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5th Annual Konkan Fruit Fest
Promenade, D B Bandodkar Road, Panaji, Goa
16-18, May 2008
http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2008-May/073789.html
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‘GOENKARPONN’
By Valmiki Faleiro
Churchill and the Alemao brothers will die to ‘save’ Goa. And swear by their
undying
‘Goenkarponn.’ Churchill, now Goa’s PWD minister, will even float a ‘Save Goa’
Front.
His eternal love for his motherland is immense. Subservient only to his own.
Do you know how popular is ‘Churchill Bros.’ among Goa’s football teams? The
least.
Compared to the groundswell of public support for teams like Dempo, Salgaocar,
Vasco
and Sporting. The reason is simple. Churchill Bros. fields more ‘firangis’ and
‘bhailes,’
rather than ‘Goenkars.’
Look at their brand of ‘Goenkarponn’ another way. The traditional business of
Churchill
Brothers is fishing. They still own a fleet of trawlers that were once said to
venture, very
remuneratively, into the deep blue waters, upto the western shores of the
Arabian Sea.
How many ‘Goenkars’ do they employ on these boats? The answer: a mirror image of
their football team.
Churchill will quite possibly telephone me later today to say he will employ as
many
Goan footballers and sailors as I can provide. (Little realizing I run neither
a football club
nor a ferryboat.)
Even as Goa fast reduces to an entity only in name, politicos find it
fashionable to cry
copious tears about their ‘Goenkarponn.’ As Churchill does. Even as he backs to
the hilt
a 700 homes project by Mumbai’s Rahejas in his own constituency, at Carmona, a
locale
of some 350 houses. Or wants Karwar and Joida merged into Goa. Not satiated with
raping Goa, these politicos covet the neighbour’s virgin land.
Goa under Pratapsing Rane had earned some degree of dubiousness for
non-geometric
“parallels” – parallel bridges, parallel water pipelines, even parallel
governments! The
mantra today seems to be “double” – double talk, double cross and double cuts
on every
Rupee spent from the state treasury. The ‘cuts,’ of course, are fundamental to
the sum:
for them to stay in power and snatch the cuts, Goan politicos today must double
talk in
public posturing, and double cross in backstage politicking.
On that note, may I stray into a couple of (unrelated) thoughts…
WHAT’S IN A NAME: A rose by any other name… as the Bard said, would smell
funnily
fragrant in Goa, as I think. Listed at alphabet ‘N’ in this column’s current
emphasis on
‘Goa-Goan,’ are a few pieces on Goan names, surnames – and yes, who can forget,
nicknames! Starting with my own. We will have to wait a few more Sundays to get
there.
But there’s a reason why I’m talking about my name this Sunday.
Two instances of use of my name recently came to notice. In the first case,
someone
advertised some beauty contest, asking desirous damsels to contact someone else
at
“Plot No.3, Valmiki Faleiro Bagh, Mungul.” I lived nine years of my life in
Mungul (that’s
the westernmost ward of Margao one meets around the railway overhead bridges on
the
Margao-Colva road.) To the best of my knowledge, there is no “Valmiki Faleiro
Bagh” in
that area. There is, though, an “Antonio Vicente Falleiro Bagh” or “AV Falleiro
Bagh.”
In the second case, a certain Rajan Narayan wrote, “The dogs will bark,
presumably out
of envy, and I am not interested in a certificate from anyone let alone …
Valmiki Faleiro.”
I agree dogs will bark, until the end of time, even if this chap forgets that
Valmiki Faleiro
is no veterinarian to issue him a “certificate” either on his pedigree, or on
his journalism.
But ‘envy’ one who writes, “I am glad that the ‘Times of India’ is (starting) …
in Goa.
My advice to all journalists who have received an offer from the ‘Times of
India’ is
to accept it” … and, days later (when his own pups take his advice seriously)
raves and
rants, or rather, growls and barks – for weeks on end – at his own pups and his
beloved
‘Times of India’? Ha! Now, if this Rajan thinks his kind of writing could
attract any sane
person’s “envy,” he’s dreaming in Wonderland!
From the shores of barking dogs and stray thoughts, to…
LAND OF FIRSTS: Those of my age may remember the lyrics of that Trini Lopez
song,
“This land is my land, this land is my land, from California, to the New York
Island…”
America is a land of many firsts. This time round, in their Presidential
election, the front-
runners of both parties are firsts. Democrats will throw up either the first
viable woman
candidate or the first viable African-American candidate, probably the latter.
Republicans
have the first front-running freedom fighter of over 70. Whoever wins, as Ken
Blackwell,
columnist for the ‘New York Sun’ says, the next president of America will be a
first.
(Ends.)
The Valmiki Faleiro weekly column at:
http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=330
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The above article appeared in the May 18, 2008 edition of the Herald, Goa
