Story of a “fake” Freedom Fighter.
There once was a “fake” Freedom Fighter.
During the time of Goa’s Freedom Movement , he did something very
‘silly’ , and was sent to prison for a few days , but it being the
Freedom Movement time, by a strange coincidence, his “silliness” was
wrongly interpreted as ‘patriotism’ and was declared as a Freedom
Fighter of Goa.
Quite a few other Freedom Fighters of Goa , knew that this guy was a
“fake” , but no one reported the matter to the authorities , probably
because they themselves also had something to hide.
Now, we all know that humans have a “conscience”.
This “fake” Freedom Fighter also had a conscience and his conscience
started biting him , for falsely registering himself as a Freedom Fighter.
But what could he do now ?
He had already taken advantage of all the Government Schemes for Freedom
Fighters .
His family had already benefitted from the various concessions given by
the Government to Freedom Fighters. He was regularly collecting the fat
purse of “Freedom Fighter’s Pension”.
How could he and his family , now, live without these “comforts” ?
But a “conscience” is conscience, and it is the job of every conscience,
to question its owner for his wrongs. This man’s conscience too, went
about it’s job.
He hated his conscience for that. However, it is just not possible to
totally avoid the constant prickings of a conscience , for long.
“May be “ he said to himself , “if I spoke against anything and
everything that is Portuguese, my conscience will stop bothering me”.
Now , the entire Christian community of Goa had Portuguese names and
Portuguese surnames . He decided that he should demand , that all Goans
with Portuguese names should change their names to something Indian.
No one in Goa liked his “demand”. Who would ?
The “move” made him very unpopular among the Christians.
He realized his mistake. So he changed his strategy.
He demanded that Goans must change all “sign-boards’ of Roads and
Institutions bearing Portuguese names.
Here too, many of the Portuguese names on “sign-bords”, were of leaders
that did good for Goa.
People started criticising him for this “move” also. He became all the
more unpopular.
So he changed his strategy once again and said, “ Ok , only sign-boards
bearing names of the representatives of the Colonial Portuguese regime,
should be changed ”.
This “move” of his was, to some extent, acceptable to the people . He
was happy.
But that was not enough for Goans to think well of him as a “Freedom
Fighter’.
He needed to do something more.
He came up with a bright idea. He thought “ the Konkani Language is
written by the Christian community in the Roman Script, and the Roman
script was brought to Goa by the Portuguese”, so he should oppose it.
This he did.
Fortunately for him , he found supporters for this “move”, from among
the few silent Marathi sympathizers who were looking out for an
opportunity to kill Konkani and establish Marathi as the Official
language of Goa. He became very popular among them and they made full
use of him to promote their “cause”.
At last , now , he was tasting “success”.
But the Goans who “smelt a rat” in this move, started disliking him.
His close friends thought of him as a “Judas” who sold their Mother
Tongue Konkani to the Marathi Lobby.
He was all confused. He did not understand where he was going wrong.
Goans started doubting him all the more now.
What more could he do ? Time was running out.
Just when he thought that there were no more issues left for him to take
up, a news item appeared in the Goan newspapers “The Portuguese ship
N.R.P.Sagres was sailing to Goa to mark 500 years of the arrival of
navigator, Vasco da Gama to Goa, and the Governor of Goa and the Chief
Minister were both going to attend a celebration dinner on that Ship “.
He jumped with joy and said to himself , aloud . “here is my opportunity
now, to prove that I am a real freedom fighter”.
So he collected a few of his cronies from among the Freedom Fighter s
and called for a “Press Conference’”. ”How can Goans rejoice the Day
when Portuguese entered Goa and established Goa as their Colony ?” he said.
“I will organize a Dharna in the Port Town and physically stop both of
them, from boarding the Ship”, he roared at the Press Meeting.
The Governor and the Chief Minister did not want a showdown with the
Group of Freedom Fighters, so they backed out from the ‘Dinner’.
Our “fake freedom Fighter ‘ jumped with joy. “I won ! I won !” he said
to himself.
Infact , it was a victory of sorts for him.
That night , he went to sleep fully satisfied , that he had finaly done
“something right”.
The next morning , when he woke up , he was shocked to see the morning
newspaper photographs showing hundreds of fisherfolk of Goa , in
decorated boats and live music, welcoming and giving a warm sendoff to
the Portuguese Ship “N.R.P.Sagres”
(The purpose of this “article’ is for the concerned authorities in Goa,
to carry out a thorough investigation to find out , how many of our so
called “Freedom Fighters” are genuine and how many are fake. The genuine
ones should be rewarded, the “fakes” should be imprisoned).
Wilmix Wilson Mazarello
