After a long day teaching at St.
Lawrence Agacaim, when mama returned home at lunchtime she used to tell me
anecdotes of her life at school. Though a little boy at Don Bosco’s then, I
remember her telling me of a colleague called Alina who was much admired and
resented at the same time. Resented for her innovative teaching methods that
often strained the old school staff to keep up.
And yet much more admired for her dedication and selfless effort to make
things happen. Be it in the subjects that she taught or the extra-curricular
activities that she guided, there was always a spark towards guiding the simple
students of that school to something far above the ordinary.
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I remember being very delighted
when this Alina Sousa whom I had not yet met, married Matanhy Saldanha who
taught the senior section in my school. For the few years that I was at Don
Bosco, Matanhy was perceived as a very stern teacher. Most of us little boys
scurried for cover when the tall bearded figure strode quickly and purposefully
towards his classroom. When I left Don
Bosco I had hardly interacted with Matanhy except for one or two odd biology
lectures.
With Alina however it was quite a
different story. My mother and she got along very well. I had a talent for
oration and I used to participate in every available competition in school and
outside. Very often these elocution competitions or debates were on current
topics. One very popular topic those days was ‘The Konkan railway, a boon or a
bane’. Most of my speeches came from Alina. Every year she would help out with
a new topic. I won many competitions in those years but what mattered more was
the wisdom I picked up as I delivered these orations. A young boy got a taste
of the despair of a few enlighted Goans as they struggled to educate a sleeping
Goa to the dangers that were creeping into our homeland. It left a very deep
impression on me and even today I feel very strongly for causes related to the
conservation of all things Goan.
This was the time when the
tiatrists skipped their regular ‘bakaar-mundkaar’ scripts and spoke about
stopping the sale of our lands to outsiders. Remo Fernandes sangs songs warning
of the rape of Goa. On the streets, practically calling “Aux barricades” were
Matanhy , Alina and the activists of those days. Protests were held all over
Goa. Matanhy was the voice but Alina was always at his side. She walked with
him as he led morchas, she courted arrest with him, endured police beatings and
suffered many indignities for the sake of Goa and the Goan. Between the tiring
job of a teacher giving more than 100% and an activist shuttling across Goa,
she still managed to be a beloved wife. It is difficult to imagine one of that
couple without the other. While most politicians have wives who base their
existence either on spending their husbands ‘earnings’ or furthering their
husbands political rise, here was a woman who was partnering with her husband,
fiercely fighting together with him for the ramponkars, for the environment and
for related burning issues.
When I did meet her I was in awe
at the delicate, graceful, queenly figure always fashionably dressed. I should
have known that the stateliness of the tigress only compliments her ferocity.
Both Alina and Matanhy have since
been guests at most of our family functions. In fact when I met them last at my
nephews Christening in October 2010, I was pleasantly surprised by Matanhys
eagerness to work with young people like me based outside Goa. In the
subsequent months, he went further to share some of his views and
communications with us on e-mail, some of which we managed to publish in the
Global Goan newsletters that I work on with Rene baretto, another son of
Cansaulim.
Today when the gods have decreed
that Matanhy was needed elsewhere it would have seemed the end of a legacy for
all who did not know this couple. To those who knew them there was not a shred
of doubt that Alina would be now the voice of the same causes they supported,
just as much as the left hand takes over when the right is unavailable though
they have always existed together.
Alina is now the Cortalim MLA but
she does not pick up the banner that Matanhy carried………she was carrying it
together with him all along.
