The Wagle's Goan Jaunt - excerpt from Mango Mood By Sharmila Kamat, Rupa Books, 2010

 The Wagles' Goan Jaunt - a spoof written during the airing of the original Wagle ki Duniya that was shown on Doordarshan from 1988-1990. 

This is a fictional account of the Wagles' going to Goa for a vacation. This is when Raju and Manoj, the Wagle sons, were young boys. 

In the new Wagle ki Duniya - Nayi Peedhi, Naye Kissey, Raju, now a householder with two children of his own, wants to go to Goa for a holiday with his parents, wife and children. His plan is stymied when he injures his foot. 

 Still, what if things turned out different and the Wagles travelled to Goa for sun, sea, sands and  serenity?

Would things be different this time around?

Here is a look at what happened on the last Goan Holiday:

 

 Illustration: Naguesh Sardessai

 

 

 

Monkey See and Monkey Do

In those days, the country was still young and humble. So were its monkeys. The little rhesus monkeys who had made South Block their base minded their own business, steering clear of the babus who hustled files up and down the august corridors.

In later years, as the country assumed its natural role as the leader of the developing world, some of its confidence rubbed off on the primates.

They became increasingly aggressive. If India’s talks with its neighbour, usually Pakistan, were not to their liking, they swung down from the trees and screeched their disapproval. Occasionally, they lay in wait for the under secretary drafting the final communiqué and dropped a large object – a flowerpot or a brick – on his head. If a file included a decision to which they objected, they snatched it from the babu’s hands, strewing its contents all over the floor.

As long as they picked on the small fry, the mayhem proceeded uninterrupted. Unfortunately, they became ambitious. Bored with pulling out power cords of office desktops and snatching lunch-boxes from passing attendants, they headed off to Rashtrapati Bhavan to check out the scene in the most prominent address in the country.

That was a gross error of judgment. The Government was compelled to deal with this threat to its internal security. A team of langurs was recruited to police and control the smaller-sized simians. Their reward - a monthly salary paid in luscious yellow bananas.

Read more about the mokey business that erupted in Goa just before and soon after its Liberation from Portugal and its joining India as New Delhi had just completed one war (Goa's Liberation) while about to be dragged in another (the India-China conflict) in

Short Takes Long Memories by Prabhakar Kamat and Sharmila Kamat

Available at:
http://www.amazon.com/Short-Takes-Long-Memories-Kamat/dp/8129118211
http://www.rupapublications.co.in/client/Book/Short-Takes-Long-Memories.aspx

after reading some of the reviews like

http://www.thesundayindian.com/en/story/short-takes-long-memories/13/18503/s

and elsewhere in http://shortsnipz.blogpspot.com

There is more to this land on the Western coast of India than a well-thumbed set of picture postcards

A waltz through the Hawaii of India or maybe we should call Hawaii, the Goa of the US.
Seasons in the Sun - Smithsonian Mag


http://www.smithsonianmag.com/departments/my-kind-of-town/your-kind-of-town/Goa-India.html#ixzz1b0Z8Jxpw

See also http://mangomood.blogspot.com/2011/10/mango-mood-of-people-and-peculiarites.html

Filled with telling episodes, lighter reminiscences and fascinating stories

On the life and times in Goa and Portugal as presented in Short Takes Long Memories - an exhaustive review of the book by journalist Frederick Noronha in Gomantak Times

Where river and reverence meet: Tarini and Tar Vir the unique boat deities of Goa

Author: Dr Pratima Kamat
Publisher: GOINCARH
Price: Rs 500
Fabulous discount available for students, researchers and academics.
Get your copy TODAY!

The book explores the cultural linkages between water and worship in India's famed travel destination - Goa and analyses the boat motifs found on the unique Devi ('Tarini') and Vir ('Tar-Vir') sculptures located away from the coast, along the banks of River Mhadei, and its tributaries, in the forested, hilly sub-Ghat administrative districts of Sattari and Sanguem in Goa.

