Cheers Dears:  Aunty Ponty

By Augusto Pinto

It was hot and humid when I took my dog Laskar out for a morning walk. With summer setting in early this year, Laskar's bounding strides quickly tired me out. When we reached Aunty Ponty's Bar I felt like having a soda.

Actually, the joint  has some other nondescript name but everyone calls it Aunty Ponty's after its owner Priscillina Pontes. Aunty Ponty opens her bar as early as 6.30 to provide an uttaro to the alcoholics  who line up outside waiting for her. [Uttaro is the first dose that chronic alcoholics require to start the day after their fitful booze-induced sleep.] 

As I entered, one of the early morning drinkers came up to Aunty Ponty and said, pro-offering his glass, "Aunty - one for the road." Aunty firmly said," Jose Piedade Lawrence, you will not get one for the road, the gutter or the grave. You have a wife and 3 children. You need to work. Off with you and once you've given your day's wages to your wife, we'll see." Sheepishly JPL said,"Yes Aunty." and went his way. 

Looking at me Aunty Ponty said,"Hello Gusto. How's Laskar?" Laskar wagged his tail in reply. Ordering my soda, I said,"How's business Priscillina?" She replied,"Gusto, demand here is inelastic. No global recession can affect us." As you might guess from this brief remark, Aunty Ponty is not your run of the mill barwalli. She has Post Graduate Degrees in Economics and Psychology, and takes a keen interest in issues related to education. I asked her,"Do you enjoy your job here? You could have become a lecturer, isn't it?"

"Gusto why should I join that pathetic profession? I used to teach, and after I got married my mother-in-law asked me whether I'd like to continue. I firmly refused and opted to take over the bar. Here, I am the counsellor of many who really need it. I offer more moral and spiritual education than those lackeys we call teachers in some of the cesspools we call colleges."

"What Priscillina!! This is Goa, not  some Bimaru state where kidnappings or rapes are rife and where a Prof. Sabharwal can be beaten to death." Aunty Ponty let out a hollow laugh."Nonsense! You have no clue as to what happens in our 'Halls of Learning', Gusto. Like all of Goan society, our colleges too have a soft underbelly. Believe it or not, there is ragging, MMS blackmail, sex, booze and drugs to be had, and violence is never far from the surface. Politics is rife. The staff are jokers - not just the peons and clerks and not just the temporary  teachers, many of whom are paid a pittance and from whom one cannot expect much given their insecurity. But even the permanent staff care for nothing except their salary. Visit any college and the talk is only about the Sixth Pay Commission scales."

I said,"Don't the teachers understand that this will lead to disaster?" "You know Gusto, the novelist Upton Sinclaire once wrote that it is difficult to get someone to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. The other day Principal Deshmukh of the Dumbo College of Magic came here for a drink. He told me a teacher from his college was brutally beaten up. I asked him why and he replied that the teacher had found a boy misbehaving. When he was pulled up, the student caught him by the throat and slapped and punched him around."

"So what action did Principal Deshmukh take?" Aunty Ponty said,"Action? What action can a coward like that take? He was selected for his post precisely because he is spineless and will crawl even before he is asked to bend by his masters. To call such a person a dog would be an insult to Laskar here.  But I did ask him your question. He replied that he had no intention of interfering as the boy might have political influence. He was going to appoint an inquiry committee and by the time they come up with a report, if they do come up with a report that is, he would have retired and gone back to Maharashtra."

I had finished my soda and Aunty Ponty gave Laskar a sweet, so we strolled back home. I thought that Aunty Ponty was wise to become an honest respectable bar owner rather than a disreputable lecturer. Unlike some.

Cheers Dears: Bananas, Chikoos and Coconuts

By Augusto Pinto

In Panjim the other day a flowery shirt over colourful Bermudas  came striding towards me. It was vaguely familiar.  He grabbed my hand and pumped it,"Gusto, remember me!? I'm Barny, Barny Barretto!"  Barny was an old schoolmate who had come down from the United States for a holiday. He dragged me over to George's restaurant for lunch.

"So Barny how did you end up in the States?," I asked.  "Gusto, after my  schooling here, I went back to Kenya where my father worked and from there emigrated first to the U.K. where I finished my education and after I started my own business, I got a fast track green card to the U.S. of A. Good old Uncle Sam is the melting pot of the rich and famous." he replied with a grand flourish.

As we settled into our meal I asked him how he liked Goa and whether he intended to  settle down here. "Goa?" his American accent twanged in alarm,"Good God no! My wife and children can't stand this place.  Goa is incredibly provincial. And Goans are very backward in their thinking. Not just here mind you, but all over the world. Whenever you meet a Goan, do you know the first thing they will ask?" "What do they ask Barny?" I asked. "They'll ask  - which village do you come from?"

I said,"What's wrong with that?  Gandhi said that the soul of India lives in its villages. This holds good for Goa too, I guess."   I should not have said that for it really wound him up.

Barny said,"Oh come on Gusto, don't be naive. You know very well that they want to find out your caste when they ask for your village. Tum kon'nallo. And this happens even among Catholic Goans who are not supposed to believe in castes.  Scratch the surface of their skins and you will find they are casteist. The Bamons and Chaddes cleverly refer to  themselves as Bananas and Chikoos And they pass snide remarks about the origins of others to show they are superior. I tell you, this mentality persists even among priests who, like their Master's disciples should have behaved like those humble fishermen. Fat hope that of happening."

  

By now I was bored of Barny's tirade. "Barny, I think that you're out of touch with life here. It's not the same as it was 40 years ago when you were young. But even then things were not that bad; even then caste in Goa was not like caste in other Indian rural areas, or even some urban areas even today especially in North India. I was in Benares some years ago and what you say would definitely be true there. The air there simply bristles with caste anger. It can get  very uncomfortable because you know that if you are not careful with your remarks about caste  you could get a knife stuck in your back. It's true that that there are still people in Goa who make snide remarks on this subject, but this is quietly dying out. In the Metros, as in Goa, caste doesn't hinder anyone in the normal course of life. Not that it is absent. It crops up when marriage proposals come up, but quite often the younger generation just do their own thing and get hitched to the person of their own choice, from whichever caste or religion or country. In any case,  you should think of a caste as being like one of your exclusive clubs in the States. Then it won't bother you much."

Bary had not come for a holiday to be lectured to by the likes of me,  and he retorted hotly,"Rubbish. You've admitted that this primitive mentality is still present in this day and age. In the States we live modern cosmopolitan lives. And with our mighty dollar it is a good life."  I said,"But Barny, don't you miss your own culture? And aren't you being treated like a second class citizen by those Whites?" His supercilious reply was, "I'd rather be a second class American than a third class Indian."

By then our meal had come to an end and we parted ways. I thought to myself - Barny might not be a Banana or a Chikoo, but he definitely is a Coconut - Brown on the outside and White inside.