Where are Goans headed?

Where are Goans headed?
Directionless at the mukhar crossroads

By Cecil Pinto



Sossegado is a word that non-Goans will never truly comprehend or
appreciate. Simlarly there is a Konkani word 'mukhar', used largely in
South Goa, the nuances of which North Goans have difficulty in fully
fathoming.

Let me explain. My wife Beatrice runs a Goa-only flower delivery
service and I help out in confirming e-mail orders, and occasionally
even delivering flowers myself on busy days. Our clients are mostly
overseas Goans who are an eclectic lot as far as giving directions are
concerned.

Some of them are totally advanced and send a Google Map image which
makes locating an address so very easy. Some give a postal address
which isn't always a great help because other than the postman nobody
really knows House Numbers. Many people in Goa don't know their own
house numbers.

But the classic Goan direction is Ask Anyone. "Ask anyone for Filsu's
house". Let's pause and analyse the situation. Here I am in my
delivery van in Almeida Vaddo, Parra, looking out for the elusive
'anyone'. I pass a bus-stop where a few people are standing. All
migrant labourers. No point even pausing. I spot a young man walking
at the side of the road. He's not from the area, and yes, doesn't
speak Konkani or English. I stop at a bar where the barman directs me
to the local provision store which seems the right place to ask. I
learn there are three Filsu's in the vaddo of which two have sons in
Dubai. Ok, at least that narrows things down a bit. The point I am
trying to make is not everybody has heard of you or your family
members. Learn to accept that!

And by chance if Filsu's family is not on talking terms with the next
door neighbors then we've had it. The neighbours will steadfastly
refuse to acknowledge the existence of a Filsu, although every
instinct tells me that it is the house next door.

Of course us Goans being the way we are, after my departure there will
be a discussion at the bar whether or not it is true that Filsu's
eldest son migrated to Canada after selling off communidade property
illegally, and also whether or not it is true that the other Filsu's
youngest son has a Fillipino girlfriend.
"Martha Teacher's son-in-law told me".

Then there's the problem of vaddos within vaddos (and not waddas as
the non-Goans pronounce it). There's a Grande Coimavaddo and a Pequin
Coimavaddo in Aldona which are also called Sokoilo and Voilo
Coimavaddo respectively. With loaded words like this - loosely
transalated as big, small, upper and lower - there's bound to be
inter-vaddo rivalry and hence lack of proper directions.
Both these vaddos incidentally are saturated with Lobos and common
enough names like Anthony, Francis, Thomas and Mary. Try finding
Thomas Lobo, Coimavaddo, Aldona. "Ask anyone for Martha Teacher's
house!"

Near the … is another common address. Near the School, Near the
Church, Near the Market. I am standing here 'near' Holy Cross School
There are three clumps of six to seven houses each and one apartment
building, all equidistant from the school. Where do I begin? And a
kilometer back I had passed a large Government balwadi school. Was
that the one? Whatever happened to opposite, behind, in front of,
south of etc.

Of course some courteous clients do give phone numbers so that we can
call and ask for directions. This is a nominal advantage though.

"Hello ma'am, I'm calling on behalf of EXPRESSIONS. We have a flower
delivery for you. Can you give me directions to your house in Arpora?"

"Kitem?"

"Hanv Konkani uloum?"

"Naka! I am understanding English! You come straight…"

"Ma'am, don't you want to know where I am? Currently I am at the
Calangute Market T-junction."

"You come straight."

"Ma'am. I am facing a signboard saying Anand Restaurant, Meals is
Ready. If I come straight I will bang the board. I presume you mean I
should turn left."

"Yes. You come straight to Arpora Church and then ask anyone for…"
Of course we eventually find the place but a lot of petrol and phone
calls would have been saved with specific directions. And if you think
this is a Goan/Indian thing, think again. Foreigners particularly
can't differentiate between a Church and a Chapel. "Turn right at the
Sangloda Church", "But ma'am Sangolda does not have a church.", "Of
course it does!" And for sure they can't distinguish between a banyan
tree and a peepul tree. So much for landmarks.

The situation gets compounded when asking for directions in South Goa
where we have to deal with the omni-present, omni-directional 'mukhar'.

