With sincere
thanks ….
I am Goan
I am Kenyan
I am British
I am Australian
I am a man of
many parts, from many places but right now the whole of me is Australian. Many
events, many people, many, many places, much, much luck, some coincidence, many
surprises … all of these ingredients have fashioned my life. Until the last
sunset arrives, I will be eternally grateful for being blessed with the family
I have had and the life I have led. As the cliché goes, I might have done one
or two things differently, but then again, there really isn’t very much I would
change.
Being born in
Kenya was perhaps the greatest blessing of all. What a country, what flora,
what fauna, what natural beauty and what a diverse, wonderful people. The
spectrum of life is a creation of myriad trillions and more of specks. Each
speck, good, bad, or ugly has its own space in the universe of things but Kenya
will always remain my earth mother and one which I was privileged to have loved
with all my heart. I have lived all my life like a knife through a block of
butter. I have not looked back or laboured on the past but lived in the moment
and relished the coming of the tomorrow. In my rear view mirror there are few
regrets if any. The Kenyan dust runs through my veins and resides in my DNA,
which means my body form will always be Kenyan but, while I have left my heart
in Kenya, my soul belongs to the country of my adoption, Australia.
The Goan in me
will only die with that last sunset. I have lived my life on a line I think I
heard in the movie South Pacific in which a Pacific Islander princess falls in
love with an American and tells him: I will always honour the ways of my father
but I will also respect the ways of the new land I have adopted (something like
that), and as I moved from country that is what I have done: I continue to
honour the land of my father: Goa. And I commit my all to Australia, as I said
many times, this country gets my bones.
I also enjoyed a
brief sojourn we spent in England and will always grateful for the vast amount
of help I received from that country especially in facilitating and hosting the
many study trips I did from Kenya. One year, I was flying for a brief trip to Paris
the next day and I did not have any pages left in my current passport and the
Foreign Office was able to get me a new passport in a few hours. They also set
up meetings with the prevailing Cabinet ministers and back-benchers of interest
as well as arranging visits to various parts of the country, Wales, Scotland,
Ireland and Northern Ireland, and independently many countries in Europe. And,
of course, there were visits to the chairman’s boxes at the various London
soccer clubs. Thanks a million.
In Sydney,
Australia one of the first new friends I made was Richie Gonsalves ex-Karachi.
I met him at a card table and later got to know his wife Dorothy and their sons
pretty well. They introduced me to Ben and Vivien Almeida. The late George and
Cynthia Fernandes joined us and these four families did most going-out things
together. Richie was a very, very funny guy who only drank Black Douglas Scotch
and if you did not pour yourself a decent drink, he complained: don’t dirty my
glass. Ben is a great cook and is renowned for his biriyani. George was our
resident fixer-upper and always willing to lend a hand. It broke all our hearts
when he and Cynthia died quite young. I also hooked up with ex-Kenyans George
and Sheila Pereira and their sons Colin, Clive and Carl. While George was a
quiet achiever, Sheila was always the life of the party, especially with her
Konkani songs. John (late) and Ivy Mascarenhas (ex-Uganda) were first time
acquaintances. John was very dedicated to the local Goan cause. Alban and Laura
Rattos, Richie Rattos, Eddie Rattos (all ex-Uganda) brought a huge range of
interests: fishing, music, cricket, darts and plenty more. Tony and Eleanor
D’Souza (ex-Karachi) were a gift. Eleanor organised the women’s group, which
put on the social events of the Goan Overseas Association during my tenure as
president. In this respect I was also aided by Tony and Gloria Vaz, George and
Dawn Dias, Les and Rineth Scott, Andrew and Claudia (late) Scott, Tony and Phil
Fernandes, Mal and Margaret Ferris who are very special to my family, Cass and
Mona Dias, Harold and Hazel D’Souza,
Paul Francis, Patrick and Elsa Pinto, Mervyn Pinto, Anton “Caramar” Fernandes,
Leo Rocha, Caj and Bernie Miranda, Maggie Soares, Felix and Hazel Nazareth,
Victor and Monica Nazareth, Willie and Betty Fernandes, George and Cynthia
Peres da Costa, Pat (late) and Bertha D’Souza (great supporters of the Goan
Association), Lyle Sandford and his late dad Frank, John Muir (New Zealand)
were some of the people we met in our early years in Sydney. Much later I
hooked up with childhood mate Tony Reg and his wife Rebecca D’Souza and his
brother Loy. Terry (Geeta) also joined our Friday Club.
I will remain
indebted to Denis Muller, once chief sub-editor of the Sydney Morning Herald,
and his family who looked after us when we first arrived in Sydney. Everyone at
the SMH was terrific and I enjoyed my time there as I did at The Australian,
Good Weekend Magazine, St. George and Sutherland Shire Leader and the Caltex
Refinery at Kurnell, which changed to a petrol farm.
I have woken up
each morning and my prayer has been: Thank you, God. Great to be alive, in
Australia. Thank you.
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