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Goan Archives Canada -Phase I Report On Web http://www.goanvoice.ca/2010/issue10/goanarchives_interview.htm The Goan Archives Project Phase I report is now online The 25 page report is in colour, with file size approximately 17 Mb A complete file of the document can be downloaded as a .pdf document. Click here… Please allow sufficient time for the document to download and display. Use the scroll bars to view the pages. A few printed copies of the document, in colour are also available at cost on a first come first save basis. Please email request to goanarchivescanada@gmail.com

Konkani Rosary Website Update The April 10 issue of Goan Voice Canada carried an interview with Michael Pinto on the “Pray the Rosary – Service in the Greater Toronto Area” The following is an update: Michael Pinto, can you tell us more about the status of http://www.konkanirosary.org/ Is it in the Beta (testing) Phase Our site is active as of 4th May with limited features; video and singing will be added in near future. Yes, it is in Beta state for various features that were planned like: a) Identify on the world map which cities are praying simultaneously b) Separate page to enter “Intentions” c) Start Individual Rosary d) Join Worldwide Rosary e) Show Goan Churches and Holy Land pictures etc In many ways it is similar to www.praytherosary.org, but setup for Konkani, is that true. Yes, we are emulating that site and without their help we would have not succeeded. The English rosary site will show a link to our site and we will show a link to their site. They supported our cause on conditions that we have no commercialization and propaganda of any sort. Off course we are adding, our own unique Goan traditions in presenting the Rosary, like the procession of our Lady, singing Konkani Hymns and the famous Ladainha. The live video taping of Pray the Rosary in Konkani taken in Toronto April 11, will that be part of the site Our site will show the video, Glorious Mysteries recitation and singing done at the Toronto celebration. The site currently hosts still pictures of Goan churches and audio recording done Orlando Fernandes of Angelavi.com from Panjim. We very much appreciate his labour of love The San Francisco, Bay Area, Konkani community is following suit on May 16, 2010. Can you tell us more of the event and what will be the outcome. That community will be reciting the Joyful Mystery, singing different hymns, procession and the Ladainha. This community has had rosary groups for over 20 years and very excited to participate in the event Besides Canada and USA, will other Konkani speaking communities in the rest of the world join-in for the remaining mysteries. Australia will celebrate their event in July, Panjim. I do not have a firm date yet. I have begun to invite other countries to participate in this endeavour. Please contact me for further details. To do all this must require a significant amount of support from the community and individuals in terms of time and money? It is very costly and time consuming, currently because of the enhanced features and content, we need more monetary support. Hope the participating communities come forward and support us to continue and sustain this project. Konkani speaking communities should plan in their budgets to support us annually. When the site is complete, what about future maintenance, and the long term. Is there an organization in place which will take care of all this. The existing teams participating in the event will have to carry on till we formalize the parameters of maintenance and establish an organised structure, I will guide them through these phases till it is stable and self-sustaining At grass roots level, there is a growing seniors population in the Western Countries - living in isolation, some without access to the web. How can they be part of this effort, how can they be contacted. The website video and audio files can be downloaded on CDs, DVDs, MP3s, Ipods and Ipads, hence serve the shut-ins, isolated folks without web access. These Seniors will derive great pleasure and satisfaction remembering the days of the past We know that Rome was not built in a day - but for the long term are there plans to cover various aspects of our Goan Catholic heritage - the centuries old churches of Goa, religious institutions, and a time when we will have our own home-grown saint. The current plan is have separate section on the website, where history, pictures of various churches in Goa can be viewed. Create an access to Konkani prayers, hymns and highlight other traditions. Yes, We are going to have two Goan saints in the future. Venerable. Padre Angel D’Souza and Blessed Padre Jose Vaz. We have to propagate their saintly deeds and get recognition by the Holy See Lastly Michael, how do you find the time to do all this. What are your plans for the summer - will you retreat to a cottage in the country with no Internet connection. I believed in the project, so I had to make time. I have no cottage to go to, but will do some fishing, which I love and do a lot of viewing of World Cup 2010

San Francisco Bay Area holds “Come Pray the Rosary in Konkani” On Sunday, May 16, 2010, at 2pm, the Goan community in the San Francisco Bay Area will be gathering at the Church of St. John the Baptist in El Cerrito, California, to recite the rosary in Konkani and sing the litany. There is no cost to attend and all are invited to attend this "once-in-a-lifetime experience". This is a follow-on from the service held in Toronto on April 11, 2010. The Joyful Mystery recitation will be videotaped for later display on the www.konkanirosary.org  website. The Joseph Naik Vaz Institute kindly donated the Church and Hall to make this event possible and working with the SF Bay Area Leadership Rosary Team and Michael Pinto (Canada), this important spiritual event will be a milestone for the Goan community. The Rosary Group has been active for nearly 20 years, promoting the praying of the rosary in homes, rosary groups, and Churches. The Joseph Naik Vaz Institute has been working for 32 years to make the heroic life and work of the beatified Goan saint, Bl. Joseph Vaz more widely known. The church of St. John the Baptist promotes ethnic inclusion in the liturgy and has a Multicultural Choir. The church has its own video webcast and sound system, making the task of recording the event much easier. Following the event, there will be a pot-luck in the Church hall. The food will include boiled gram to add to this traditional event. St. John's church can accommodate a large crowd and is next to the Del Norte BART station on the Richmond line of the Bay Area Rapid Transportation (BART) system, making it easier to get to the service. See http://saintjohnthebaptistchurch.org/. Address: 11150 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito, California, 94530, USA. (Note: there is ample parking in the rear of the church. Please do not park in the Bank of the West parking lot). About 100+ attendees from the Bay Area and many local St. John's parishioners are expected to attend the event.

