Prutha Goa

Shirley Louise Gonsalves’ book The Luso-Indian Stethoscope delves into the history of having Luso-Indians, mainly Christians, play a prominent role as medical professionals in the 19th century in India. The non-fiction book is an academic read, and rightly enough, since the research undertaken for the tome was part of the author’s study as a postgraduate student at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Dept of History, University of London. Shirley Gonsalves provides an understanding of how terms such as race, caste, religion, etc may have held different meanings at various points of time and the effect these differences had on the willingness of people to identify themselves or not with a particular identity group. Broadly categorised, Luso-Indians were indigenous people from the Konkan region whose ancestors had been ruled by the Portuguese and converted to Catholicism. The book talks about clearer definitions for terms such as caste, race, religion, and so on being introduced

Edwin Fernandes strikes one as an eager storyteller, who has perhaps not had his literary talent tapped to its utmost owing to the fact that he had not the time to devote to it exclusively. This ‘accidental’ banker, who held journalistic aspirations as a school boy, would follow the conventional path of a profession safer than the whimsical world of literature and climb his way up the career rungs to become a general manager at IDBI. However, his writing continued to some extent unabated, having the honour of his writings appearing in publications such as Mid-Day , The Teenager , The Statesman (Kolkata) and so on. He even edited the IDBI house journal for over a decade. His first book was Patna Ponderings , a compilation of essays written during his posting in Patna. From there Edwin ventured into the world of blogging where he achieved considerable success, being listed as one of Sulekha.com’s top ten bloggers. Beyond Bandra , the author’s latest offering, is a collection of blog wri

Yesterday in Paradise , published by Goa, 1556, brings us the memoirs of Cyprian Fernandes, a journalist of note who is of Goan origin. The book opens to us the world that Cyprian was witness to from 1950 to 1974 in Kenya. He was born in Nairobi in 1943 into a family that was far from being an ideal one. This novel gives rich insight into the cultural attributes of the Goan diaspora in East Africa, and Kenya in particular. The political history of Kenya as retold by Cyprian Fernandes is gripping and extremely informative. Cyprian Fernandes is an anomaly in that his professional career began on the premise of a lie, but it was completely justified by proven merit. A graduate of the school of hard knocks, Cyprian, although a bright student with immense potential, left school at thirteen after a row with Fr Hannan, the headmaster. Ensuing a trail of jobs (once as a probation officer), Cyprian landed his first job as a reporter with the Nation at the age of sixteen. Gumption and his skill

Reading Shorty Gomes: Vintage Crime Stories immediately transported me to a black and white TV era, where detectives were gritty and unafraid of gore. He is quite unalike Christie’s Poirot and, as his creator Ahmed Bunglowala will attest, ‘I perceive the British school of crime writing as too passive and plot-heavy. I write in the American school of hardboiled fiction, made famous by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.’ Bunglowala recommends the reading of Chandler’s essay, "The Simple Art of Murder", to connoisseurs of the crime genre. The stories in the book consist of three long-short stories that appeared previously as The Days and Nights of Shorty Gomes , published by Rupa &Co, whereas the fourth short story, 'Nagpada Blues', was published by HarperCollins India in the crime anthology Mumbai Noir in 2012. The stories, titled 'The Dark Side of Diamonds', 'The House on St Peter’s Street', 'Long Shadows of the North', and 'Nagpad