Village portraits, mostly expat achievers

So glad that this book’s author’s granddaughter (Giselle Lobo) gave me one of the few copies left, and also allowed it to be reproduced for the reader one-and-a-half generation after it was written.

The copy I have is falling to pieces. Literally. But in the meanwhile, we hope to have an ecopy of the same out soon.

Floreat Saligao (which means May Saligao Flourish, the author tells us) is a book of “profiles of eminent people of Saligao” by C. Hubert de Souza. I didn’t have the pleasure of meeting Mr de Souza, but knew his late son (the popular and articular speaker/preacher/priest) Fr Desmond de Souza (CSsR) and other members of his family, including Giselle. She has resettled back in the village and is doing a great job with educating children with special needs here and elsewhere.

But I remember, as a seven year old, our teacher Ida (in Standard II) introducing to us the green-and-black mastheaded Saligao Bulletin which Mr de Souza edited and published, and which was sold at a princely price of 15 paise then (I think).

Villages like Saligao have had a large number of expats leaving it shores. (Former Goa chief minister on four — if I recall right — mostly brief occasions Dr Wilfred de Souza, being one of them, and was born in Uganda where his father was a doctor) would point to the main plush expat homes in the village with some pride.) That brought in the affluence. It also unfortunately meant that many expats, on returning back, might have found themselves strangers in their own land….

This slender book features achievers from the world of administrators, the world of religion (“remarkable prelates”), medicine (“distinguished doctors”), engineering, education, business, music and art, the military, and “miscellaneous personalities”.