An Evening in Goa TEGSA MEET ‘N’ GREET event held on April 30, 2010 was a resounding success despite the fact that it was the first cultural event by the new committee. Barring the initial hiccups, the committee achieved a well-deserved praise and outstanding reputation for bringing fresh, pure and exceptionally entertaining value to our evening – the Goa Day. The professionalism of the Master of Ceremonies, Sheilah D’Souza, was spell binding as well as exhilarating from the beginning to end. With her eloquence and charm she kept the crowd on their toes well entertained all evening. Ruth Kumar gave an excellent rendition of her traditional konkani songs with Felix Remedios accompanying her with his exotic tenor voice and his wonderful guitar playing skills. The audience simply loved it as it inspired nostalgic feeling – an evening in Goa. By then, the members were well spent from the exotic entertainment provided and were beginning to feel hungry, so the President, Olga Madeira, quickly realizing this recited the Grace Before Meal and wished them bon appetit. Sheilah then directed the people to a sumptuous meal of sorpotel/chicken, veggies, sannas and bathica, and by golly was that a sumptuous meal! After the meal, Sheilah introduced the Goan folk show, which was prepared by Juliet Maikar and her troupe ( Diana D'Souza and Ruth Kumar). They danced and sang songs, which was truly in the spirit of the Goan tradition. Sheilah encouraged everyone to join in and they joyfully did. As the evening was coming to a close, tea or coffee with gram sweet (dosh) was served. What a treat! - a generosity rarely seen. Next item that followed was two rounds of Free Bingo. Everyone was kept on tenterhooks until somebody yelled B I N G O !!! The evening was a perfect show for our members. Over 200 members were in attendance and everyone of them was extremely entertained. Our feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and we look forward to the next social evening. It was a BIG HIT !!! Anthony Saldanha

Book Review -The Sting of Peppercorns Goanet Reader | Sat, 01 May 2010 11:37:53 -0700 | Review by By Ben Antao Category: Book, Reviews | The Goan Observer The Sting of Peppercorns, By Antonio Gomes, Goa, 1556 and Broadway Book Centre, Rs.395 (paperback); 266 pp. ARE FIRST novels set in Goa destined to be romantic? Let me see now. Sorrowing Lies My Land by Lambert Mascarenhas, 95, first published in 1955, carries a romantic aura of freedom from colonial rule. Tivolem by Victor Rangel-Ribeiro, 84, published in 1998, has a love story blossoming in a place called Tivolem, a fictitious place in Goa situated in Porvorim. SKIN by Margaret Mascarenhas, forty-something, published in 2001, exposes love and seduction amidst magic realism and a quest for identity. And my own novel The Tailor's Daughter (first written in 1997 although the third one to be published in 2007) focuses on caste, love and marriage, a story happening mostly in Margao, Goa in the early 50s. And now comes The Sting of Peppercorns, a first novel by Antonio Gomes, 65, a Goan-born, New York-based cardiologist, which reads like a breathless love story that one imagines unfolding on the big screen, a melodrama filled with maudlin sentimentality for the loss of good times that loops in a property-rich, 'Brahmin' Catholic family of Loutolim in Goa. The story of Peppercorns opens in May 1961 and journeys through till after the Opinion Poll of 1967, capturing both the pre-and-post-Liberation periods. The family comprises of the patriarch Afonso de Albuquerque, a namesake of the conqueror of Goa to whom the family is linked through legend, his wife Dona Isabella, their two sons Paulo and Roberto, their daughter Amanda, an aunt Rosita noted for her cooking skills, ayah Carmina, and several servants who live on the Albuquerque estate. The action unfolds in May with elaborate preparations to welcome Paulo who is returning home from Coimbra, Portugal, after finishing his Direito (law degree). On the same night of his arrival, after a sumptuous dinner and drinks, Paulo is attacked in his own mansion by a gang of guerrillas in the garb of making a statement about freedom from foreign rule, but in reality to rob the family of their expensive jewellery. Paulo escapes unharmed but the attack leaves him shaken, however with his glory intact. Of course, the Albuquerques' connection to the local police helps. The author then takes the reader into the backgrounds of Senhor Afonso and Dona Isabella who falls in love with a Portuguese Captain Borda de Mar, who would be the sting of the peppercorns. Before returning to Goa, Paulo -- with his Casanova charm -- had sowed his wild seeds in the bordellos of Coimbra, in drinking and sex orgies, even impregnating a Portuguese girl Ana Sofia, the daughter of his apartment building landlady. Roberto gets a taste of life his brother lived when he visited him. "Paulo took Roberto out for dinner with friends where he flashed Portuguese escudos like he was a Goan maharaja, telling tall tales about the voluptuous temple dancing girls and his hunting escapades on elephant back in Dudhsagar. Undoubtedly, it struck Roberto that his brother had developed