Augusto Pinto said:
Hello Edward De Silva who wrote on Goanet Digest, Vol 3, Issue 1129
Your post to goanet and your email id intrigued me.
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Hi,
The Ghantii Kerala monks did not understand what we were talking (we put it
down to that and took the punishment), that is why we were banned speaking
konkani even during recreation time, it was a complete ban, while we slept we
could not even DREAM in konkani, for fear of being overheard and beaten the
next morning, (there were spies every where, these spies were not beaten, that
was their reward for spying on others) the beatings had no mercy, one boarder
had his ear pulled out, Brother Peter took 6 months to heal the damage, I
cringe to this day, (well it was not actually pulled out, the back of the ear
started bleeding and on close examination found the skin had separated, top to
bottom). On another occasion a boarder had kept a squirrel as a pet, it was
swung by its tail and beaten to death in front of all the boarders during study
time, (most probably this Monk came from a poor Ghantii family he had a hidden
agenda to beat the daylight out of us
to get back at our fathers who PAID our fees, while he, due to his poverty had
to join the Monkdom, his behaviour still haunts me to this day, I have heard
that he said sorry to the boarders in his oldage - well! too little too late).
Only brother Policarp was lenient (konkan brother) mostly he ignored, because
he understood what we had said, at times we took the mick and spoke to him in
konkani.
Among the kerala monks I heard them several times speak their own language.
They had also brought some free boarders from Kerala who swept the classrooms -
that's all the free boarders did, the monks spoke in their language to them,
these free boarders were like us, the fee paying ones except that they swept
the classrooms while we played.
ED.
