Reflections, water, Goa, Jerry Pinto and Penguin

It was a long time back that the Mumbai-based prolific writer and editor Jerry Pinto asked me to write a chapter for a Penguin book on Goa. Forgot all about it (though Jerry did say it was due in 2006), till the other day. A cyberfriend drew my attention to an announcement in GoanVoiceUK. The book is now out. Can’t locate the final copy I wrote on my cluttered hard-disk. Will someone present me a copy of this book to read, then? That’s just an excuse… maybe one should just be patient.

Described variously as the Kashi of the South, the Rome of the East and the pearl of the Orient, Goa, located on the west coast of India, is renowned for its scenic charm, its beaches, and the architectural splendour of its temples, churches and old houses. With its sun-sand-surf leitmotif it is also the land of the lotus-eater, a tourist’s paradise of fun and frolic, raves and revelry. But Goa is more than just the world’s favourite holiday destination. Its unique history, shaped by the various dynasties that ruled it—the Rashtrakutas, the Kadambas and the Bahmani Muslims, before its 450-year-long occupation by the Portuguese from 1510—has given it a distinctive flavour, a different rhythm, an easy cosmopolitanism.

Reflected in Water is a collection of essays, poems, stories and extracts from published works that bring to life both the natural beauty and the changing social and political ethos of India’s smallest state. From Mario Cabral e Sa’s delightful take on the earliest Portuguese women to come to India to Gita Mehta’s description of hippies at Calangute, from Alexander Frater’s mesmerizing account of Goa in the monsoon to Manohar Malgonkar’s ode to the Mangeshi temple, this anthology celebrates the irreverent and the sacred in equal measure.

Teotonia R. de Souza’s profile of the little-known ‘opium smuggler who tried to liberate Goa’ is as captivating as Frederick Noronha’s portrait of Abbé Faria, eighteenth-century priest, mesmerist and revolutionary, and one of the region’s most famous sons. While Antoine Lewis fleshes out Goa’s culinary delights, Frank Simoes pays a tribute to feni, the quintessential spirit of the place. Naresh Fernandes’s obsessive search for the elusive humerus of St Francis Xavier echoes Vivek Menezes’s quest for a painting by F.N. Souza, arguably the greatest painter the state has produced. And various aspects of Goa’s history and society, arts and architecture engage the interest of writers as diverse as William Dalrymple and Graham Greene, Maria Couto and Armando Menezes.

Insightful essays, intense poetry and evocative fiction, as alluring as the place they describe, make Reflected in Water redolent of the very essence of Goa.

Contributors include: William Dalrymple, Richard Lannoy, Graham Greene, Maria Aurora Couto, Margaret Mascarenhas, Gerson da Cunha, Manohar Shetty, Eunice de Souza, Alexander Frater, Adil Jussawala, Armando Menezes, Frank Simoes, David Tomory, Richard F. Burton, Gita Mehta, Ranjit Hoskoté, Mario Cabral e Sa

Published by Penguin Books India
Published: November 2006
Imprint: Penguin
Special Price: Rs 395.00
Cover Price: Rs 395.00
ISBN: 0143100815
Edition: Paperback
Format: Demy
Extent: 312pp
Classification: Anthologies
Rights: World

REVIEW: Guirim boys’ school days

Yesterdays at Monte: Jogging Down Memory Lane
Edward de Lima.
Vikram Publications,
August 2006.
vikkurocks at hotmail.com
Rs 100 pp78.

A book written “almost 43 years after leaving school”. By a retired (and prolific author of self-published books) Dr Lima (b 1946).
He studied at St Anthony’s Guirim from 1953 to 1963. Incidentally, he did his PhD on ‘The Creative and Critical Writings of Armando Menezes’, the Goan poet and teacher. (We both share an interested in collecting books related to Goa! … Dr Lima reading them, and we, well… just collecting them!)

Among the chapters: early years; lunch at school; annual concert; Mocidade Portuguesa; corporal punishments; pranks in and out; school debating society; the Konkani card; brown hair episode; retreats in school; our teachers; and classmates. A nice tribute from an alumni, organisations of which are growing in Goa!

