You KNOW you are GOAN when ( As found in an e-mail forward of unknown origin)

• Your house smells like fried onions and fried fish.
• No matter where you go in the world you will find another Goan named D'Souza or Fernandes.
• When you tell your parents you got 98% in an exam and they ask you what happened to the other two percent.
• Your mother has a minor disagreement with her sister and doesn't talk to her for ten years.
• Everyone is a family friend.
• You went to a university as far away from home as possible.. You still came back home to live with your parents after you had finished.
• You fight over who pays the dinner bill..
• You don't understand what "No thank you" means after you have offered food to someone ....and yet you keep on insisting.
• You have to outdo your friends with something that is bigger, better and more expensive, even if you can't afford it.
• You're walking out of customs at the airport and you see all 25 members of your family who have come to pick you up.
• You get very upset when airlines refuse to accept your luggage that is only 80 lbs. overweight.
• You ask your Dad a simple question and he tells you the story of how he had to walk miles barefoot just to get to school.
• You have annoying nicknames like Petus, Babush, Bostiao, Butu.....
• You are really confused whether or not you are Portuguese... ....heaven forbid... Indian.
• Your parents push you to get married all the time but find all other races other than Goan unacceptable.
• No one ever seems to call ahead of time to say they are coming over for a visit.
• You miss a Goan dance and your parents tell you there were lots of young people there.
• You see pictures of the Caribbean and you say "It's just like Goa ."
• You call everybody who's brown and not from Goa 'BINTAKAR' and make fun of them in Konkani.
• Two minutes into a conversation you tell a stranger you have 2 acres and 20 coconut trees.
• You are comfortable going for a holiday back to Goa in May.... just to sample the mangoes, sorpatel and Goa sausages.
• You are well versed in property law even though you're a welder by profession and haven't passed 10th grade.
• You have six middle names most of which you can't pronounce.
• Your entire family is constantly fighting over property they inherited from somebody else.
• You interject 'what', 'men' and 're' in every line of your conversation.
• You make the sign of the cross before driving over bridges..
• You eat last night's curry the next morning.
• Lastly, you are certainly not Goan if you don't eat pork, dance, drink Feni and drive.

Adventure trip to Savanadurga.

Place: Savanadurga
Picture: Savanadurga

Getting up in the morning is not Charlie's cup of tea, unless its to watch basketball, but this time he did. Kenelm had pinged Charlie about a trip to a place called Savanadurga and asked to get in touch with Dushyant. Lazy ass Charlie asked me to do it. I pinged Dushyant, and what happened next turned out to be a very memorable trip for the 6 of us who went to Savanadurga.

Saturday morning was a pretty cold one. Charlie and me could feel the chill on the bike as we rode to meet an unknown Goan waiting for us next to the Airtel building on the Bannerughatta road. Dushyanth turned out to be a very friendly guy. We passed time talking about each other residence in Goa while waiting for the others to come. After a while Kenelm, Rishi and Vibha came in the tempo traveller. The tour guide and his accomplices with their gear were also there. Looking at the gear gave me a feeling of what's to come. It made me happy.

We had to stop by for 4 others who had also joined the trip. None of us knew who they were. found out later that they were a bunch of college guys who like us were in for a thrill ride.

The guide suggested a place the Idli's are supposed to be very good. We agreed to this expecting the best. what turned out was a rotten place with pretty decent idli's. Not the very best but good enough for hungry souls. The tea was awesome though.

We left from there to Savanadurga filled but not too content. Catching up on the places we all grew up in and talking about some of your funny moments really helped us bond. But what really did the trick was talking about some of your roommates and how we dealt with things in past. What was real fun was how we laughed at those things.

At around 10 we reached Savanadurga. After a quick rest room break, we headed out to the mountain. The place was beautiful. It looked like the mountains were calling. Thru the jungle we trudged along till we reached a flat rock. The guide made us stand in a circle and made us do some funny exercises. We were asked to stretch our hands in the front and say jiggy jiggy hola hola. Same thing we repeat by raising our hands, and then by bending forward and shaking our asses. That really helped us break out from our sleep.

