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One cemetery worth
watching...is Assagao's. The hardworking sacristan, Assis Fernandes,
keeps it so neat and clean that one could sleep there comfortably at
night. In fact, it was the last cemetery which managed to get a roof
over it before a regulation was passed by the Portuguese government
that all the cemeteries should be open to the sky.
The St Inez graveyard is known for its tombstones with exquisite marble figures on them. So are those at Raia and Loutulim. There are foreigners buried in Goa's cemeteries...Germans and others in Vasco da Gama, Britishers at Dona Paula (not a Catholic cemetery though), the Sao Braz at Gaundalim (near Old Goa). There are large ones like in Verna and some tiny ones in smaller villages. The cemetery which wears the latest look is the one at Duler in Mapusa. It is truly the only modern cemetery in Goa, with a mechanical contraption to lower the coffin in the neatly built graves. The rows of graves are systematically laid out at different levels, leaving pathways to walk over unlike those in which one can't move around without stepping over a grave. Some cemeteries, like in Aldona, have the inscription, "Aiz mhaka, faleam tuka." (You shall follow me too.) |