a large circle of friends who flocked to him for his money, his looks, his wit, his tales, his singing and his melodious guitar. He played flamenco like a Spanish gypsy, and the Fado, like a Portuguese virtuoso. It seemed to Paulo that the world was a fast track, capacious, sweet and promising, ready to be tamed, controlled, and toyed with." In Goa, Roberto pursues a medical education, while his sister Amanda becomes a teacher of English in a high school in Margao. As time goes by, Roberto is attracted to a beautiful Goan girl Maria and Amanda falls in love with Winnie, an over-educated teacher in the same school, but of a lower caste of fisherfolk. After the attack, Paulo abandons his ambition to work in Panjim in the legal system and gravitates to the hippie commune of Baga and Anjuna, where he experiences vivid psychedelic highs. The author writes a beautifully imagined scene involving hippies in his meeting with an American, Uma, who renames him Krishna, followed by a rite of Shiva lingam worship by the stoned hippies. Here is a sample: "Music played, the booze and chillum passed around, and the drug and sex orgy began. Paulo and Roberto had sips of the feni liquor and several droughts of the chillum. Paulo was sitting by Suzy, and Suzy was all over him. Roberto's poor tolerance to alcohol quickly made him high and woozy. Afraid he would black out, Roberto laid down on the Rajasthani spread and, before he knew what was happening, they were all over each other. A blur of naked bodies moved like serpents in the psychedelic pit." Finally, what happens to Paulo, Roberto and their sister Amanda and parents is the sort of stuff that would make a fine romantic film. The novel also explores the divided political loyalties in the Albuquerque household, not uncommon in pre-Liberation Goa. The novel is narrated in the third person, which holds an advantage for the author to be an omniscient observer of all that is going on. However, one disadvantage of this sort of narrative mode is that it can distance the reader from any emotional attachment to the characters, as it happens in several places in this novel. Antonio Gomes handles the narrative with confidence and style, the language ever fresh and often literary in tone.Still, the story would have been enriched if the author had used more frequently the technique of show, don't tell. Here is an instance where dialogue would work better than indirect narration. "Roberto was wandering on the beach like a zombie until Maria's brother found him incoherent and took him to the Tourist Hostel. He told Roberto that Maria was distressed and hysterical when she arrived at the Tourist Hostel crying for help, and that friends had taken her home to Panjim. She hadn't realised that Roberto had blacked out; there were no lights on the unspoiled virgin beach, and she couldn't have seen him in the dark." Another suggestion I'd like to make is not to describe the dialogue with verbs and adverbs. A simple "he said or she said" after the spoken words is more effective than using phrases like he insisted or grumbled or implored or responded. The reader is usually smart and will know how the character responds in a given situation. There are many places where the author indulges his sentiments for Goa's landscape and seasons. Here Antonio writes about the arrival of the monsoon. "The mango and the jackfruit season ended; the monsoon was late, the land was parched and cracked, the eyes were sore and the brow had a crust of salt. The midday sun with its relentless ultraviolet rays had scorched and darkened the dark skin of the local Kundbi tribe who roamed idle with bodies exposed and loins covered by the kaxti that kept on getting lighter and muddier. The village waited in anticipation, raising its eyes to the sky, its palms turned upwards in supplication. Then, all of a sudden, it happened: a mass of dark clouds gathered and day became dusk. There was lightning and thunder, and street boys remarked, "It's St Peter and St Paul playing football." As I enjoyed reading the novel, I kept wondering about the relevance of the title and it finally came in a separate chapter towards the end when the mystery was unmasked. The title is also a metaphor for the spices for which the Portuguese navigators came to Goa and India and is linked to the Albuquerque house because of the ample growth of the pepper creeper in the surrounding garden. For the 'sting' though, you have to read the novel. Readers like me who lived in Goa in the 50s and 60s will appreciate the detailed settings (Panjim, Calangute and Baga); those of the newer generation will appreciate how life was lived at the cusp of Liberation in one wealthy family household and its struggle to assimilate or not in the new political reality. Antonio Gomes handles this situation with clear-eyed objectivity, sympathy and compassion. The Sting of the Peppercorns is a first novel of tremendous achievement. If I am not mistaken, this is also the first work of fiction published by Goa, 1556, an alternative publishing venture started three years ago by journalist Frederick Noronha, 46, of Saligao. * [Goanet] Goanet Reader: A romance spiked by pepper (Book review, Ben Antao) Goanet Reader

