Prutha Goa

Samir Nazareth treats us to his personal brand of humour as he takes us along for the ride through his travelogue, journeying across various states of India. In conversation with Aniruddha Sengupta at the Literati Bookshop, Calangute, he revealed the inspiration behind his decision to traverse the Indian coastline from Gujarat to Sikkim and pen down his experiences in 1400 Bananas, 76 Towns and 1 Million People . The book explores people, how perspectives change when we witness alternative cultures first-hand and history and its implications in the present times. Sloughing off the responsibilities of a regular pencil pusher, Samir decided to take off on what he believed would be a redeeming experience and enable him to live out a dream that had enthralled him since his days as a postgraduate student. Back then it was a dream to escape his scholastic endeavours, but the lack of a bank balance did much to dampen his enthusiasm. In his mature years, the impetus was transmuted into the des

Dr Themistocles D’Silva has a long list of credentials. An alumnus of St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, Dr D’Silva has a doctorate in organic chemistry and has worked as a research scientist in the United States. There are 70 American patents and numerous scientific publications that stand as evidence to his academic prowess. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Dr D’Silva, has written about the Bhopal Gas Tragedy and given objective insight into it by disclosing little known facts about the actual cause of the gas leak. The book is called The Black Box of Bhopal: A Closer Look at the World's Deadliest Industrial Disaster . His recently released book Unravelling History , is a revised edition of a previously written book Beyond the Beach: The Village of Arossim, Goa, in Historical Perspective . Environment Minister Alina Saldanha went on to praise Dr D’Silva for the vital role he played during the Anti Meta Strips agitation by supplying information about the deleterious effects o

Soaring Spirit is Valmiki Faleiro’s second individual venture in writing a book. His collaborative works have been many. One of them is In Black and White . Here he contributed two stories to a collection of insider experiences penned by various other journalists. But his much praised pièce de résistance remains Patriotism in Action , the first book authored by him. A well-known former working journalist, Valmiki Faleiro was employed by the defunct West Coast Times and was the Goa correspondent for national newspapers such as the Indian Express . He has contributed as a freelance journalist to The Navhind Times , Goa Today and other publications too. Feeling disillusioned by prevailing conditions in the field of journalism, he started a successful business of real estate, and from 1985 to 1987 was the municipal president of Margão. He returned to writing in 2005, with his Sunday column 'All n Sundry' in   oHeraldo . In 2009, he decided to take up full-time writing. To unde

Peregrinação is a Portuguese literary work that was a bestseller in its time and its popularity has not waned even in the 21st century, given the number of languages into which the work has been translated. The book contains the memoirs of Fernão Mendes Pinto, expounding the details of his travels and consequently his life. Originally translated as Pilgrimage, the latest English translation is titled Peregrination , which has been deemed to be much more appropriate to the subject matter presented. Fernão Mendes Pinto was born in Montemor-o-Velho, Portugal in either 1509 or 1510. He went from being a servant boy to being captured by pirates as a ship boy. He later left Portugal to join the Portuguese India Armadas, but not before serving under Francisco de Faria, a knight of Santiago and Jorge de Lencastre, a master of the Order of Santiago. He undertook numerous voyages: through the region of the Red Sea, from the coast of Africa to the Persian Gulf and from India he travelled to Siam

Damodar Mauzo is a name well known to connoisseurs of good literature. A Konkani novelist and short story writer, he has won fame in the world of English literature too; having had his short stories and novels translated into English and his short stories  Teresa’s Man and These are my Children  included in Goa University’s syllabus for the BA course in English Literature. He has earned countless awards for his work, which include the Sahitya Akademi Award (1983) for his novel Karmelin and the Vimla V Pai Vishwa Konkani Puraskar (2011) for Tsunami Simon . A childhood attachment to books that grew from the age of ten, serves as the foundation of Mr Damodar Mauzo’s skilled authorship. He confesses his earliest choices, for lack of guidance, were not desirable in the sense of literary value. As time passed, however, he came upon writers who would shape his intellect and understanding, and enhance his skill as a litterateur. Sane Guruji, Sharadchandra Chatterjee, Premchand and others of

On rare occasions you chance upon a personality who has the resilience and tenacity to make such a startling impact on you that you are forced to rethink your priorities and curb those pity parties you indulge in. Frederika Menezes is one such person. She amazes and stupefies you with her positivity in the face of what others would consider an incapacitating physical disability. Frederika has cerebral palsy, and remains in a wheelchair for the most part but her mind is razor sharp. Her parents, Angela and Jose are retired GPs and dote on Frederika. In some families this condition may have been deemed burdensome but it was not so for Frederika. She asserts she was not treated as a person with a disability as a child. She says, ‘I wasn't aware of what I could do or be so I just enjoyed the attention. To be honest, I was never treated different. Not really.’ Her alma mater is People’s High School, Panaji. She stresses the fact she attended regular school as there is also the School fo

Social activism and speaking out for the voiceless runs prominently in her family, so it is not surprising that Ratna Vira would follow along those very same lines. The beginnings of the blueprint for her novel seem to have been drawn up in her childhood. Ratna Vira is the daughter of journalist Nalini Singh, who is best known for her programme 'Aankhon Dekhi'; she is the niece of Arun Shourie, one of India’s most renowned journalists; and the granddaughter of Hari Dev Shourie, well-known for his consumer activism. Ergo,  Daughter by Court Order , published by Fingerprint, is a novel that attacks the hypocritical idea of family izzat (honour) that runs rampant in our country, talks about mother-daughter relations and stresses on the question of identity. Ms. Vira describes herself as, ‘…a soft spoken and enigmatic woman with many facets. A contemporary woman who juggles a successful corporate career with her writing and love of art; weaves stories with her words and her paint