Basically speaking 'mukhar' means in front of, facing, or forward. But
depending on the context, and accompanying facial expression and
gestures, it could be construed as well - almost anywhere.

A prime example is in a public bus. A Salcete 'cleander' will tell the
standing passengers "Mukhar ye" and "Mukhar voch" (depending on the
hand indication only, will you understand which way to move in the
passage) while in North Goa the 'cleander' will say "Fudddem ye" or
"Fatim voch".

In North Goa we have specific words in Konkani for in front of,
before, under, over, after, behind, opposite, this side, that side etc
etc. Fuddlean, fatlean, samkara, ikdem, tikdem, ponnack, voilean.
Ask a South Goan for directions, "Hello! Where is St. Thomas Church?"
He will wave in the general direction of Constantinople and say
'Mukhar asa". Ask him, "And where is Baretto Garage?" He will reply
"Churchi mukhar" which when translated could variously mean - near the
Church, or behind the Church, or in the Church, or in the general
vicinity of the Church, or in the same Parish or in the same Taluka!
To add to all this we now have a large influx of non-Goans and
foreigners residing here. Imagine the consequences for direction
seekers. "Near the Kekdevelim Chapel ask anyone for the tall white
woman with the short Kashmiri husband and then go straight past the
peepul tree to the Keralite's STD booth from where you can phone
225…".

We Goans truly need some direction.

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The column above appeared in Gomantak Times dated 25th September 2008.

I heart Aparanta

I heart Aparanta
Been there, bought the Goan T-shirt

By Cecil Pinto


Once again I met up with my entrepreneur friend Michael D'Costa who
insisted that I accompany him to his workshop and warehouse in Moira.
The signboard said - APARANTA T-SHIRTS. The slogan below read 'For
Goans, with love'

"You see Cecil I looked around and saw only two types of T-shirts.
One is the type sold to tourists, which basically says 'I love Goa'.
The other has the name of some sports team or maybe something cryptic
like 'Just do it' or 'Kerosene' or…

"Michael, surely you mean 'Diesel'?

"Whatever, my point being that why should we Goans be doing free
advertising for some alien brand or even celebrating somebody like Che
Guevara? We have our own Goan heroes and slogans and art and folklore.
Why don't we celebrate ourselves?"

By this time we were inside Michael's gigantic warehouse which had row
after row of racks with folded t-shirts. Through a glass partition we
could see the workshop where uniformed women were busy manually screen
printing T-shirts. Beyond that were closeted cubicles with lots of
energetic smart people huddled around computer screens.

"Basically", explained Michael, "all orders are received online
through our website. Our Chintop Department creates images and slogans
for our T-shirts."

"Wow! You have the silhouette of the Abbe Faria statue on these T-shirts!"

"Yes. That's our very popular Hip-No-Tic range, with kaleidoscopic
backgrounds. In the Amcho Munis range we have caricatures of T B
Cunha, Jack Sequeira, Bandodkar, Kosambi, Loyola, Gaitonde, De Mello
…"

"Don't you have any contemporary politicians featured on T-shirts?"

"Come Cecil, we celebrate greatness – not greed. But we do have a 'On
what grounds?' slogan printed on a backdrop of the Fatorda Stadium
with a church on a hill in the background."

Walking down another well stocked passage Micheal gestures, "Our
extensive Kala Sutra range of T-shirts has works by, and line drawing
of, Mario Miranda, Fonseca, Souza, Pai, Theodore Mesquita, Kambli,
Qureozito & Liesl, Rajan, Nirupa, Sonia, Chaitali, Morajkar, Antonio,
Usapkar, Yolanda, Subodh, Harshada, Viraj, Alexyz… just everyone who
matters in Goan art – even Vivek Menezes."

"In the Konn-Temporary range we have living legends like Mashelkar,
Oscar Rebello, Isabel Vas, Nandakumar, Tomazinho, Teotonio, Percival,
Wendell…"

"Who is this spectacled guy with a large beard checking his mail on a
Blackberry while riding his motorcycle?

"That's Frederick Noronha, the Che Guevara of the Goan Internet
generation. Speaking of which we have cryptic bi-lingual slogans for
the younger generation."

"Meaning?"

