Ana Maria de Souza-Goswami writes “It is not difficult for me to get a
Portuguese passport because I was born in Goa during the Portuguese regime, so
were my parents and grandparents. I thoroughly object you using the word
'ghantis' to us Indians.”
If you claim to be born in Goa during the Portuguese regime of Potuguese
parents, then you were born a Portuguese national. Obviously you have denounced
this nationality on attaining adulthood and taken up Indian citizenship. Since
you were growing up in North India during the sixties you were bred and brought
up as an Indian. And during this process, surely you were referred to as “Paca
pao”. That explains the ire. Because “Paca Pão” was to referred to people with
Goan surnames and brought up in cultures that of ‘Dhobi Talao’, and other
places in India with similar culture. That’s the exact delusion people in India
and Bollywood have of Goa.
Secondly, you expose your ignorance to the word “Ghanti”. Which in Portuguese
means “Alem Ghates”. You are people from beyond the Ghats and I don’t see why
Indians from beyond the Ghats cannot be called Ghantis!
