A Line for Alina

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.

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.