ebook

Listening to family stories and reminiscing about the past can be healing, both physically and emotionally. People feel good relating their life stories and talking about their meaningful life, experiences and relationships. Remembered stories rekindle thoughts of love and a connection with others, as well as help to distance today’s concerns and worries. Memories are what they’re made of.

My childhood memories take me back to Anjuna. Often, I visited the ancestral house of my grandparents. Every holiday, the passage home was a mix of adventure and some anxiety about not being on time to catch the last ferryboat. We crossed over when the ferryboat came, walking past the new Mandovi Hotel and intrigued with the scene depicted by the Abade Faria statue. We walked along the road with our trunks in hand, and stood near the Adil Shah Palace with some apprehension of the sentry on guard duty. After an hour-long wait, we took the camihao. Before we got home, word would have reached that we were coming. It felt so good to have arrived home.

The walls of the large-sized hall were almost fully covered with photographs. Behind each glass were faces frozen in time, in groups, as couples or alone. They sat or stood besides a tall stool or with a vase of artificial flowers. Some preferred to pose outdoors, standing proudly in the balcão or against the backdrop of trees. Often I gazed at them, yet never was I worried about so many silent eyes looking at us all the time we stayed there, awake or sleeping. My grandpa’s favorite game was guessing the identities of the people in the photographs. It was not easy even for me. They looked a lot different from the naked, squirming toddlers held firmly in front of the camera by an adult. The clothes these people wore were very old-fashioned. The women wore blouses with frills or puff sleeves and tucked in the pallu of their sarees firmly at the waist. The men wore baggy pants. Spectacles, with small round frames, were common to both sexes.

I remember very vividly going shopping to the Mapusa market on Fridays. My grandmama would purchase spices and loads of chillies to pound fresh masalas at home. The recipe was top secret and never divulged to anyone, except to the daughters of the house. It had been so for generations, the recipe passing from mother to daughter, and so on to me. Every time I hear the Spice Girls singing, unsung melodies of my childhood come to my mind.

Childhood summer vacations in Anjuna, meant swinging from the tamarind tree near the well, battling hordes of squabbling parakeets to get to the guavas first, knocking raw mangoes or gathering juicy jambul fruits near the stream. A nag champa tree grew on the other side, looking like a 1000-headed serpent guarding a shivling. Near the stream were large pits of coconut husk soaking at the edge of the water. Women could be seen threshing the cured husk and turning the fiber into coir ropes. The stream was always full of water and there were a few spots where migratory birds halted on their flights. Barely visible from there, was a little hill with a cross atop it. It was customary for the church to announce the hour of the mass, by pealing the church bells in different tones. Other lasting impressions were of sounds like those from the trumpet-like car horn, the poder’s horn and the sound of the bullock cart stacked with hay, trundling down the muddy pathway. For me, there was an element of magic in these sounds. They helped to spread a little extra sunshine and cheer in my life and those of others. And surprisingly, the memory of this childhood magic still lingers on.

In Anjuna village, we did not depend on the weatherman to know when the monsoon would arrive. Our grandma was a better forecaster. She looked at the signs nature provided. The sound of waves breaking in the rough sea, the fireflies (glow worms) which lit the nights, the insects flirting with light and particularly, the croaking of frogs, were signs that the monsoon winds had touched Goan shores. Various sounds associated with nature, evoke nostalgic memories. Early in the morning, the chirping of birds was like an alarm clock for me to wake up to. Cattle meandered through the muddy pathways on their way to the grazing grounds, a number of them with brass bells tied around their necks.

In the evenings, when the chickens have come to roost and the fire is lit and the feni is at hand, folks talk of the many families who lived in and around Anjuna. The only people still about are a couple of elderly people. Even today, I continue to feel that I am very much part of the village, to the extent that my childhood has remained a part of me. Fortunately for me and thanks to God and also to some village folk, the village has remained, affording me some consolation in my nostalgia.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Born and educated in Mumbai, Loretta Andrade spent most of her childhood holidays in Anjuna, Goa. She was a Professor of English and Psychology at Damodar D.Ed.College, Margao. She has written several short stories, essays and articles, which deal with themes drawn from everyday life. Not only does she write, but she is also a poet at heart, having six books to her credit.

Previous | Next | Contents | About