A mando for your nostalgia

Ben Antao

Last June, my brother Belarmino had sent me a CD entittled So Nos, a collection of Portuguese and Konkani songs arranged and performed by a musical family of Margao. The singers are Miguel Cotta, his wife Lisette de Miranda e Cotta, their daughter Chantale Marie Cotta and son Franz Schubert Cotta. I picked up the CD from a priest, Fr. Caladancio Mazarello of Velim, who had come to Toronto to visit his brother.

As soon as I came home that morning, I played the CD. Most of the songs I had heard before, including Encosta tua cabecinha, Nao se va, dulpods and deknni.

But there was one mando that I didn’t remember having heard before. I was so enchanted by the music, especially by the Margao accent of Konkani, that I called my brother in Margao to thank him for the gift. He told me that Miguel Cotta was his assistant at the Hospicio hospital, whence my brother had retired in 1990 as its administrator.

I have been playing that CD at least once a week, usually when my Canadian wife has to stay late at school for meetings, and when I make myself a curry of sardines and rice. For some reason, the importation of Portuguese sardines in Toronto has been stalled or irregular during the past year, rendering me starved for pellve for some time.

Then last month my brother-in-law Corrado told me he had found a seafood depot, about 40km northwest of my place, where fresh sardines were available. Corrado and his wife MaryAnn, who had been to southern Portugal last spring, had enjoyed grilled sardines in Albufeira where they had stayed. They told me there is a place there named after Antao and encouraged me to visit. I am looking forward to it as soon as my wife retires in a couple of years.

I immediately went with Corrado and bought a dozen sardines, a few frozen fillets of whiting, (merluzzo in Italian) and a bag of frozen shrimps (peeled and deveined). Then yesterday, since I’d already finished the seafood, I went to the depot again by myself and bought some more of the same seafood.

Today, knowing that my wife had a dinner engagement after school, I got a chance to cook my curry of sardines and rice, while the CD was playing in the other room and I was sipping on a glass of French red wine. After the second glass, I thought I should send the mando to the Goan
Forum.

About ten years ago, my niece Beryl Antao, who is a doctor, got married in Panjim to another doctor. When I called Margao after I received some wedding pictures and enquired if Konkani mandos were played at weddings in the wee hours of the morning as I had known them before Liberation, my sister-in-law Blasia told me that they didn’t do that any more. That was a pity, I thought, but I didn’t say that to her.

I have since had occasion to reflect on the mando at some length. And I now understand why the Goan love song might be shunned at weddings. Perhaps it has to do with the themes of most mandos -- they’re nostalgic in tone and substance. The following mando is an example of what I mean.

Please feel free to debate my point, criticize my translation and improve upon it. Let’s discuss Goan culture and literature for a change. Perhaps Jorge Abreu de Noronha of Lisbon might like to add his commentary.

The mando follows:

Bolkanvacheri re boisotam
Amchea cantaram ugotam
Dukanchi sorri korun rodtam
Keddom etokai chintitam

Sitting in the verandah
Awakening to our song
Weeping a stream of tears
Thinking when you’ll arrive

Chorus: Axenu rabotam
Kedon amguer etol-to sang-antam

Chorus: Waiting with longing
Tell me when you’ll come to me

Etea intruzachea dissant
Kitem sanguilolem tuvem maca
Bhetton corun ailem maca
Muzo ulas re asrum tuca.


In the coming carnaval days
You had said to me
It comes to me like a tryst;
I leave my sighs with you

Ben Antao
November 28, 2001

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