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VISITING ANCESTRAL HOMES OF GOA! By Rajan Narayan
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VISITING ANCESTRAL HOMES OF GOA! By Rajan Narayan

June 13- June 19, 2026, Stray Thoughts June 12, 2026 , by

HEART OF GOA: The ancestral home Goa’s famous cardiologist Dr Francisco Colaco, next to the Holy Spirit Church, Margao.

AND a few stray thoughts for yet another Saturday. For a Saturday following the week when on when I recalled all the ancestral homes I have had the privilege of visiting over 43 years of living and working in Goa. For a Saturday following the week when the tragic death of 22-years-old Samuel Braganza, the young man who was caught on camera disposing off garbage at a public place in Mapusa. For a Saturday following the week when the first ever awards ceremony of the Goa Union of Journalists held on Tuesday, June 9, 2026. For a Saturday following the week when the continued deadlock on the NEET re-exam and the glitches to do with the online marking of the CBSC exams.
AND a few stray thoughts on when I recalled all the ancestral homes I have had the privilege of visiting over 43 years of living and working in Goa. Almost the first of these was the home of the Joquaim Gracias family, located in a lane just adjacent to the church in Loutalim. I was taken there by Father Oscar Quadros, who was related to the family. Indeed, I still recall the rare privilege of being invited to the traditional Christmas day family lunch.
My strongest memory is of all the home-made wines and pickles that the grandmother of the house, who was in her late sixties, had put out on the dining table. Traditionally, in Goan homes it is pork and not turkey that is the highlight of a Christmas lunch. Wealthy families will have a suckling pig. Goan extended families are very large and inevitably have old large sturdy dining tables where over a dozen can be easily accommodated.
I have been invited to visit private homes maintained by the family and this is distinctive from famous homes, like that of Dona Figuerido’s Menezes Braganza House. I recall visiting the ancestral home of Justice Ferdino Rebello in Cuncolin way back in the 1980s, when he was a busy lawyer. If I recollect correctly the home of his wife Delfine is also a few buildings away in Cuncolin. It’s a case of “meri samne ni wali kidki” romance. Then I was invited to the residence of now senior advocate Cleofat Coutinho for Christmas dinner in Velim down south Goa. We made the excursion for several years to the ancestral house which had only more recently opened up during the festive season.
Of course, Fontainhas where I worked for years and which is now the heritage precinct of Latin Quarters in Panjim, has always been a happy hunting ground for me over the years. For some reason many of the homes in Fontainhas belonged to doctors and I have always been welcomed at their residence of Dr Leslie Saldanha, a very colouful figure who could sing romantic Hindi songs. Then there is Dr Hugh Menezes who used to be the favorite doctor of all the 5-star hotels in Goa. Dr Sushila Fonseca still runs her pathological lab from her husband’s ancestral home in Fontainhas. There is also the home of historian Perceival Noronha who I like to remember as the astronomer who set up the telescope on top of Junta House on 18, June Road.
In the early years I have had lunch on Ganesh Chaturthi at the Mamai Kamat House in the heart of Panjim. One Tulsi Vivah occasion we visited the ancestral house of industrialist Anil Khaunte in Savoi Verem. We have been countless times to the home of cardiologist Dr Francisco in Margao. Amongst the best examples of lovingly restored and ancestral homes is the house of the late Dr Sudhir Kakar in Benaulim. When he purchased it he asked one of Goa’s best restoration architects Dean d’Cruz of Mosaic to restore it. And now we have a standing invitation to visit the 400-year-old home of pharma scientist Nitin Borkar (son of freedom fighter and journalist Lakshmikant Borkar) in Bori, a village near Ponda.
Bori is also the home of several cardiologists of Goa, including Dr Shirish Borkar who is senior cardiac surgeon of the Goa Medical College & Hospital. In fact, the top doctors of the thoracic cardiac department of the GMC, including Dr Guruprasad Naik and the late Dr Manjunath Desai are from in and around Bori.

