Bhangreagher ou Tarleagher oitai rê? Or, do you want to come to my village?
------------------ By Sonia Gomes rgso...@gmail.com ------------------ I get down in a hurry from the bus. It is hot and I am terribly sweaty. I am in search of the Miranda house and I barely know this place. 'Mirandachem ghor khuim?' (Where is the Miranda House?) I ask in general to a bunch of motorcycle pilots and other men. 'Mirand? Mirand? Mirand mhunlo konn rê? Arrê Bondea kapp, Mirand konn rê?' (Miranda? Miranda? Who is this Miranda, Bondea kapp, who is Miranda?) A great deal of head scratching and earnest conversation. 'Mirand?' 'Annnnnh, Tem ghor rê, ekli bhail ravta. Bag khandar marun sogleak bonvta, tambrem lipstick galun.' (That house man, a lone woman lives there. She always walks around the village, with a bag slung over her shoulder, red lipstick.) 'Tikore motranchi ghari nam, sogleak chomkun bonvta...' (She does not have a car, she walks everywhere.) 'Motranch ghari nam? Avoi, soglean kodde gadi assa mure...' (Doesn’t have a car, God, everybody has a car.) 'Het, oghi rav, tem Kotekachem ghor...Pisso mure tum.' (Just shut up, that's the Côteto residence...You are mad) An animated conversation envelops me. Whilst they discuss this Kotek Woman. I am anxious; how do I get to this elusive Miranda House. My blouse sticks to my back, it's stifling and my shoulder bag weighs a ton. I am dreadfully thirsty and at the back of my mind a question, How will I get back? And the eternal question, when will I find this d@#$ Miranda house? And then in a flash, something perks up in a tiny corner of my mind, my father once mentioning, 'Tumim, Tarleachem ghor zanan?' (Do you know the Tarlo house (cognomen)?) 'Kitem? Tum Tarleagher ossunk sodtai? Saiba, poilench kiteak mhunok nam?' (What? You want to go to the Tarlo house, God, why didn’t you say so?) 'Arrê, Kodig, tika Tarleagher hor mure...' (Hey Kodig, take her to the Tarlo House.) 'Avôi ghe, Tarleachem ghor pois murre, tea Khursa Kodde. Mughe tyre boro nam...' (Boy, Tarlo’s house is far, near that Cross, My tyre is not so good...) 'Padd poddun, tum hinga zok kiteak martai rê, tugelo tyre keddnam borro nam... Khurbani, tika Tarleagher hor murê...' (Go to hell, why do you keep your bike here, your tyre is never ok. Khurbani take her to Tarlo’s house) And I am zipping past to Tarleagher. Cognomens are the life blood of my village. What would we do without them? Most of the times, their origins lost in olden days, sometimes their meaning vanished with hardly a trace. Of course when coined, they must have meant something, indicated some quirk about the family. 'Moddso', a large fish, what were my neighbours doing with a Moddso? Did they deal in Fish? As far as I know... never. Did they eat large quantities of Moddso? Perhaps... But why only Moddso, why not Visôn, a large fish too. Lost forever. A tiny nugget of my village. 'Kuddkurro' much easier to figure out. A large mango tree grew in their yard. If a ripe mango was picked and shaken, it made a sound. But tell me, why would anyone shake a ripe mango? But we did... Because if you did, there was a kutt, kutt sound when the stone hit the flesh. The priest in the house was generous, allowed us to pick the mangoes, laughed aloud when we told him the reason. Then Kotek from Côteto. The great grandfather having said Côteto instead of cathetus/catete, the hypotenuse of a right angled triangle. The crazy great grandfather liked it so much, that he adopted it as a part of his surname, loved the fact that people actually knew him because of an inaccuracy. Crazy blood runs everywhere... Sometimes however, there is malice in the choice of the cognomen. We have Landdó, which has a much deeper meaning than maybe the other cognomens. Landdó, actually means someone who has had his tail chopped off. You little upstart, you actually thought you would swim with the big fish? You really believe you can cohabitate with the big animals? Sadly you are just an imitator; just think of yourself as a Landdó, cut tail... But what really befuddled us was Bhôt... To us, Bhôt should have been a Hindu, but they went for Mass, dressed like our parents. Wore trousers, wore shirts, suits for funerals even in broiling heat. Bhôt to us were those gentlemen, who like my friend's Grandfather, wore an immaculate dhoti, a black coat and a black cap on his greying head and went for his walk in the garden to meet his cronies, sometimes a walking stick completed the ensemble. But my neibhours were faultlessly Catholic. Where did this Bhôt come from then? It has been hammered into our heads that the best aspect of colonization is the Uniform Civil Code. Of course it has been debated long and hard. Some say that the best of the Portuguese Legacy are the azulegos forgetting their Moorish roots, others that it is the Blue and White china affectionately called 'Macau' but... The