AND a few stray thoughts for yet another Saturday. For a Saturday following the week when I remembered all the birthdays I had celebrated. I started celebrating my birthday only after coming to Goa. For a Saturday following the week remembering all the doctors in my life to coincide with Doctor’s Day, which was celebrated on July 1. For a Saturday following the week when Doctor’s Day was taken over by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant.

BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION
AND a few stray thoughts on remembering all the birthdays I have celebrated in the last 35 years in Goa. I started celebrating my birthday only after coming to Goa in 1983. In fact, coming from a lower middle class Tamil Brahmin Hindu family, there was no tradition of birthday cakes all through my childhood. Nor did I get any presents on my birthday right up to the time I started working at the age of 21.
I got my first birthday cake even later when I became the editor of my first magazine, “Mirror” — at the age of 27. My staff and colleagues at the “Eve’s Weekly” group, which owned “Mirror,” got a birthday cake and insisted that I should cut. But it is only in Goa that I started celebrating my birthday on a regular basis every year. I did not consider the event as a birthday celebration but a thanksgiving to all the people who had helped me during the previous year.
Initially, my birthdays were simple affairs with about 20 invitees and so and were held in my basement flat at Dona Paula circle in Panjim. Among the regulars in the 90s were the then Customs Commission Daya Shankar, of course my doctor friends who was then Dean of the GMC & Hospital Dr VM Jindal and wife Dr Manju, old friend Dr Sidney and family; there were friends from the hospitality industry not to mention social activist, lawyers, and businessmen.
IN FACT one of my most memorable birthday party was the one before I left for Bengaluru to go to the Mallya Hospital to be detoxed from steroids. I was in such a bad shape that neither me nor all the friends who attended the party, which included former chief justice of the Allahabad High Court, Ferdinho Rebello, thought I would come back alive.
Since I myself did not think I would return alive, I distributed my books and my large collection of over 200 images of Lord Ganesh. Some in ivory, silver, jade and even a gold Ganesh. I came back but none of the furniture, books or Lord Ganesh returned to me. Naturally not, I returned to Goa after four months with my weight which was something like 180-kg now shrunk to 35kg, my Man Friday Ashraf would lift me to make it to the bathroom.
When I started the political weekly `Goan Observer’ in 2003 it became even more essential for me to have my annual thanksgiving birthday party. Perhaps I should also call my parties networking parties. They were grand affairs with several held at the OCoqueiro at Porvorim, when my industrialist friend Anil Counto had bought it. Anil Counto was a very generous host and he charged me only nominal rates for my birthday buffet menu.
Guests looked forward to my parties year after year for the mutton biryani which used to be specially made by my friend and part-time caretakers Ashraf Hassanwale and his wife Nalini Gawas who also used to make some very tasty fish cakes. This I supplemented with snacks and soft drinks which were later organized by my wife and partner Pankajbala Tara Narayan.
Other people collect stamps, coins or antiques. I believe in collecting people. I invited a wide range of people to my birthday parties. There were leaders both from the ruling and opposition parties. Inevitably, the chief minister in power too accepted my invitation and came for my birthday bash; this included former chief minister, Digambar Kamat, on one or two occasions the late Manohar Parrikar when he was the chief minister.
At my birthday party politicians who came could interact with my friends some of whom were keen Goa activists. I recall architect Dean Dcruz, Konkani writers, senior bureaucrats, including the chief secretary, and of course all my doctors. Doctors from various super specialties were always present, ensuring that there would be prompt attention if any of my guests became ill.
My birthday party events peaked when friends of mine decided to organize my 60th birthday party. Anil Counte was the chairman of the committee which comprised leading citizens the late Anand Madgavkar, liquor baron and author Mario Sequeira, Goa’s best cardiac pediatrician Dr Francisco Colaco, Aravind Bhatikar with wife Snehalata, many others.
On my 69th birthday the group of prominent citizens and friends presented me with a purse of Rs15 lakh, contributions from friends and well-wishers like Dattaraj and Shivanand Salgaocar, Nana Bandekar…also several ordinary citizens who contributed loving amounts. The party was at the Cidade de Goa (Heritage now and taken over by the Taj Group) and heavily subsidized by mining and hospitality baron Avdhoot Timblo, chairman of Fomento company.
There was a formal function at the Kala Academy where the Chief Minister Digambar Kamat was the chief guest. My old friends from Bombay Gerson d’Cunha came and so did Ram Punyani who delivered the keynote address. In traditional Goan way both Tara and I got garlanded and presented with shawls. I think at that time Tara also got a 64-piece dinner set which she has lost track of now.
My celebration of birthdays continued till I was 65. Except that on my 65th birthday my gut collapsed and I started having severe loose motion. To make matters worse my dentures fell down and broke. So much so instead of being present at my own birthday party at O’Coqueiro I landed up at the Vintage Hospital under the care if Dr Oscar Rebello. The infection turned out to be more serious and it took me three weeks to recover from it. I have been holding much smaller birthday celebrations in the last few years for a few of my friends.