Tide of Fortune: A Family Tale: LIFE STORY OF MANUBHAI MADHVANI OF UGANDA by Manubhai Madhvani (Author), Giles Foden (Author) TIDE OF FORTUNE A Family Tale Manubhai Madhvani with Giles Foden Random House India X + 270 pages; Rs 395 Review: A spoonful of sugar... By Rrishi Raote / New Delhi April 29, 2010. Before Idi Amin grabbed the presidency of Uganda from Milton Obote in 1971, the country’s Asian-origin citizens had already begun to suffer expropriation. Anti-Asian rhetoric was rising, and large businesses were being part-nationalised. Among them was the giant Kakira Sugar Works of the Madhvani family, located on the northern shores of Lake Victoria in one of Uganda’s most beautiful and fertile regions. Manubhai Madhvani, second son of Kakira’s founder Muljibhai Madhvani, had just finished structuring the deal by which the government would gain control of his late father’s company, when the family had to play host to the then Major General Idi Amin. “We already knew General Amin slightly,” Madhvani says, “but he was burlier now, running to fat.” After the tour of the sugarworks, the family and their guests gathered at the bungalow. “Tea was served and I remember watching in horror as Amin spooned five teaspoons of sugar into his cup. It was truly a sign of things to come.” With sugar, metaphors involving sweetness and bitterness come naturally. But this is not fiction, and the words represent a crude reality. Amin’s grossness and appetite had a real-world impact. The Madhvanis were rich and influential, Asians were unpopular; if the Madhvanis were treated badly, the Asian community would realise that none of them was safe and all would leave quickly. Amin had Madhvani thrown into the infamous Singapore Block of Makindye Prison, used mostly for political prisoners. A few weeks later, Madhvani was released, but the Madhvanis were ousted. Their sugar estate, their properties and enterprises were nationalised. The whole family quit Uganda. Singapore Block is where Madhvani’s memoir opens — he is shoved into the dark and stinking space and he gropes his way to an empty cell. What a fate for one of the so-called Rockefellers of Africa! Day and night Madhvani and his fellow prisoners hear the sound of people being killed nearby, with hammer-blows to the head. This, though, was only superficially the lowest point of Manubhai Madhvani’s life. A wrenching disintegration had already begun in the joint family, triggered by the death of Madhvani’s father and accelerated by the untimely death in 1971 of his elder brother Jayantbhai — just when Jayantbhai’s skills at negotiation and conciliation were needed the most. After the Madhvanis went into exile in Britain, the absence of a patriarch meant that Muljibhai’s descendants divided up whatever remained of his conglomerate outside Uganda. It was not an easy division, and the family bitterness resurfaced time and again over the years, sometimes with catastrophic financial effect. The chief asset in Manubhai Madhvani’s share of the family business was a large glass container factory in Lebanon. So, he put all his energies into building that up. Against the odds he did so — it had an annual turnover, he says, of $26 million at the time it was bombed flat by the Israeli army (who knew, Madhvani says, that it was only a factory), wiping out $70 million overnight. In the 1980s, the Madhvanis were finally returned their Ugandan properties, including Kakira. But getting ownership issues sorted out and putting the estate back on its feet again involved yet more bitter and difficult negotiation for Madhvani, his youngest brother Mayur and their children with the other brothers and relatives. At one level, this is a fairly typical business biography, an account of the ebb and rise of the tide of fortune in one entrepreneur’ s life. But there is more to it, because there is more to the man. Most affecting is his evident love for what he does — the land, the product, the people he employs and works with, and even the machinery and manufacturing processes. Lovingly he describes how sugar is made, every step from growing to packing, pricing and shipping. Equally proudly he tells about his glass factory — at one point when there was a threat of Israeli attack, most of his workers fled, except two who stayed bravely to drain the precious furnace of molten glass as it cooled so that it would not be damaged. It is also clear that money was never the chief motive. A business disaster is a hurdle to overcome — but the emotional cost to himself and his family, of running widespread businesses and of the family disputes, is plainly worse. Love for the work and for his family is not separate. In Idi Amin’s prison, moreover, Madhvani says he found religion. Business and religion are intimately intertwined, in India as anywhere, and it is pleasing and occasionally moving to observe in his matter-of-fact words how this works. The pleasure of this book is amplified by the fact that it was ghostwritten by Giles Foden, a first-class British novelist. Foden wrote The Last King of Scotland, a novel on Amin’s Uganda, later made into the Oscar-winning movie of the same name.