TRAGIC DEATH OF SAMUEL
AND a few stray thoughts on when the tragic death of 22-years-old Samuel Braganza, the young man who was caught on camera disposing off garbage at a public place in Mapusa. To be fair, we must note that the person who made the U-tube video had warned him to remove the garbage and that he was being filmed. But Braganza ignored him and the warning and continued to dump garbage at the site. The U-tube video went viral. In an extraordinary display of civic mindedness or was it something else, the Mapusa police registered a first information report against Braganza.
 When the young man went to the police station to get details of the FIR, he was allegedly detained and subjected to third degree. The story put out by the police is that unable to bear the humiliation of being named and shamed Samuel Braganza shot himself. The police have still not explained where he got the gun and how he shot himself. The postmortem report revealed a lot of injuries unconnected with the gun shot.
Following a public outcry over the incident Goa Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant has been forced to order an enquiry into abuse in police custody. The Aldona MLA Carlos Alvares calims that the FIR is not sustainable. It seems improbably that Samuel Braganza shot himself due to the humiliation of being exposed as a litter bug. If this were true half the populaton of Goa would have to commit suicide.
The larger issue is where do people throw garbage. A long, long time ago there were huge dustbins at every street corner in Goa but these were removed. Most villages and even cities do not have a door-to-door garbage collection network like the Corporation of the City of Panaji put into place years ago. It may be relevant to mention that the door-to-door collection of dry and wet garbage in black and green dustbins in Panjim was initiated by Sanjit Rodrigues, who was appointed as the first commissioner of the Corporation of the City of Panaji. I was among the first residents of Panjim or Panaji to purchase the large and small black and green bins being distributed for segregation of dry and wet garbage and this was meticulously picked daily at the gates where I was living at that time.

GOA UNION OF JOURNALISTS AWARDS
AND a few stray thoughts on when the first ever awards ceremony of the Goa Union of Journalists held on Tuesday, June 9, 2026. This is the first time GUJ announced its awards which are distinct from the awards announced by the government of Goa on the recommendation of GUJ.
Apparently, GUJ had decided to institute award three years ago but the scheme was delayed. So much so the awards for the last three years were announced in the last week of May this year. Since the GUJ has journalists from all media organization as members I presume awards have to be spread across, and not limited to anyone media organization. In any case GUJ awards covered a wider canvas with awards for mofussil correspondents and for design and layout, besides awards for electronic journalists.
The TOI gang as usual got the bulk of the awards, a total of 15 awards. Besides Gauri Malkenekar and Marcus Mergulho who inevitably get many of the awards as they are amongst the best journalists in Goa, this time Sharmila Coutinho, the designer of Goa Times of India also got an award, along with an award for the mofussil correspondent. The Navhind Times actually got as many as five awards including an award for its photographer Atish Naik. The young photographer recently exposed the cracks in the retaining wall of the Campal promenade. Other media organizations The Goan and the OHeraldo and of course the Marathi papers got their share of awards. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant took the opportunity to make some cracks at journalists, taking off from the comments of Chief Justice Suryakant who called media persons cockroaches. Pramod Sawant claimed that some reporters surfaced only during elections.
The BJP is understandably agitated over the success of the Cockroach National Party which had a show of strength at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, recently. Pramod Sawant does not much care for a free press as is the case with all the other politicians. Unfortunately for him the Goan media still has a lot of spine. As for instance, Gauri Malkernekar’s report on how the chief minister’s grievances portal, which was supposed to address citizens grievances, is virtually non-functional.

NEET RE-EXAMS
AND a few stray thoughts on when the continued deadlock on the NEET re-exam and the glitches to do with the online marking of the CBSC exams. The re-exam of the NEET medical entrance tests is scheduled for next weekend that is Sunday, June 21. In the run up to the re-exams involving over 20 lakh students all the concerned people have been quarantined – the paper setters, the experts and the officials have been locked up in a secret destination. The papers are also being printed under heavy security.
But eventually the exam papers have to be sent to the over a hundred examination centers. They will be handled by several supervisors and after the exams ae over they will be sent to thousands of people who will correct them. Clearly, the system is not sustainable. Unlike NEET, the exams for engineering colleges are de-centralized. There is no one common exam for medical colleges all over the country. There cannot be one size fits all in a country as large as India.
Particularly, in an area like admission to medical colleges, where the demand for medical seats is a hundred times the availability of seats. Given how profitably medical degrees are there will always be people willing to offer huge bribes to everyone down the line, not just the coaching classes but private doctors of private hospitals who want their sons and daughters to take over, and are able and willing to pay in crores. As the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Vijay has pointed out, medical admissions should be de-centralized. It should be based on the 12th standard results. The present system is cruelty to students as immediately after the high pressure of 12th standard exams they have to appear for NEET to get into medical colleges.

SECRETARIES ARE CRUCIAL
AND a last stray thought on the crucial role secretaries play in the life of the top most executives. Historically of course the post of confidential secretary has been the domain of the Goan Catholic. The classic Sandra of Bandra. It is the secretaries who control access to the big boss. It is they who control and organize appointments and schedules and they are almost like surrogate wives.
I know the importance of secretaries since I have had them since I was 27 years and took over as the editor of Mirror in Bombay. I remember all my secretaries with gratitude. The first among them was Mariola at the Onlooker whom I took along to Mirror and the Imprint. In Goa my secretaries included Lisette who now works for the EDC, Melanie who went on to become the news editor of the Gomantak Times, Joyce from Navelim who is in the UK, Sally who went on to become the secretary of the general manager of the Taj Exotica, and of course Heena who has been with us for the past decade or more. Thank-you, all!

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