Check the Guirim alumni online [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/montedeguirimschool/] and see the book cover at [http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/301760385/]

REVIEW: Title: Professional’s The Right to Information Act, 2005 (22 of 2005)

Title: Professional’s The Right to Information Act, 2005 (22 of 2005)
Publisher: Professional Book Publishers
Genre(s): Law/Bare Act
Price: Rs 45 Year Of Publication: 2006
Reviewed by FN http://fn.goa-india.org

This 53-page booklet contains the ‘bare act’ of India’s fairly new Right to Information, a law that has evoked a lot of expectations among society here.Besides the six chapters of the RtI Act itself, it also contains relevant excerpts from other laws and rules.

There are the rules on the ‘regulation of fee and costs’ of the RtI act (how much you should pay, the Central Information Commission (Appeal Procedure) Rules on how you need to get redress when the government doesn’t release information, the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha parallel rules on fees and costs, the postal address of the Central Information Commission, an eight-page list of Central public information officers, and a contrast with the colonial-framed Indian Official Secrets Act, 1923.

This reasonably priced book is what you need, if you want the basics about the RtI Act of India. I picked up a copy without hesitation, beause the officially-sold bare act — with no frills — of the law alone in Goa cost Rs 40 just a little while ago! Fortunately, now the selling price of this government publication here has been reduced to a more nominal figure (after citizens raised the issue).

For those wanting a brief introduction to a potentially-useful law, this privately-published booklet is worth a reference or a buy. For those in Goa, you might still get a copy from the Shri Nagesh Book Agency at the Saraswati Mandir Building.

REVIEW: Universal’s Handbook on The Right to Information Act 2005

Title: Universal’s Handbook on The Right to Information Act 2005
Author: P K Das
Publisher: Universal Law Publishing Co
ISBN: 81-7534-476-8
Price: Rs 350
Pages: 460+xvi pp
Genre(s): Law/Bare Acts
Reviewed by: FN http://fn.goa-india.org

Another of those compiliations, on India’s relatively new Right to Information Act, ironically, filling in a gap of not-so-easy-to-access official information on this topic. This is a thicker version of other “bare acts” (as the plain-text of the law is called), and contains a lot of details and parallel laws.

Apart from the Right to Information Act of 2005 itself, it contains laws like the Official Secrets Act of 1923, the Public Records Act of 1993, the Freedom of Information Act of 2002, Supreme Court judgements on the Right to Information, varied State laws (including Goa’s) on the RtI, related rules, and more.

It’s comprehensive, neatly printed, and fairly slickly produced. After a 14-page brief introduction, it goes straight to the laws. A large chunk of the book is devoted to the Supreme Court’s and High Courts’ decisions on the RtI.

One section that strikes you as being particularly useful is the ‘specimen forms for obtaining informations’ (sic).

But overall, this seems a rather lawyer-focussed book… or, at best, one meant at the ‘serious information activist’. If you believe that you need to understand the logic of this law and related laws, then it might be worth an investment. It makes you wonder though why such useful information couldn’t be made available via, say, cyberspace … still an elitist media in a country like India maybe … but at least one that connects a scattered-but-growing number of people across the length and breath of the country (and beyond)!

Officials, government, citizens… and the RTI in Goa

A. Venkataratnam heads Goa’s State Information Commission. Interestingly, he also keeps a blog: [http://goarti.blogspot.com] Check it out. The official right to information site is [http://egov.goa.nic.in/rtipublic/] And a citizens’ initiative is at [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/goarit] Check it out, send in feedback. Interact… if this initiative is to have a chance of working! –FN

---

FN 9822122436 +91-832-240-9490 (phone calls after 1 pm please)

Pakistan looks to free software

Often labelled as a nation of software pirates Pakistan is looking at free software as a way to transform its image and build local skills.

read more | digg story

Making Ubuntu even simpler for newbies

After looking at most GNU/Linux distributions, author and self-confessed computer enthusiast Rickford Grant finally settled on Ubuntu Linux and wrote a book about it. Frederick Noronha spoke to him about Linux, Gnome, Ubuntu, Japan and staying on his bike.

read more | digg story