The tales of an interesting yet tumultuous era

From making new friends to watching movies

at the church to tiatrs in the village and meeting with freedom fighters, the novel by Colva-based Lamberto Almeida, 'The Last Mile

of Braganza Reign' is a rollercoaster ride of emotions on a page.

The historical fiction is set in the 1950s and follows the friendship of 15-year old Bruno, a studious disciplined kid and 17-year old Caetano, a kind at heart but restless boy who meet at classmates. Both sons of seafarers, Caetano drags the naïve Bruno into messy encounters of his freedom fighter uncle Stalin. This leads Bruno’s father to send him to Belgaum for his studies with the hope of finding an alluring job in Africa later on. However, with the consular, trade and travel blockade of Goa, the people have to face

extreme hardship.

Originally from Banda, Assolna, Lamberto has been working for over three years on the book. He calls writing and playing music as the two passions in his life. "I consider myself more of an accidental writer, though I had an inclination to pen down my thoughts as early as my school days. I was also a slow and steady reader, though not a voracious one. I was overjoyed when my father brought me a trunkful of books, novels of all kinds that he had collected from a BI passenger ship, during his voyage. My maiden attempt at fiction writing was a short story that Lambert Mascarenhas helped me publish in 1973 in Goa Today, a magazine he co-founded with Dantas," says Lamberto, who went on to work in Mumbai and then the Gulf till 2005.

In the novel, though Caetano is 17 yesrs old, he is still in school, which shows the difference in the educational system in the olden days. "Marticulation was then equivalent to SSCE which was under Bombay University. Till 1962, it was till Class 7. In 1963, it changed and Class 10 and 11 were recognised as Marticulation because we were affiliated to Pune School Board. When we consider Class 4, it means they were in Class 8 in school prior to the Pune Board, explains Lamberto.

The characters and the stories of this novel are loosely based on author’s childhood experiences, and stories of elders. “Characters and scenes are interpolated. I put it on a character in the book.

There is a little bit of me in both, Caetano and Bruno. These are tales from my childhood, which nobody will know. Bruno's mother, Ana is the story of my mother and grandmother,” he explains.

He further adds, “I remember what happened in my childhood, the movie I saw at the church and how couple of soldiers used to come in a jeep, and they used to put the tripod and they show the film on the wall. These little incidents are incorporated in the story. In our village, there is a ground by the Cross and during the rains, all the fields get flooded, so boys used to play either near the church, or wherever playing space was available. Overall, I feel the novel is a bit allegorical."

To write a historical fiction, one has to still get their facts right with creative liberty. "I did a lot of research as to write a historical fictional. You need to go through the places, know the people and get some information. I have even mentioned the kind of equipment that was used like Petromax, which were used for weddings and movies. It was a powerful lamp, which was very common, even during the 1960s. We had no electricity then, which came only in the 1970s, to the houses. Except maybe four cities of Goa, the entire rural area was left in the dark of the night," says Lambert.

Recently, there has been more fictional writing about life during the Portuguese era. Lamberto says, “I have done it in a subtle way. For modern writing, you cannot just prolong and lengthen it. Readers get bored so you have

to keep the flow, don't be over descriptive, especially narrative of a scene. That journey by train, that is my own journey. My father and I used to travel during the Portuguese time on that route to Belgaum”.

The book, ‘The Last Mile of Braganza Reign’ will have a sequel as the boys will now continue their adventure across the border during the Blockade. “In those days, nobody could travel once the Blockade was enforced. There were so many incidents that took place. People used to get robbed on the way across the state. Readers will come to know in the second part what happens,” promises Lamberto.

The book, ‘The Last Mile of Braganza Reign’ is currently available at Confidant Bookshop in Margao and online.