(1 Jun ’13)
In the last century and a bit into
this one, Fatima M Noronha (no, she isn’t that old, it was the turn of the
‘twentieth) used to send me, by regular post, a cyclostyled (this happened
before ‘photocopying’ came into our lives) letter. It was an annual ritual. I
would read that letter aloud to all at home, as much for the news about her
great-aunts and grand-nephews as for the prose. She wrote in quaint English,
the kind I used to read in primary and secondary school. She used quotes and
apt foreign phrases. Carefully chosen words described events, eccentricities
and brought alive people I was never going to meet. An abrupt goodbye to a
nomadic lifestyle and a shift to a much smaller abode forced me to abandon
(hate to use the word ‘throw’) that bundle of letters. I’d carried them around
for years. Had pcs been around then, I’d have scanned and saved them in a
folder in drive D. Other ‘chosen’ friends confided that they, too, used to read
them over again, so well did the letters hold one’s interest.
That was when Fatima was setting up
home in distant Tamil Nadu or Rajasthan. Now a Vasco resident, Fatima has moved
on from writing family newsletters, theses on religion (not my scene) to
creatively presenting Goan life through her short fiction (my scene). I expected
much from her Stray Mango Branches. She has lived up to that expectation. She
has held each tale at the end and twisted it. Makes one want to read more. I was disappointed in a way, because only
half the book contained stories: the last few essays were vignettes. I wish the
publisher had insisted that she write one book on stories and the other on
slices of life. She would have done justice to both. Still might. Someone from
Sangolda (hint, hint) needs to push her. Also, illustrations bring words to life.
The next time, a good artist must be her companion.
The fact that author F Noronha and
publisher F Noronha aren’t related needs to be mentioned here: both the kinds
that are good for Goa’s image, kind and cultured and literary aficionados.
I get the most interesting visitors
to my little abode in Sangolda. Like Fatima has done a couple of times, Ulhas
Rane, son-in-law of late Dr Ernest Borges (the road leading to the University
from Bambolim is named after him) came home for an informal meal. I have learnt
to introduce people by their relatives ever since I’ve come ‘home’ to roost. It
matters not what the modern, developed, western world thinks about discretion,
etc, that’s how we Indians are, Goans in particular, so there.
Ulhas is an architect, also a person
with vast knowledge of trees, birds, insects… butterflies in particular. Along
with Fatima’s Stray Mango Branches, I’d carried Ulhas’ Adbhutachya Goshti along when I went on holiday to Assam and
Meghalaya recently. I wish more people wrote in the vernacular. I wish more
people read in the vernacular. This book is a great way to introduce the north
east to west-coast folk. It introduced me to the life of research scientists,
explorers and also how the study of butterflies affects our lives. Indirectly.
Where they live, the trees that support their caterpillars, the flowers that
they hover around are just pretty things to be aah-ed at. Their role in the
environment dictates our health. The air we breathe, the herbs that make our
medicines… even the rain that water the crops that we eat is affected by
forests with large trees. The cycle is complicated. Ulhas’ book might not go
down as Marathi’s contribution to Indian literature. But it is has definitely
set high standards and a trend. Anyone
who has ever admired a butterfly and enjoyed its flight and who knows to read
Marathi will enjoy the read. A trained professional with a scientific temper,
Ulhas has churned out a novel to fulfil a promise to a friend who died
unexpectedly. He did this in a month’s time, quite an achievement for one who
had not written fiction before.
Goans and their extended family
members are putting the state on the literary map of India. Surely and not so
slowly either.
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