October 06, 2007

Their collective teeth

One bus I take, it rumbles through Tivim to Mapusa. The Mapusa bus station is immediately familiar: buses everywhere, horns blaring, ghastly road surface, people darting between buses and overflowing off the station structure itself.

One more sound: a man's voice, rapidfire, "Revdarevdarevdarevdarevda!" And repeat. His bus is going to Revora, he's soliciting passengers. I have no clue where Revora is, but listening to this fellow, I'm sorely tempted to leap from my bus and into his.

***

We pass the "Taught To Teach School of Art and Music."

What's left to say?

***

At the Dona Paula jetty, one sign tells me: "Ful-na-Pakkli, Creativity for a Cause." While I'm turning that over in my mind, I walk past another sign that says "Furtado Maker's: Specialist in coffin's and also all kinds of furniture."

There's also a damaged sculpture on the rocks above the wide sea. Two nymphs, it looks like. Two plaques, too. One says, "Yasa von Leistner. In Memory of Mr and Mrs Robert Knox." The other says, "Lead me from untruth to truth; from darkness to light; and from death to immortality."

And the Sanskrit original for one of those two. Tiny quiz time: Which of those two? And what's the original?

***

Page 2 has 6. Page 3, 1. Page 5, 21 (one a quarter-page). Page 7, 12 (one a half-page). Page 13, 18. Page 15, 18. Page 19, 13. Page 20, 1.

Total 91.

Total 91 ads in the Herald (October 5) saying "Happy birthday" to Aleixo (Alex) Reginaldo Lourenco, MLA from Curtorim.

That half-page ad, it has a long essay in tribute to the MLA from Curtorim, and here are some verbatim excerpts:
    "[Reginaldo] has provided a tractor to Curtorim Co-operative Society so that tilling of the land can become easier and economic ... Besides of course providing employment to at least one person to operate the tractor, the scheme will encourage youngsters to take up agriculture as it eliminated the dependence on labour which is becoming scarce in modern times. ...

    Besides, all the village can look forward to booed sports grounds. ...

    Reginaldo has so far been able to balance his time with the family and the constituency even though his three year old daughter Amanda is becoming a little more demanding.
The next day, page 3 of the Herald has one ad. It says "Belated Birthday Greetings" to the MLA from Curtorim. Clearly Francis D'Costa, Steven Vaz and Luis Zoddi, named in that ad, didn't want to miss any buses, metaphorical or otherwise.

***

The Navhind Times (October 5) has an item that I shall quote in full and verbatim and without comment:
    US seizes toothpaste
    US Customs have seized "toxic" toothpaste that were packed in "Made in India" cartons, but are not sure where the paste came from since it also carried the "Made in China" label. US Customs officers at Charleston seaport on Wednesday seized 1440 tubes of toothpaste."
No, I do have one comment: god I love this place. And its newspapers. And its signs. And its birthday greetings, belated or not. And maybe some Customs dudes in Charleston will finally brush their collective teeth.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

asato ma sadgamaya?

and you counted? 51? having a slack time at work or is it another of your usual mornings?

Anonymous said...

Ah yes, the papers. In the one year that I have spent in Goa, nothing has impressed me more than the newspapers (haven't tried Tiatr as yet :P). I particularly like the Classifieds. Such variety.

-Abhijit