These unique 'speciality' Devis (Goddesses) of Goa, which are exclusive to Goa, are cast in the mould of well known Hindu religious deities like Mahishasuramardini, Brahmani, Gajalakshmi and Jogeshwari. They are either standing or seated in a boat, or portray the boat as a howdah or have the boat carved on the pedestal. The sculptures of the Vir, with the boat motif etched on its pedestal, have also been analysed in the book.

The 'Tarini' is an amalgam of folk, Sanskritic, Buddhist and Jaina traditions and provides valuable clues about the Western Ghats-Arabian Sea trade of which Sattari had served as an important conduit in the past.

Tarini and Tar-Vir gives us an insight on the ports of the Mhadei and the ship-building/repair centre that this region must have played host to in the early medieval times.

The book is based on studies conducted along the banks of the River Mhadei and its tributaries, in not so easily accessible and heavily forested environs and relies on primary and secondary documentation repositories in Goa and other parts of India. It includes maps, a rare collection of photographs of the deities and rare cultural forms of the two adminisitrative districts Sattari and Sanguem covered in the book.

Dr Pratima Kamat is the Head of the Department of History in Goa University

For enquiries please contact the blog

Goans are no longer sossegada

Check out well known writer and author Mario Cabral e Sa's review of Mango Mood on Gomantak Times Juen 28, 2011

Where drug lords run amok to the beat of Dum Maaro Dum

Mango Mood featured on the Goa diary of Viva Goa magazine

This Goa is a little different from the happening spot featuring in Page 3 accounts #MangoMood

"This Goa is a little different from the happening spot that finds a mention in Page celebrities and Bollywood holiday accounts. This is a Goa where politicians spend most of their time plotting how to stop one another in the back, where cops worry more about their new uniforms than about the chaos on the roads and where everyone who can read is busy writing a book on Goa to cash in on the craze."

A customer review of Mango Mood

Mango Mood: Bringing out different shades and colours of life

 

“On the first day, he is not unduly perturbed, the taste of yesterday’s fish curry is still fresh, on the second day the memory persists-but only just. On third day, no sooner is the idol of Lord Ganesh given a ceremonial immersion than he’s back to where he belongs – in the fish market, making up for the lost time.”
-from the book ‘Mango Mood’

Bringing out different shades and colours of life and society in a book through writing requires serious observation and presentation skill. When the book comes as a collection of writings the reading becomes more interesting. ‘Mango Mood’ is one of the books falls in this category.


Read the entire review of Mango Mood in the Sunday Book Review at Fachcha by Subhadra

A tangy taste of Goan satire: Mango Mood now at

 Full Circle Bookstore; UpRack.com and at Indiatimes

Goa Down the Ages - Short Takes Long Memories

 A Goa pre and post Liberation with its caminhaos (public buses), its village elders debating world affairs between snarky observations on the local femme fatale, with its cafetarias serving piping hot bhajias and shiras in faith-coded cutlery, where law and order was (sort of) maintained by Keystone cops and an army with 2 anti-aircraft guns, both of which ought by rights have been retired years ago, made up the defence of a 451 year old colonization.

Short Takes Long Memories

By Prabhakar Kamat and Sharmila Kamat
http://www.rupapublications.co.in/client/Book/Short-Takes-Long-Memories.aspx

A ringside view of an eventful period in Goa’s history – its transition from being a Portuguese colony to becoming Indian, this is a tale of a land caught between the irresistible pull of India and the immovable object that was the inflexible colonial regime. The book is based on the reminiscences of I.A.S. officer and diplomat Prabhakar Kamat. In the late 1940s, Prabhakar Kamat abandons the somnolence of Goa to travel by sea to Europe for higher studies. In Lisbon, his adventures navigating the minefield of culture shocks are tempered by encounters with revolutionaries from the larger Portuguese Empire. He returns to a Goa still under colonial rule, but with India’s patience wearing thin. A blink-and-you-missed-it Army action in 1961 lets Goa join India and plunge into its hectic, colourful democracy. Goa’s date with self-rule galvanises Portugal to follow suit. With sharp insight and witty anecdotes, the book showcases life as it was (and in some ways, still is) in Goa.

