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I was born in my mother's house in Candolim in a room called ‘Quarto de Cavalo’ (horse's room) because of a huge mural on the wall depicting a fiery white steed with my great-grandfather mounted astride. But until the age of fifteen, I grew up in our home in Mapuca, with a short spell in Dar-es-Salaam. I completed my Portuguese studies in Mapuca before moving on to Belgaum. Life was good in Mapuca in those days; provincial, placid, uncrowded and carefree. It was great fun going to school, a good half-hour's walk away, especially in the monsoons when we eagerly shed our wooden clogs to play in the gushing waters of the mini-waterfalls formed at various street levels.

The weekly Friday Bazaar was an opportune diversion. It was not so much the sensuous sights and sounds that filled the air, as the endless procession of relatives and friends. They dropped in to rest weary feet in between intervals of shopping, or to await the bus for their villages and, more particularly, to say “Hello” to my grandmother. Woe betide any one who came to town and returned without visiting her. A tongue-lashing the following Friday was a certainty.

We always looked forward to July. St. Anne was the Patroness of the home and we celebrated her feast with pomp. Cousins would come during the Novena to help build a three-step altar attached to our Oratory. Resplendent with a profusion of flower vases and rows of candles in elaborate candlesticks, it was a veritable treat to our childish eyes. But the highlight was the singing: The final hymn had a chorus that went "Rogai, rogai (the full line being 'Rogai, rogai a Jesus por nos’ i.e. ‘Pray, pray to Jesus on our behalf’) sung by all, followed by "Rogai" in a different, lower tone by a soloist. When my father was home, his was the solo and his stentorian, bass response provoked loud, unbecoming chuckles from us to the consternation and "big eyes" of the elders.

The Milagres feast was, of course, THE celebration of the year that we children yearned for! Pardonably perhaps, because each of us got a shiny silver rupee from the grandmothers and uncles, a princely sum in those days! Since we lived right in the heart of the fair, our exhilaration and excitement were all the greater. We relished visiting the food stalls and would down cups of ice cream and buy our own packs of ‘Doce de festa’ (laddoos, khajjims, etc) which we jealously guarded afterwards.

Every year, in May, we went for a 'mudanca' (literally meaning ‘change’ i.e. a holiday outside town) generally to Candolim beach or, at times, to my grandmother’s house there. Mostly we went by 'boilanchi gaddi', an excruciatingly slow, bone-rattling two-hour journey. But looking back, it was romantic! Candolim beach in those days was unique, stretching from the tinto for a good ten or fifteen minutes walk to the sea. If we were lucky, some mornings we would manage a good catch of 'mannoio' and could anticipate a mouthwatering 'pullav'. At times we walked to Aguada along the beach front, climbing the escarpment while avoiding looking down at the menacing waves splashing and splattering on the craggy rocks below. Once, when I was nine, I lost my footing, fell and was carried away by the waves. I reached fairly far out before an elder cousin managed to get hold of me by the collar, and pull me to safety - a close brush with Death.

Among the more 'adventurous' episodes of my youth, two bizarre ones are indelibly etched in my mind. The first related to a trip from Collem (rail junction) to Mapuca. Once when we arrived at Collem, there was only a single bus left for Mapuca, and a large number of passengers. With his "matxem fuddem voch", the ‘cleaner’ (name for the general bus assistant in those days) managed to accommodate the women and children. But, seventeen men were left with the grim prospect of spending the night on the railway platform, awaiting the next day's bus! We were offered an option - travel on top of the bus!! Collem being a jungle, we decided to go! On top of the bus we clambered, over baggage strapped down under a tarpaulin and tied criss-cross with ropes. Thus we left, clinging for dear life to the ropes! Even the Good Lord commiserated with our fate and, a half-hour out, started shedding such copious tears that we arrived at Mapuca soaked to the bones! But, He was good and permitted no sequel: no colds, no pneumonia, nothing, despite the drenching.

The next year we decided to proceed to Margao instead of alighting at Collem. But, bad luck dogged us still. The train ran very late and when we reached Margao all buses for Mapuca, Panjim and Cortalim had gone! We were stranded in a strange town where we knew no one! Then we remembered an aunt who was a nun at a convent in "next door" Nuvem. Why not walk there? Lugging our bags, we set forth. But soon we realised it was like Balzac's "Illusions Perdues" (Lost Illusions), for, in pitch darkness, we trudged...and we trudged…. and we trudged …. and not a sign of "next door" Nuvem! Dispirited, famished and exhausted, we toyed with the idea of setting down our baggage and going to sleep by the roadside! However, we walked a little more and, lo and behold, we spied dim lights in the foothills! At last! We rushed across the two hundred yards to the Convent and at exactly 9.30 p.m. knocked at the doors. Fortunately then, unlike today, there was no banditry or crime. Doors were unhesitatingly opened to wayside knockers. Apprised of the situation, food and accommodation were arranged at the chaplain's residence on the main road. Thus ended our quest for the place that was "next door" and proved so distant!
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Born at his maternal home in Candolim, seat of the 1787 “Pinto Conspiracy”, Marcos Gomes-Catao led something of a wanderer’s life. Four childhood years in Tanganyika were followed by seven years in Mapuca, Goa and eight years in school and College at Belgaum. Marcos Gomes-Catao worked in the Human Health industry in Bombay, with spells in Delhi and Singapore. Transferred to Brazil, he lived there for 27 years. He currently resides in the U.S.A

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