The guide then directed us to go find the caves. Looking around one does not really anything. All of us went in different ways. One guy found the opening and all of us headed in there. Crawling, grunting (Kenelm only), climbing we managed to go thru the 4 caves and off we headed for rappling. You have to watch the snaps for this. For those who do not know what is Rappling, its, climbing from a flat surface of the rock using a rope. The guide and his troupe were accomplished rappler's as we saw from the demos they gave us. First one to climb down was Dushyant, the brave. The scary Kenelm after initially refusing to climb down finally managed pull in some guts after seeing Vibha get down. The best was Charlie, he was not able to climb down at first, fell on his ass on the flat surface and was looking at the world upside down. Thanks to the harness, he was saved. We had a good laugh looking at him though.

The next was Naryal pani and some bhel puri. The famished 6 did not really care for the quality this time and ate was thrown on our plate. Post our mini lunch we headed out for high rope traversing. In this event, a rope is tied high above the ground between 2 trees and we have to go from one end to the other. We have a pulley like harness attached to our hip and we slid across to reach the other end.

My aim is not very good. I found this out at the next event. Vibha and Dushyant were the pick of the Goan lot hitting almost the bulls eye.

The whole day of events was real fun. We headed out for pre dinner at Kamat upchar on the Mysore road and filled our tummies with some awesome food.

The way back was more fun talking about our things that gave us pleasure.

Fireball 09

It all happened at St. Joseph's Ground . It was the greatest footballing event of the 21st century.
The match started with the White Team having the ball in possession. Inacio Lampard, Rohan Bhutia playing for the White team struck just two minutes into the game. Paresh Terry had supplied the defense splitting passes. The Blues were heart broken as they were 2-0 down in 2 minutes. You could literally see pain in the eyes of Ashley Furtado Ronaldo. He face was red with horror. Charlie Kaka was cool as usual. It seemed like he has been through worse situations than this one. He tried to console the utterly disappointed Ronaldo. That’s when Ronaldo cried out for help. 'Ask and thou Shall receive'

Enter reinforcements like the movies. The force was doubled with Ashley Fabregas now playing alongside Ronaldo. With Ashley's (square) in the Blue team, Kingsley Henry right winger and Eric Drogba the midfielder, it was bad news for the Whites.

“ Its 4-2”, Kenelm shouted from the audience. Yes its 4 goals scored by the Blues!With Ronaldo scoring all the 4 goals in the first half.

Whites were terribly annoyed by the way things had gone, Ian Arshavin was determined to change the fortunes of the White team. They got Manoj Zidane inducted in the White team. There were slurry of attacks on the Blue team and it was definitely on the backfoot. Zidane had made the difference. He had a lot of positive energy. But the Blues held on to the lead by excellent defending thanks to Drogba and Henry.The final score read 4-2 with the Blues as winners.