"Like take this one, 'Voir Tujem!' which translates as 'Up yours!'.
Only Goans get it. We also have 'Ton munshya, kitem ek jodd dekhavo!'
which is 'Hay man, what a heavy scene!' Here's the latest one, 'Tond
Pustok Fator!'"

"What?"

"Facebook rocks! Ha! Our E-Sport range celebrates Goans like Leander
Paes, Ivana Furtado, Brahmanand, Bruno etc. For some reason the
T-shirt with Climax Lawrence's name printed bold is very popular among
foreigners."

"Give me two, small size, of Ivana for my sons. Hope she inspires them
to greatness."

"And for you, Cecil? We have the Boroi-Now range featuring caricatures
of Maria Aurora, Margaret, Damodar Mauzo, Lambert, Uday Bhembre,
Victor Rangel, Pundalik Naik, Peter Nazareth…"

"Naaah! Those people write literature. I identify with entertainers.
Don't you have a tiatrists range?"

"Of course we do!", says Michael as he leads me down yet another
passage. "In fact one of our t-shirts has 'Hanv Goenkar' in the front
and 'Tu Konn?' at the back and is popular for all the wrong reasons.
It was actually from our Ti-Artiste range that celebrated popular
tiartists and tiatr lore. Another popular one had Prince Jacob's face
with 'Padre mia!' below it. Here's a selection which just has classic
tiatr posters printed on T-shirts. This particular one 'Cun Head' is
also very popular with foreigners for some reason. Look at this!"

I instantly fell in love with and bought the T-shirt with a line
drawing of Charlie Chaplin with my hero Jacinto Vaz's face
superimposed. Michel tells me that M Boyer, Chris Perry, Lata, Alfred
Rose, August Braganza, Roberto Alvares etc will feature in the
'entertainment' section which is still being developed.

"The T-shirts in this section have slogans that were initially printed
with overseas Goans in mind. Take this one for example. Imagine
walking down a busy street in Toronto with 'Paad Poddom!' on your
t-shirt. Only a fellow Goenkar would understand and acknowledge your
presence. Here we have 'Dukra, mhojea bhava', 'Dukni, mhoje bhoine',
'Kitem poitai, modem?'… We also printed some in Devnagri script hoping
to get some Government grants but nobody is buying those T-shirts."

"The funny thing is now Goans in Goa are buying these same T-shirts to
identify each other from the influx of non-Goans. Isn't it curious
that you will find migrant labourers wearing T-shirts saying 'Babush'
or 'Narvekar', and Goans wear T-shirts saying Dubai and USA?"

"Aha! This is my favorite section where we experiment with culture.
See this T-shirt with 'Kshatriya!' printed bold? It's a top seller.
Even Brahmins buy it. We tried printing 'Brahmin', 'Chardo', 'Kunbi',
'Bahujan Samaj'… nothing sold. But 'Kshatriya!' is flying off the
shelf!"

"Maybe because it has a macho militant feel to it?"

"Maybe. But most of the buyers are young females."

"Speaking of which, do you have sizing problems?"

"Since I am catering primarily to Goans, as an ethnic group, sizes are
pretty standard. Only I notice that the Goan females born and bred
abroad seem to have bigger breasts, or at least bigger bustlines"

"Maybe that is a sign of prosperity? Like a paunch for an Indian man?"

"Maybe. Here's another hit slogan. 'Tu Konnalo?' Top seller among
aristocratic Goans in Salcete. Other best selling slogans are 'I'm a
Bhatkar. This is a very old T-shirt', 'Patrao', 'As seen in tiatr' and
'I'm with ghoyo!'. The most popular back of T-shirt slogan is 'Stop
staring at my Feni!'.

"Speaking of which Micheal, how come you set up base in Moira?"

"Moira inspires me. In addition to the Charles Correa T-shirts we have
quite a few others specially designed for Moidekars by our resident
creative consultant Augusto Pinto. Here check, 'We put the Banana in
Republic', 'Length matters, choose Moira', 'Moidekars have the
biggest…', 'Moidekars don't suffer from insanity, they enjoy it!', and
this classic, 'We don't get mad; we are mad!'



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1) The column above appeared in Gomantak Times dated 9th October 2008.

2) If you wish to share your T-shirt ideas please write in to