About the authors:

Prabhakar Kamat is a retired I.A.S officer and diplomat from Goa. He has held very senior positions in the administration of Portuguese Goa and India. He has worked for the Ministry of Finance of Portugal and has been Director of Economic Services before the Liberation of Goa. He was Director in the office of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Counsellor in the Indian Embassy in Lisbon. He retired as chairman, Mormugão Port Trust.

Sharmila Kamat is an astrophysicist who is also an established writer and author. She has a PhD from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and is a recipient of a University Fellowship by Columbia University in New York. Her research studies the constitution of the Universe, particularly what makes up the hidden mass we call dark matter. She was Faculty in Physics in a Goan college before proceeding to the US.

Smithsonian travel piece on Goa

Think of Goa and the following images spring to the mind - miles upon miles of sun-kissed beaches. Palm trees swaying gently in the mid-morning breeze. Narrow country lanes weaving their way through vast stretches of lush, green paddy fields. The sun, the sand and the surf. However, there is more to this land on the Western coast of India than a well-thumbed set of picture postcards offering tantalizing glimpses of 'An Untouched Corner of Paradise'. Goa circa 2010 has more to offer the modern-day visitor.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/departments/my-kind-of-town/your-kind-of-town/Goa-India.html#ixzz19NhXHKr6

And now in the UK - home to one of the largest charter tourist populations to Goa

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?sortby=0&vci=53200930


maybe it is time someone sold it in Russia and Israel, two other countries that are strong on sending visitors to the part of India that once spoke with a Portuguese accent....

The Galley Cat Review of Mango Mood is also referenced at...

http://workflowwriting.com/152120/sibling-strife-mango-mood-pacific-prose-coming-attractions.php


http://harrypottering.com/gossip/Sibling-Strife-Mango-Mood-Pacific-Prose-Coming-Attractions-4292028.html

Galley Cat review from Media Bistro

Galley Cat Review:  See Coming Attractions by Maryann Yin

Mediabistro.com

Mango Mood by Sharmila Kamat: “The story of Goa, India’s best known travel destination and home to some of the most enchanting beaches in the world, related tongue firmly in cheek. Using mostly gentle sometimes biting satire, the author offers an up, close and personal account of the people, culture and headline grabbing events in that part of India that once spoke with a Portuguese accent.” (November 2010)

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/sibling-strife-mango-moods-pacific-prose-coming-attractions_b19060

What's the flavor de jure? Mango Mood

It is winter but the mango season is back…..

Announcing the release of

Mango Mood

by

Sharmila Kamat

 

Publisher: Rupa Publications, New Delhi, 2010

About Mango Mood

This book chronicles the story of Goa, and India, in its recent past, as retold by a bemused, yet indulgent, Goan. Using mostly gentle, sometimes hard-hitting and insightful satire, it leads the reader through headline-grabbing incidents in recent times through the medium of 42 short, satirical pieces.

While the first section, “A Goan Pot-Pourrie” deals with all things Goan, in the second half, “With a Dash of Garam Masala,” the cast of characters expands to include personalities, and events, across India. The piece-de-resistance of the book is a history of Goa retold, from its birth at the hands of Lord Parashurama, through the Portuguese interlude, to its present-day status as the undisputed party capital of India.

Like the King of Fruits whose soft exterior belies the hard core at the centre, the light-hearted rendition of front-page news in Mango Mood conceals pertinent comments on certain hard realities in our society. Besides, can there be a better symbol for Goa than the luscious, mouth-watering mango? 

This humorous, yet thought-provoking, and elegantly designed book will most definitely serve as stimulating reading for the general public.

Published by Rupa Publications (India) Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, the book, which is priced at Rs. 195/-, is available at all major bookstores in Goa, as also online from the publisher’s website. Its ISBN no. is 9788129117229.