by Leonilde Sequeira

Leonilde Sequeira at her home in Miramar

My thoughts go back to my childhood days. I was born in Mhow, a small town in Madhya Pradesh, the third child in the family. My father had a chemist’s shop there. It was a cantonment area, safe, clean and very well kept.

 I remember how we used to come to Goa for our May vacations. Since my father was tied down with the business, he couldn’t always accompany us, but he made sure to send us at least once in 3 years, especially as his mother lived alone. As kids, we really looked forward to this holiday though we didn’t quite enjoy the journey. Madhya Pradesh can be very hot in the month of May. When we travelled by train, if we took the Frontier Mail, we had to change at Ratlam, or if we took the G.I.P. we had to change at Khandwa. But what was worse was the boat voyage that followed. We all suffered from sea-sickness so we could neither eat nor drink anything on the way.

When we arrived in Panjim, we had to go through certain formalities. Our baggage was fumigated and a doctor would check us. After refreshing ourselves at one of the nearby restaurants, we had to go through another ordeal to reach our village of Divar. We had to face yet another trip by boat as my maternal grandfather would arrange what is called in Konkani a “voddem” (a small boat) in which we would sit all cramped up. By the time we finally reached, we were quite famished. We would walk home while my mother hired somebody to carry the baggage. But it felt good to be back. After refreshing ourselves and washing up, we enjoyed a delicious plate of Goa rice, fish curry and fried fish that Granny had prepared for us. There was no electricity in those days, nor were there taps, but we didn’t mind – we loved drawing water from the well like the other girls in the neighbourhood.

There is a particular incident that I remember even now. My maternal grandfather had a plot some distance away from the house. It was called Muddi. It so happened that when we came to Goa one year, it was time to pluck the coconuts. This time my father had also accompanied us. My aunt, my mother’s sister, decided we would make an outing of it. So we set out from Piedade, while she ground some masala and carried some ingredients for cooking and set out with her children, my cousins. Grandfather was of course there to supervise. The boys went to fish where they caught some nice mullets. My aunt who was very efficient, cleaned the mullets, put salt on them and then fried them. She also made curry, kept the rice to cook and then relaxed. We loved Goa rice. We had a hearty and tasty meal with fish curry, rice and fried fish and for years afterwards my father raved about the delicious mullets we had enjoyed that day.

Since we shared a well and the water was not sufficient, my mother would hire a shack in a place called Dudonem. This place had a spring, and hence lots of people would go there with their pots and pans, etc. It was a nice shady place with coconut and mango trees. We walked to this place from São Matias. It may have been a mile or perhaps more, but we didn’t feel it at all. The spring had two pipes and the water flowed continuously. This property belonged to Cosme Matias Menezes. The place had a couple of rooms and a big open verandah. Later my sister got married to the son Pascoal, so we used to go and live there. It was great fun being together.

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