Born and brought up in Sanquelim, Goa with primary schooling at Virdi village school, Santosh Sawal, 56, is now the vice president at the Sharayu Toyota, Goa. His job is tough as he has to make his customers happy. The stress is released when he enjoys the melodious gazals of Pankas Udhas and Marathi songs of Bicholim’s Ajit Kadkade while driving about 35 kilometres back home from Courtalim. His passion, taking family out on long drives.
Basically he wants his son and daughter to know about the various temples in and around Goa and during weekends he takes them out on a long drive. He fondly recalls that this May, he went on a trip to cover a group of ‘Ashta Vinayak Mandir’ (a conglomeration of eight temples situated mostly around Pune in Maharashtra). “I took the challenge to cover all the temples at one go in one day. However, I managed to drive 450 kilometres and could see six out of the eight temples. A feat not accomplished but the satisfaction was immense. It was like religious tourism for all of us in the family,” said Mr Sawal.
When quizzed about what books he likes to read he narrated a story in which as a child he met with a serious injury in his right eye and he till date, avoids long reading spells. However, as a typical Goan, he cannot survive without his fish curry rice. “I do have problems when I travel to Pune. The cuisine there is mostly vegetarian and I really miss my fish curry rice there,” he added.
He suddenly shows signs of excitement when asked about his school days. “Those were the best days of my life. My friend (Dr Shekhar Salkar) and I were back-benchers and we did things you cannot imagine. However, I was good at mathematics and he was good at biology. Hence, I graduated from Goa Engineering College while he became a doctor,” said Mr Sawal.
Going further down the memory lane, he narrates that his first major achievement in life was that he mastered driving big trucks at the age of 12 as his father owned two trucks. “At the age of about 15 years I started driving loaded trucks too,” he confessed.
A past President of Rotary, Bicholim and now its active member, he spends his free time in actively involving himself in the various social work which the club undertakes. He also helps organise meetings of the members and their family members.
After passing out his engineering, Mr Sawal joined a ship repair company in Vasco (now closed). He later joined the Suwarna Bandekar group and then finally Toyota in 2001 and wishes to retire from here, which he calls a very standardised and organised company.
