An important omission, to my mind, in the ghosts of Matharpacady web page are a mention of the eight or so Goan residential clubs and the Goan families (mine being one) in the lane that I like to call Club Lane. It is these residences which staged those little candle-lit processions which took a round of the village's two main lanes to hymns sung loudly in Konkani whenever Our Lady visited. I don't know about now, but as recently as twenty years ago there were no less than ten clubs in and around Matharpacady. Some clubs staged tiatrs in the lane adjacent to Cross lane and there were occasional dances and feast celebrations too. Christmas gained that special silver-golden glow from the parade of paper stars the clubs hung jutting out into the lane. As for music, the loudest noise, apart from Joe Perry's bongos perhaps, may have come from Carmo Mascarenhas in the Arossim Club, up a flight of stairs opposite our house. (That is, much before he took off for Canada and his tragic death later -- about which I would appreciate some detail from people here who may know more). Carmo may have been the first to get an electric guitar into the village (thanks to his seafarer Dad, of course) and rock the wooden beams and rafters in the houses in and around Club lane. As Olinda, a fellow-tenant in 31 Matharpacady, would laugh and say, "Carmon start kelem, rang-tang korunk!" I, of course, all ten-years-old of me, would have already bounded up those wooden stairs to watch at close quarters, as Carmo, with his Elvis Presley puff, strummed the strings and crooned in an impossible-sounding, Westernised falsetto, which impressed me no end!!
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