Jurists look down their noses at us; give us a hard stare, as only they know how. There is nothing more beautiful and wholesome as the Uniform Civil Code. It shouts out loud, 'We Are One' and where else do we have such a lovely thought, no distinction between Hindus, Muslims or Christians. Marriages in Goa work on this premise, so anybody who marries, will have a two-part marriage, the sacred and the profane. The Church absolutely takes care of the sacred. The profane however is left to the laymen. As in everything modalities have to be worked out. Unlike the sacred part, the profane part of the Marriage involves a Public Office, the Registrars, which always is in the nearest town. Now, how will the tribals, the goatherds, reach the nearest town when it involves people of limited financial means? Should they give up an entire day's work just to get married? Who knows the whims and concerns of people who work long hard hours? All of a sudden they may just say, 'Padd porum, goroz nam khuim ospak, ingach kazar zauia, mugo?' (Go to hell, there is no need to go anywhere, we shall get married here itself, isn’t it) Those concerned may just give up and say what the f@#$%^, we do not need someone writing our names in a Register, do we know what they are writing about us? So they start living together without a marriage... Of course that sends a collective shiver down the spine of the Church. Sin. So this is where the Bhôt comes in. A tired doctor practicing medicine, worn-out from those midnight calls, 'Dotor Bab, bail bori nam.' (Doctor my wife isn’t feeling well) 'Kitem zalam rê?' (What’s happened?) 'Potan dukota, bab zaupap oita...' (Pain in the stomach, she is getting a baby...) Every day of every year... House calls, rain or heavy rain, never a break from this rigorous routine. 'Anton, cycle ha mure?' (Anton, do you have a cycle?) 'Nam Dotor Bab.' (No, Doctor) 'Tughe Ghor?' (Where is your house?) 'Divula khore...' (Next to the temple) This is around five miles away, up a steep hill. Hardly ever any transport. Sometimes not even a rickety cycle. Medicine at its most raw, no unnecessary tests, just an intrinsic feeling born out of long years of practice, plain diagnosis without the aid of a million different tests, the bane of modern medicine. But despite all these constraints, Doctor Bab never gives up. He the Man used to intense suffering; he knows what makes the people of his village tick. Their financial constraints... Their utter tiredness... Their ignorance of how Rules and Regulations work. So when approached to take up the job of Chief Registrar, he takes it up in addition to his arduous duties as a Medical Doctor. So Dotor Bab/Bhôt is in charge of the profane part of the marriage of his own village and that of around seven surrounding villages. Of course, it goes without saying, that if people marry, they will beget and multiply and, as all of us, will die. Dotor Bab/Bhôt, of course, has his hands full, his duties as a medical doctor and all those additional tasks of registering the Marriages, Births and Deaths as well as the innumerable Certificates. In fact, Dotor Bab/Bhôt, knows each and every secret of every person in his village and every village surrounding his. A powerful person but an intensely humble human being. As in anything in life, there were little perks, which may not seem great to us steeped as we are in the abysmally materialistic society we live in. His little grandsons wait in glee for a Civil Ceremony to happen, lots of little gifts coming their way. Goatherds from remote areas bringing fresh cheeses in small woven receptacles, so fresh and as we would like to say 'so very organic'. Sweets of freshest ghee, laddoos, peddas. The Aunt says, 'What would you like with your tea?' There is an argument, a minor one, peddas or laddoos. They settle for a pedda and a laddoo apiece. The Aunt heaves a sigh; she is patient, her task is to take care of two little boys... Legend has it, however, that the crabs did not go down well with an elderly lady of the family. Was it the quality of the crabs? Or was it the quantity of the crabs? The residents of the neighboring town would have said, 'Do not eat crabs at night...' Is it for health reasons? Or...? But then I am not here to dwell on the denizens of the nearest town. Am I? I however salute and thank this brave Doctor, this beautiful unsung human being as well as his successor. We owe them everything... ### Sonia Gomes maintains her Goa-based multilingual blog https://zorotmorotgoesmyvillage.blogspot.com from where the above is an excerpt. Send her your feedback at the address at the very top, with a copy to goa...@goanet.org Goanet Reader is compiled and edited by Frederick Noronha fredericknoron...@gmail.com for Goanet (founded in 1994 by Herman Carneiro, and driven by volunteer-power since). 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