AD that is Hindu and which is eminently worth forgetting [as far as the pseudo-patriots are concerned]. The twist is of Timmaji Appa, a man trusted by the Adilshah. He was a stubborn man who betrayed the trust, went to Afonso de Albuquerque and invited him to capture Goa. If there was one who cut the nose in spite of the face, it was Timmaji Appa. The Panaji Nagrik Kruti Samiti tried to do a repeat show in a Saturday Night Fever that began around sunset....a good time for dark deeds. It is said that Timmaji Appa was very stubborn. The locals coined the word 'Tembdo' to metaphorically refer to a stubborn person. In Portuguese it was 'Teimoso': STUBBORN is the word. For a group of persons...MOB may be the correct word... who vandalised the name plaque of 'Dr.Bernardo Guedes Garden' and replaced it with 'Col.K.P.Kandeth Garden'..BUT COULD NOT CHANGE THE NAME OF THE GARDEN... this was a repeat performance. This was an easier job, ceramic tiles are easy to break, specially in the dark,narrow alleys of Fontainhas[ooops! that should be read as Mala ] and in the company of 400 like-minded persons [ as per Mr.Nagesh Karmali's account]. "Why should there be Portuguese names on the streets?", he asks. " If the name of a road brings back memories of the Portuguese and their atrocities to the minds of the Velingkars and Karmalis, then it is a surprise why the shirt-and-pant attire doesn't!" writes Ashley do Rosario [ in the Herald of 21 June page 3 ,bottom]. He suggests that all these Vandals contact Wendell [Rodricks] for a designer 'pudvem' [dhoti] or better still...the kashti...the redder ,the better. On the second day of the 'Panaji Expo' there was one gentleman who insisted that the old Secretariat building did not have any architectural value and should be pulled down. He was a strong protaganist of the pre-Portuguese heritage. He was obviously aware that the Adilshah's palace was built by a muslim ruler. Perhaps he was unaware that the 'Fazenda' was Adilshah's harem! One architect told him that the structure should be maintained, if for nothing else,than at least because it is one of the few buildings that predated the Portuguese rule...and has survived 43 years of 'liberated ' Goa! The Dempo Charities Trust[ a name thrust down the throat of the erstwhile 'Goa Education Society'] Dhempe College at Miramar-Panaji is conducting a six-month long non-formal course in "Goa Heritage Awareness". The course will be conducted by Shri Prajal Sakhardande, a well-known history teacher[ his father also taught at Dhempe College], writer and Vice-President of GHAG. If 'additional' or 'desirable' qualification is required, he is also a Saraswat Brahmin. I would strongly recommend that the pseudo-patriots learn a little bit about history of Goa from him. [ Sorry, Shri Shri Murli Manohar Joshi did not consider Goa important enough to re-write its history while he had the power to do so!]. The course starts in July...time enough to re-learn history correctly before the 30 September deadline of the poor Panaji Nagrik Kruti Samiti to the CCP to remname the roads. If these folks are really patriotic and democratic, why dont they just send a proposal to the CCP and then lobby [ not arm twist] for support to rename all the roads and even the town. Panaji is, after all, a modification of a Kannada muslim ruler's name for our capital. The BJP has the support of the majority of the councillors in the Corporation of the City of Panaji . A simple majority is enough to pass the resolution to rename a road or a street. Once that is done, let us rename Panaji. The BJP also has a majority support in the Goa Legislative Assembly. Let us rename it 'Govasa', 'Gopura', 'Goagao'...or something that reminds us of the holy cow. If not, let us stop all this bull ! We cannot divide the history, culture and language of Goa on the basis of period and religion without dividing the people also. Man is born without any clothing and without any religion: both these things are given to him after birth. The Salazar regime was bad not just for Goans but the Portuguese,too. The Portuguese overthrew the dictator that succeeded him. We just pushed out the regime. And if you want to really know who were the beneficiaries of the colonial regime, just rattle off the names of the five biggest mine owners in Goa. You just cannot be wrong. They are not operating 'concessions' given to them by the pre-colonial rulers or the Indian Government; they do not rely on documents written in Modi or Devanagri script: the documents that are precious to them are all written in PORTUGUESE. Would the pseudo-patriots care to collect and burn these documents?? Remember Timmaji. History may have forgotten him. He is alive on the tongue of every mother with a stubborn child ......sarkoch re tembdo! Viva Goa. Jai Gomantak. Miguel Braganza