Kudos to Eduardo Faleiro, Ex-MLA, Ex-MP of South Goa Constituency and former Union Minister at the Centre, during Congress Government, for his brilliant, informative and educative article “Raia, my village” on Herald, dated January 14, 2020. Eduardo Faleiro an advocate by profession, is by far, one of the most accomplished politicians, not only of Raia but of State of Goa. Indeed he makes Raia very proud. As one of its distinguished sons of the soil, he rose to ranks of Union Minister at the Centre.
Coming to his article “Raia, my village”, there’s so much to learn from it, about important historical facts and statistics especially about the birth, growth, organisation and administration of an important institution like Goa’s Comunidades.
Being from Raia what captivated my attention, was how the name of village Raia evolved over the years and the reason behind “Wagh” or tiger being associated with Raia. Incidentally many villages in South Goa have animal names associated to them like Margao Undir/rat, Curtorim Sunnem/dog, Loutolim has Bockdo/goat and so on.
However, calling Raikars as Waghs gave them an added psychological advantage whenever they participated in inter-village sports and games and socio-cultural events. The common but powerful slogan in Konkani “Sambau! Waga morien kuenaka” (beware! you are up against the tiger), naturally, was a winning slogan.
I would like to share some of my own inputs on couple of points. Firstly, about Primary Schools in Raia. He mentioned that during his school days there was only one primary school. In fact there were two primary schools one “Escola Primária de Raia” near the Church run in a government building, and another “Escola Primária de Santemol” opened later in a 4/5-room private building taken on lease by the Portuguese government and run in two shifts, that catered students not only of Raia but students from the village of Rachol and Ilha de Rachol. I passed my Class IV through this school in 1957. Incidentally Class IV being last academic year of the school, the final examination used to be held in one of the Margao schools, conducted by the Directorate of Education.
The second issue on which I wish to add my input is regarding medical practitioners that attended patients in the pre-liberation era. As far as my memory goes there were four of them, all from Raia and qualified from Escola Médica de Goa. Dr João Souza, Dr Caetano Fernandes, Dr Eloy Figueiredo and just before Liberation of Goa a fourth doctor Fernando Menezes started the medical practice. However, sadly the first two doctors Dr João Souza having smart and elegant personality, had to wind up his medical practice due to some legal tangle with the medical authorities. Dr Caetano, known popularly as doctor with a big NSU motorbike, too had fewer years of practice as he passed away of cardiac arrest. That left only Dr Figueiredo a gentle and soft spoken person attending patients. He examined patients and dispensed medicine in his own clinic “Butica”.
Finally he was joined by a young and adventurous doctor, who made himself available at any time. He went around on his German motorbike BMW, a rare and unique possession. Both Dr Eloy and Dr Fernando had had long years of medical practice.