Thats all Guys!
From your host,

Ashley Fernandes

Fantastic Meet at French Loaf

My second meetup with GiB and it was really heart-warming to meet all of them. Especially those whom I had met at Oasis Mall followed by the song sessions at Ash's room. Nice to see new faces and got to meet iMac, the apple of my eye aswell as the wise & song-filled Anton. Nice to be intro'd to Rohan & Anisha, Rajaram, Jessel, Clyde and Clinton (though we played basketball b4). Somehow this meetup was way better than the last time. I still remember that I literally wanted to leave Ash's place had it not been for the locked front door...LOL
The venue was splendid. Great choice Ken & thanks for all your efforts to get us in the mood aswell as rounding us up by giving directions, etc. The place actually brought back memories of my time in Paris.
Chkout : http://picasaweb.google.com/Kingsley.Fernandez/InParis#
There is this somewhat funny incident that happened to me there. I was walking along on my way that weekend morning just exploring the place when this middle-aged woman approaches me and converses in French. Luckily, I know enough to understand so she asks me "Where is the nearest metro?" Which is the underground train station for those of you unfamiliar with metro. I reply back in french, "Sorry, I don't know as I'm just a tourist here but there should be one near the main street around." Oh, btw, she was not that attractive but even if she was, I wouldn't have taken the plunge for any reason especially before marriage but the thought did cross my mind & I could have worked on this opportunity. Anyway, then I ask her in french where she is from, as she was fair, not so tall, sharp facial features besides the "usual" characteristics which looked like a typical french lady. She replied she's indeed from Paris and then I ask again "How come you, living in Paris, don't know where the subways are?". Thought I had caught her if she had some ulterior motives. But that went bust when she replied that she drives around in her own car and recently decided to use public transport which is cheaper and good for the economy and environment at large. Then she counters that with "How come you know to speak french quite well even though ur an outsider?" I reply back saying that "I learned in high school and kept it touch with it till now". She then complimented me on my french and we parted along our separate ways. She's still on my mind though I didn't ask her name. God bless her.
You could say she was part of the reason why I was so romantically spirited if you may. But playing and singing the guitar has always been my deepest desire and if I don't get a chance to do that, I'd rather sing the words or whistle the tune than just be a silent spectator. It was soooo much fun when all of us contributed in some way or the other. I wish I get to master the guitar as good as Ash. He was the epicenter of our gathering. Kudos bro, you amaze me everytime, all the best with UZO. Clinton was gr8 with the few songs he played out and all of us suggested neat songs especially from Arti, Mac and Anton, who was was brimming with new songs, some from his laptop.
The jovial spirit of the group was maintained with jokes of all flavours here and there, especially the Ken & Mac ones. Brothers, I admire the way you'll handled it especially since I've been that kind of butt of jokes for most of my life. It was cool for me coz I had that attitude and never let anger to take control of me. I was deeply shatterred, heart-broken many times but I said to myself, its all for the greater good in God's plan. Atleast, I'm contributing to some fun around by making others happy. So I used to just keep a wry smile on my face though it was a heartache and said a small prayer for God to bless them.
Was surprised that my roomie who had wanted to leave by 5pm actually stayed back and I don't blame him as I was with him during the last meetup. Hence, at the start I asked Ken if he had any agenda as I had my own objectives to complete in my own way but the way it turned out was way beyond what I had anticipated to do. I'm sorry I took that first step by asking one of my brothers to start that agenda of mine, as at the end of that evening, followed by my usual prayer & good night's sleep, I realized all my objectives are completed but with His agenda. Its amazing how we plan to do things our own way and feel depressed when it doesn't work out that way but actually, in the end, everything worked perfectly with His plan. That's why I used to always live with this slogan : "Its all for the best". Let me just modify it a bit, as now I live as "Its all for the best for God's Kingdom." The evening was so exhuberant that had it not been for the evening mass, I wished we could sing and laugh till French Loaf literally threw us out...LOL
I hope there is another meetup soon if God wills or maybe after Easter. I sure miss other sisters in this group whom I had met before. There must be many members in this group whom I've never met till now & I pray we meet in His divine time.

P.S: The French Loaf experience was so profound that I kinda know what MeatLoaf was trying to convey in his song "I would do anything for love but I won't do that..."

O Land of legend

O Land of legend, my pearl of the Orient,
Born say some, of mythical arrow,
Which the Pandavs beheld in travel afar,
Whose river is sacred, even if shallow
Where the temple God rides his Chariot car

O Land of legend, my pearl of the Orient,
Where the Saint sleeps his Incorrupt Slumber,
Whose splendor did challenge Rome at par
For God’s churches grand, many did number
And whose Padre, Lanka failed to bar

O Land of legend, my pearl of the Orient,
Of Miranda’s sketch and Remo’s song,
Of Lata’s roots and Faria’s mystic art.
Where Bruno and Leander did so belong
From whose shores did many great men so part.

