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Today's Featured Essays Please refresh page if box display is blank by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas I got to know Vitorino Francisco Saldanha, a prominent personality from the village of Saligao, when he finally returned to Goa from East Africa. I felt good when he affectionately tapped my head and spoke sweetly to me on a fine Sunday in May in the early fifties. Continue reading The businessman in East Africa by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas
The village of Saligao situated to the north-west of Goa in the Bardez taluka (sub-district) is much different today than what it used to be in the 1940s. And so am I, of course! Nevertheless, those formative years as a small lad growing up in this picturesque and charming Goan village left a deep and indelible impression on my mind; an impression that remains intact with me to this day. Continue reading Reminiscences Of Saligao Of The 1940s by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas We knew him simply as Hanuman. Nobody asked him his full name. His house was in the neighbourhood of our Saligao Serenade Editor Val Souza’s ancestral house in Saligao, Goa. Way before cell phones – or any phones for that matter – were in vogue in the village, verbal messages shouted across compounds and walls worked just as well. As if by magic, we all came to know of spontaneous plans to climb up the Pilerne hill to pluck chunn’na, kantam, jamblam, charam, caju, etc – all the juicy fruits of the season. Continue reading Hanuman and the monkey by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas When I was a newly ordained priest, I was riding in a car driven by another who was many years my senior. In our conversation, I told him a story I had read about St. John of the Cross. It seems that John had been seriously misunderstood by others and had endured much suffering as a result. In the end, our Lord appeared to him, and thanked John for his spirit of faith. Then he promised to grant any one wish that John might ask. The little saint asked our Lord: “To be further humiliated and despised for your sake.” Continue reading Fr. Albert Saldanha: A remarkable priest by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas One of the most startling lines I have ever read in any book was in The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. Anne wrote the book while she was being hunted down by the Nazis. While she was literally running for her life, Anne Frank wrote this in her diary, “I do believe that deep within his heart, every person is good.” When I read that line and considered the circumstances under which it was written, I kept asking: Do you really believe that, Anne Frank, do you? With all the malice that you are experiencing, in the midst of all hatred directed towards you because you have Jewish blood in your veins, while you are in hiding and frightened by every noise, can you really believe that ? Is it true that every person, deep within his heart, is good? Continue reading Spreading cheer Compiled by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas
Among the galaxy of successful businessmen from Saligao, Miguel Rosário D’Souza, who was fondly known as M R, stands as a pioneer who blazed the trail of East Africa for the people of Saligao. He was from the ward of Salmona in Saligao, and in 1884 went to Zanzibar and set up his first business in Mombasa about five years later. The firm was one of the oldest established there, and had a letter of recommendation from Sir Charles Eliot (a former Governor of British East Africa), Lt. Col. J Will, and other noted gentry. Continue reading The Merchant Prince Of Saligao by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas My friend Bernardo da Cunha and I made elaborate preparations to go fishing in the Xiroda River in Salvador do Mundo, a village not far from Saligao. It was a Sunday in early August of the year 1954. So, well equipped with my bait of a few prawns and mud worms called gaindoe; a bag containing a big loaf of bread stuffed with an egg omelette; and a bottle of water, I waited for him at the Readdeachi Xim bordering the villages of Saligao and Sangolda. At that time the road between Saligao and Salvador do Mundo was a mud path, but Bernado’s Humber cycle easily bore the double load. After traversing the lengthy forest area of Jambukar hills at Alto Porvorim, we landed safely at chear manos in Saloi. Continue reading Bernardo Da Cunha And The Live Log
by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas
As young boys and girls growing up in Saligao in the 1950s, we did not have TVs or video games or MP3 players or cell phones or any other trappings of the digital society that are so ubiquitous today. Yes there never seemed to be a dearth of objects, games and fads that kept us occupied and amused. Continue reading Curiosities Of Young Lads In Saligao Of The Fifties by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas The Vijay Marie Hospital run by the Sisters of Charity at Khairatabad in Hyderabad, stands as a monument to the pioneering efforts of Dr Irene Olive de Souza Rebello back in the 1940s. Giving up her lucrative medical practice, she started a free dispensary for the poor in a small shed, and gave not only medical treatment but also spiritual comfort to her patients. To help Dr Irene in her charitable work, Lady Rama Rao, on behalf of the Indian Women’s Council, gifted her a mobile van. In appreciation of her humanitarian mission, the late Nizam Nawab Mir Osman Ali Khan donated a plot, on which the Vijay Marie Hospital today stands. Continue reading Champion Of The Downtrodden by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas Roque de Mello was the brother of Anthony Stanislaus de Mello, the grand moghul of Indian sport, from Sonarbhatt in Saligao, Goa. Roque, like his brother who was born in Karachi, received good encouragement from their sports-minded father, who stressed the Latin dictum “Mens sana in corpore sano” (A sound mind in a sound body). Roque was sent by his father to England to study for the Bar. Barely 22 years of age, fresh from a brilliant career as a barrister in London, boarded a ship bound for Bombay when tragedy suddenly struck. The ship had moved off the coast of France when what they dreaded most did happen—the ship was torpedoed by a German submarine. As the ship’s sirens blared, the clarion order of the Captain was given: “All hands to the lifeboats”. Soon there was a rush to the ship’s boat stations. It was a sad day for Roque and hundreds of European passengers aboard the S.S. Maloza during World War I. Continue reading Saga Of Selfless Heroism |
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