‘No one could understand my father. This village, these fields, this land of his forefathers, my father loved with a passion that was remarkable. His world lay on the ground, on the grey soil that gave us our daily bread. The fields from the time the seeds were sown up to the harvest time were to him like a symphony changing its rhythm with every beat, manifesting a gamut of emotions that God alone could create and only those creatures that loved his creation could feel and understand.
The soil was in his blood. It held for him an eternal mystery as close as a woman’s womb, and he watched in delight the seed burst and shoot up blades which, in due course, spread out narrow stems, proudly displaying their abundance of rice grains. Not for him the ethereal regions but the earth, the solid ground and the trees, the trunks of which he would often touch caressingly as if they were human beings, a part of him.’
From Chapter 12
‘The war had also completely paralysed commerce in Goa and many deaths due to starvation were reported in Sanquelim and other neighbouring villages.
Yet the Government in Goa, unconcerned with the tribulations through which the people were passing, laughed in the face of their misery. Some of the high Portuguese officials, hand in glove with the merchants, encouraged the black market, and like vampires fattened on the blood of the people.
Hunger, like a malignant ghost, stalked everywhere in Goa. The choice before the people was to remain here and starve or get out altogether. And realizing how bankrupt our economy was, how we had to depend entirely on imports, and how callous and incompetent was our Government, hundreds of people began to leave Goa for British India, where they could at least be sure of their rations.
The great Exodus had begun.’
From Chapter 19