O Land of legend, my pearl of the Orient,
Where love of fish keeps men in amity
And chouris and Pork keep Catholics content
Where rice be enjoyed with wondrous curry
And on good drink need little money spent

O Land of legend, my pearl of the Orient,
Whose beaches of silver do strangers draw,
Whose fall of water is much of splendor
Whose forests give home to many a paw,
Whose buildings old show majesty, grandeur

O Land of legend, my pearl of the Orient,
Her every son, a song doth sing
To Caesar his share, to God his due
Whose farmer be content as King
And with warmth embrace a culture new

O Land of legend, my pearl of the Orient,
Blessed am I, to be born of thee
Thought I live far, my heart is not here
Your shores forever, prosperous be
And may I return to you who are dear

Welcome to a piece of Goan paradise...GiB

Goans in Bangalore or GiB in this acronym world is a community of Goenkars/Goans living in Bangalore, be it for work or study. This group on google is moderated by Kenelm, a real jovial & fun-spirited guy while there is also an orkut community managed by Bibiana, who as I recall, is the rib of GiB just as Kenelm is the backbone of this group. I got introduced to GiB about a month back by my friend, Vanessa and was really looking forward to the outings and activities they conduct. Initially, I was somewhat annoyed at the chains of conversations happening on my gmail but most of them were really humourous and gave a refreshing break during my work hours. As the days went by, I found Kenelm’s replies quite funny and he had an innate ability to play around with words. I was waiting to put a face to this Aramaic/Jewish name and that day came on 21st Feb’09 where he royally paraded as King Momo and proclaimed his decree of fun & frolic for the next 3 days at the KGA carnival grounds. How coincidental was that? A guy with a good sense of humour who lives up to his name of defending his kinsmen. God grant him the strength to manage us Goenkars of GiB aswell as the Karnataka Goans Association (KGA). A couple of weeks later, my roomie Lawrence & I got to attend our first GiB meeting at the Oasis mall and it was great to interact with all who attended or just passed by to say ‘Hello’. Was a pleasure to meet Bibiana, the other core member of GiB. It was amazing to feel a sense of fellowship among all the guys and gals present at the mall that day as truly I felt, being warm-hearted & hospitable is in the blood of Goans besides the love of Music, Fish Curry Rice and Football. Getting a chance to talk Konkani also helped in strengthening these bonds as all of us were so comfortable in sharing with complete strangers since we were all Goans. Frankly, I don’t speak Konkani much but I understand it well and want to talk in it more often. After a round of friendly banter over hot/cold drinks & snacks, we headed over to Ashley’s place where we had an impromptu jam session. Was impressed by Ashley’s skills on the electric guitar and his desire to form a band called Uzo (meaning fire). It inspired me and I’m sure many others to follow one’s dream, one’s desire and it will surely be a success with good perseverance and faith. Guess the movie “Rock On” had an influence aswell. Jessel and others came up with really neat logos for Uzo aswell as GiB. Loved the creativity in them, as I’ve been an inborn artist myself but haven’t honed it further. Still love all the colors and designs expressed in all forms as paintings, logos, sculptures, photos, etc. The singing continued in Ashley’s room and most of us had a chance to audition our voice. The band was being formed that day and talks were going on to have a separate ‘Cantaram’ group of Konkani singers. The evening went on well until sometimes it went off-track and I got somewhat bored as I felt the evening started to drag as we were not reaching a conclusive decision on the band or song group. But things worked out for the best as the next meetup at French Loaf, I learned that the Uzo band is in the making and there have been practice sessions in the past. So far, I haven’t gone out for any outing/activity with GiB though this was the main reason why I joined this fun group in the first place. So I’m still looking forward to the proposed outing at Wonder-La someday. All in all, I would like to compare the GiB group to the medieval fellowship of Knights but we have added Maidens in this age. We gather at an imaginary round table where all of us are equal and bonded on strong Goan values which touch humanitarian principles. We have respect and honour for each other and all of us contributes with our talents in one of way of the other. Some of us might lament that I just have weaknesses, but assuredly I say, your weakness can be converted to our group’s strength and for the Greater Good. Viva Goa! Viva GiB!