GOANOW - Editorial(April 1999)

With all the laudatory messages by email and telephone received since going internet with the first issue of GoaNOW, we are still flying on Cloud Nine.

GoaNOW is back, mildly improved perhaps. However, we are well past Goa�s excited spell of Carnaval and Shigmo. It�s Lent, a rather grim period if one remembers the good ole days when mothers would not allow children to sing, whistle or even hum a tune. However, the austerity is not that severe any longer.

Even the fasting on Fridays and Wednesdays too has watered down considerably. We had to abstain from pork, beef and chicken throughout Lent and manage with fish, curry and rice. But today, with fish swimming out of our reach, beef�s appears cheaper and one should rather abstain from consuming costly fish in Lent.

Of course, the traditional �Pass� (way of the Cross) signifying the passion of Jesus being scourged, carrying the cross...and finally being crucified, is still being held in most parish churches. In his vibrant sermon, the preacher would once make the laity relive the excruciating pain and feel awfully contrite for having inflicted it on Jesus...The sermon would begin with bombastic Latin phrases, which went over everyone�s head. Today's sermon is spruced with English phrases as they do on the FM.

Well, the ornate pulpit�s out of the preacher�s reach now because the power mikes are planted on the altar. The traditional petromax lamps, which added to the serenity of the scene with their subtle hiss and mellow glow, have been replaced by resplendent tubelights. The tall wax candles on the altars too have given way to electric bulbs.

Women and girls (without the black, lace veils they once used to cover their heads) don�t have to fan themselves with Japanese paper fans. Whirring electric fans ventilate the church (if power doesn�t fail). Women don't sit on small, dainty, folding stools they once did in the church, there are benches now.

The veteran choir with at least a couple of violins, the cello and the organ ain�t there to lend their sombre Gregorian touch to the ceremony. It�s the electric organ and a guitar, with young boys and girls singing in one, unmodulated voice (sometimes). There ain�t no flute and clarinet to add soulful pathos to the moteti sung during the procession. The second sermon on the whitewashed pulpit in the church square too is much shorter now. A boy would be selected to sing the "VERONICA" but it's better with a girl singing it now.

After the �Pass� is over, we used to rush to the lame man selling piping hot bhoje and sweet khottkhottem in one nook as close to the church as possible. The guy is absent along with his frying pan, petromax and quaint charm...and the parish priest is happy that kids are not distracted during the ceremony.

That�s the way it is in maimdhes Goa in recent years. Of course, the major Lenten event takes places at Goa Velha with the traditional procession of saints, thirty-three of them, on the Monday preceding Palm Sunday. It's said to be the only such procession besides the one held in Rome. Crowds, crowds, crowds...and all that goes with a village fest.

The period of Korezm (Lent) even made us ignore the clammy, summer weather then. Things have changed. It�s good for us though because we can crib about the good ole� times. And by the time we complete recounting the sad tale of Korezm (Lent), it already Paskam (Easter). Fresh ur'rak and caju feni will be out by that time. Wish you all a Very Happy Easter.

Joel D'Souza
goanow@goatelecom.com