Last party at home in 2024 there was Dr Ajay Netalkar, neurosurgeon, Bosco George, former SP, and old friends including lawyer Nigel Costa Frias, nutritionist Nina Figieredo, Karen Dias with dad Stephen and my faithful physiotherapist Dr Mrugna Prabhudesai. Thanks to Dr Mrugna that over the year from July 4, 2024 to July 4, 2025 I have learnt to walk and become more independent.
I have no longer the energy or the inclination to celebrate birthdays any longer. In fact I believe that I have over stayed my welcome in life’s journey, I’m increasingly becoming dependent on others for even small things like having hair cut, visits for medical check-ups, etc. One friend who is always there for me through my prolonged life as a patient is James Nunus (Jimmy), who is best friend to several senior including me.
AND a few stray thoughts on all the doctors in my life to coincide with Doctor’s Day, which was celebrated on July 1. Doctors were not part of my life till I got beaten up very badly by hired goons in Goa in 1989 when I was the founder-editor of the English daily “OHeraldo.” The provocation was my forcing the then speaker of the legislative assembly Dayanand Narvekar to resign.
I was rushed to the GMC where I was under the care of Dr NGK Sharma, HOD of Medicine. Unfortunately, in his anxiety to relieve me of the acute pain in was in, Dr NGK Sharma put me on heavy dose of steroids. They proved to be worse then the disease and I suffered and deteriorated for almost five years, before I was more or less “cured” Dr Shrikanta of Mallya Hospital in what was then Bangalore and now Bengaluru.
Strangely, two of the doctors who have attended to me on various occasions during my fight with health issues, Dr Jindal and Dr Edwin have confided in me and claim that in 1989 they had advised Dr NGK Sharma that I did not need steroids after my beating up incident. I live to learn.
Now there’s a new dean at the Goa Medical College and Hospital and I would also like to briefly touch upon my relationship with the successive deans of the GMC here. I first met Dr Vinay Jindal when he had just joined the Neurosurgery department. At that time there was just one small department which Dr Jindal managed for almost ten years. He and his family were residing at the government quarters at St Inez and we became close friends.
Among other deans I hold close to my heart with affection are Dr Reddy who was the dean before Dr Jindal became the dean. Dr Reddy was a very warm-hearted but very strict dean and he was both feared and respected at the GMC hospital. Dr Jindal was very reluctant to take up the post of dean in the beginning. Interestingly, it was senior Rane, then Chief Minister Pratapsingh Rane, who chose Dr Jindal to be the dean of the GMC. I recall after the budget presentation Rane asked me to persuade Dr Jindal to accept the dean’s post. I was present on the day Dr Jindal took charge and presented him with a Lord Ganesh image.
The dean’s office at the GMC is very impressive with its own conference room, along with a large dean’s chamber. It used to have old antique Portuguese furniture. I even remember that at the dean’s office on special occasion some very fine and expensive crockery from Macao was used for the tea service. I do not know whether the antique furniture and fine china crockery are still there. Dr Jindal is a most patient-friendly dean and highly respected by his colleagues. He and his wife have spent several weekends together at each other’s home and we even went on a small river-rafting holiday together. Those were happy occasions.
Regrettably, over the last four to five years and once I crossed into my 70s, I have been in poorer health. It started off with gut problems, then a rectum prolapsed which required surgery and finally the discovery that I had got TB of the spine three years ago. Though it was diagnosed early Dr Ajay Netalakar somehow treatment got delayed by a year, partly due to my own cussedness in thinking it cannot be TB. I have been on TB medication for almost a year-and-a-half now and do not know whether the dosage is low or high or my nutrition intake poor, but the fact remains that nobody confirms that I am finally cured.
I spent almost four months at the GMC’s Geriatrics ward returned home February 2024. I celebrated my last birthday in a wheelchair. I am very grateful to all my doctor friends from Dr Oscar Rebello to Dr Marian Godinho and very much in recent years to Dr Sanat Bhatkar who has been treating my spine badly damaged by the TB bug. I also owe my continuing real recovery to my physiotherapist Dr Mrugna Prabhudesai.
For those suffering from a stroke or any serious medical condition, it is physiotherapy which offers real hope to normalcy.

DOCTOR’S DAY
AND a few stray thoughts on Doctor’s Day being taken over by Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant. Dr Pramod Sawant is an Ayurvedic doctor and he virtually hijacked Doctor’s Day celebration on July 1, 2025. The focus of Doctor’s Day celebrations was the grand felicitation of the chief minister as an Ayurveda doctor. The CM presented himself with a Gomant Ayurveda Vibhushan. Obviously modeled after the national Padma awards.
So the Doctor’s Day celebration converted into celebrating Ayurveda with the CM Pramod Sawant claiming he had secured a lot of funds for the promotion of Ayurveda in Goa. Now Ayurveda has a separate council for itself. While earlier it was clubbed with other alternative systems of medicine.
While no doubt Ayurveda has its merit, it may not be comparable to Allopathy – for one thing surgery is not possible in the alternate systems of medicine. In critical trauma cases and serious ailments we all run to Allopathy. Not to Ayurveda. This said the most outstanding Ayurveda facility in the country is the Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala Ayurveda hospital in Kerala, it is recognized by the World Health Organization. It offers healing to patients at economical package rates and is there is no question of profiteering, because Ayurveda in principle was never meant to be a business proposition.