George Menezes

Goa has been represented by three cricketers. Dilip Sardesai the tallest not only amongst Goans but cricketers anywhere, P Mambre and now Asnodkar of the Rajasthan Royals.

The first two grew up and flourished in Mumbai’s alluvial cricketing soil. Swapnil Asnodkar made it despite the stench of mediocrity and scandals in the area of sports in the State of Goa.

I have written elsewhere about Swapnil Asnodkar. I am proud of him as I have been of my late friend Dilip.

As I write this I suddenly recall a relative of my wife who played cricket for Gujarat. Walter D’souza never made it to the National team but I do not know of other Goans who have played for their State teams.

I too had a short stint at Cricket before I took to Hockey in big way.
Believe it or not I opened the innings for the Air Force team in the Bombay Senior league. I also kept wickets and have a bent and twisted finger to prove it.

I specially remember a match where we bundled out the Bombay Police team for 99 runs in the first innings. Would have restricted them to fewer than 70 if I had not bungled two stumping chances.

Even today I wake up in the middle of the night shouting “Howzaat !”
The old girl, a gifted umpire, gives me a dirty look and goes to the other room to catch up with her sleep.

All Goans, even those who have never been to Goa and even those who have never tasted feni, have a “latin” temperament that is not comfortable with being civilized on a playing field.

Being able to trip your opponent by putting your best foot forward at the best possible time making him suddenly kiss mother earth with cries of pain is more like us. So are shirt tearing, hair tugging, groin kicking and referee bashing and “ma-ki-dal- ing”

All this latin behaviour is or was “just not cricket” till Harbajan Singh came along. I have a strange suspicion that Harbajan is a Goan.

I have some very close Sardar friends not to mention a lovely Sardarni
girl friend in College. I remembered them when I wrote a centre page piece in the Times of India during the Blue Star Operation when the sanctity of the Golden temple was violated. The piece was called “In Praise of Sardars”

The response was very latin. A Sardar from Ludhiana called the Times of India, got my address, found out I was a Goan and wrote me a letter that took my breath away.
He said he appreciated my courage for writing what I wrote. He had two unmarried daughters. Did I have two unmarried sons looking for tall, healthy, wheat-complexioned, convent bred brides?

So much for Cricket. I only watch the T20-20 when the Rajasthan Royals are playing. Swapnil hitting sixes off a Ntini bruiser or a Murlitharan air dance ball, raising his bat to an absent Goa neta who is busy selling land to builders before Goa becomes landless.

I am proud of all things Goan but most of all Goan achievement in the field of Hockey and Football at the National level. There was a time when we had five Goans in The Indian Hockey Olympic squad.

Those were the days my friends those were heady times as the poet described them when he wrote “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive but to be Goan was very heaven”

Olympian Walter D’souza the Lusitanian full back who roamed around the field as if he owned it daring anyone to go past him. Very few ever did.

Then there were Maxie Vaz, Reggie Rodrigues, John Mascsrenhas, Lawrie Fernandes and Joaquim Carvalho. And the redoubtable goal keeper, Sacru Menezes who played only for the State but whose Olympian courage that tore up his lip, his hot, sweaty Goan gourmet “City Kitchen” and the gift of a daughter Erminda to the National Women’s Hockey team fuelled the pride of Goans all over the world.

There were other women too. Elvira Britto, Lorraine Fernandes, Selma D’Silva and Sybil Miranda. And our cousin Ottilia Mascarenhas a doctor of Sports Medicine who not only captained India but is also a greatly admired International umpire. Some of those listed by me might be Mangloreans, but who cares. Have Indians not shamelessly embraced the likes of Bobby Jindal, Sunita Williams, Mira Nair and Jumpha Lahiri.

As I jog my prosaic, Prozac-denied ageing memory I realise that there are many names I am going to miss but I also realize that there were moments in Indian sports totally dominated by the miniscule community of Goans

Take football. Can we ever forget Neville D’Souza and Brahmanand Sankwalkar who captained India just as Bruno Coutinho and Mauricio Afonso also did.

And of course my dear friend Furtunato Franco who represented the country four times and was denied the Arjuna Award for years and finally got it after the All India Catholic Union honoured him at a public meeting.

In our fascination with team games we tend to give short shrift to people who excel in sports that are singularly and heroically personal.

Take athletes like Eddie Sequeira, Lavy Pinto, Bunny Fernandes and Mary and Stephie D’Souza. They fired the track with their presence.

And some one whose family is still in the news, Vece Paes who played hockey for India and son Leander brought home the Olympic gold medal for tennis.

Finally who would imagine that even in recent times when competition is so hot, Goa has produced swimmers like the Madgavkar sisters. Four of them in one family with Aanika Magkavkar together with Szewinska Gwen D’Mello becoming the first Goans girls to represent India in swimming and diving !

There are others in different disciplines but the arena is much, much larger than my column. I salute them all.

I want to end by “misquoting” from a poem by Leigh Hunt.

Aloysius Benjamin Antao (may his tribe increase!)
awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight of his room,
an angel, writing in a book of gold.
Exceeding Goan peace had made Ben Antao bold,
“What writest thou?” he asked
The vision raised its head, and answered
“The names of those sportspersons who made their country proud “
“And is mine one?” he asked. “Why yes of course”” the angel said
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again, with a great awakening light,
And showed the names of Indian sports persons whom God had blest,
And lo! Ben Antao’s name led all the rest.