Proper dress for Mass By Ron Stang | Catholic Register Special | January 19, 2003 "I think people dress pretty casually in the summertime and sometimes too casually," WINDSOR, Ont. dress in your "Sunday best"? That term might have been tossed aside as the casual dress code came more and more into effect and what many say is declining sartorial standards in recent years. It's gotten so bad in some instances that priests at one Southern Ontario parish priest recently admonished parishioners to dress better when arriving for Mass. Having parishioners stay after services one weekend this fall, the priests gently suggested their attendees might want to reconsider how they present themselves upon entering the house of the Lord. Fr. Michael Brand, pastor of St. John the Baptist Church in Amherstburg, Ont., said it wasn't just attire they were concerned about but behaviour generally. This includes such things as fidgeting, chewing gum -- "I'm astounded how much gum chewing there is," he said - and staying at the service when a young child continues to cry, interfering with homilies. Brand admitted what's considered proper dress can be in the eye of the beholder and said there was a debate among church staff themselves. But, he added, "I think you need to dress clean and respectably." In Brand's parish, located near a cottage area on Lake Erie, how summertime parishioners dress is not much different from how they would dress while lazing at the cottage. "I think people dress pretty casually in the summertime and sometimes too casually," he said. Though he's "reluctant" to point to particular types of dress, he said, "I think you have to be reminded once in a while this isn't a baseball game. You're not going to the movies. It's different from that. It requires a different form of dress and behaviour." Knowing what is appropriate in an age where, increasingly, anything goes, can be confusing. Suzanne Scorsone, director of communications for the archdiocese of Toronto, said it's hard to impose strict dress standards. Rather, what is appropriate is to stress that parishioners present themselves "in a way that will be respectful of the others who are there." She said this is also going to vary depending on matters like ethnic group and age. "The key of course is that people come together to worship God," said Scorsone. Scorsone said dress standards started becoming more relaxed in the 1970s and '80s. "There are many parents, for instance, who are just so happy that their kids are going to church at all." And she said a mother "wouldn't want to be wearing something that is dry-clean only when you have a six-month-old baby over your shoulder." At St. John the Baptist, church staff handed out a pamphlet called Parish Etiquette at Mass, produced by the National Pastoral Life Centre in New York. Barbara Budde, outreach co-ordinator for parish social ministry for Texas's Austin diocese, wrote the pamphlet. Budde said that etiquette changes and noted the world is different from how it was 40 years ago. Women no longer carry chapel veils in their purses. Today people have cell phones and pagers. As the pamphlet states, "Today's world demands a new set of habits." Budde said the pamphlet tries to aim for a tone that recognizes the contemporary world yet offers guidelines for creating an atmosphere of mutual respect and respect toward God. "We don't want to say, ‘don’t come,' " she said. Nevertheless, the aim is to have parishioners arrive at church with a sense of "intentionality," that they strive to dress and present themselves with respect. "As life gets busier and busier and more and more frantic, that we don't adapt an attitude about worship and the worshipping community, that 'I’ll just squeeze it in' any old time, any old way, and my intentionality and my interior preparation doesn't matter." The pamphlet suggests people dress in clothes not distracting to others, that regional and ethnic dress be-taken into account and that parishioners "err on the side of dressing up." It also has guidelines for liturgy preparation "plan ahead as you would for any important occasion" -- and what to do on occasions when you arrive late or have to leave early, and how to talk to children about behaviour during Mass. The bottom line might be what the true sense of liturgy is all about. "This is the Lord's invitation -- to be among God's holy people. And everyone's welcome," Budde said. "But we also want to say that there are ways of making the celebration work better for everyone." (Stang is a Freelance writer in Windsor, Ont.)