Fiction
By Gail Pinto
Squatting beneath the tea-shop’s overhang, the Boatman watched the two men before him talk.
“Not in this weather,” said the ferry-conductor, the taller of the two. “With the rains, it will swell like a leech, and will make everything more dangerous.”
The shorter man, who owned the tea-shop, shrugged. “Do what you have to, I will be closing. On the radio, they are talking about cyclonic winds. Shee, baba.”
By Selma Carvalho
The Friday they leave for a weekend in Belgium, Anju discovers Freddo is cheating on her. She doesn’t share her knowledge with him. What she should have said was, ‘Freddo, I’m tired of this shit. This time, I’m leaving.’
Her heart feels like it is going to stop breathing all on its own, distinct from the rest of her. The pain is so intense, she realises it is possible for the rest of her body to survive the carnage, while her heart, expelled from her being like a refugee, would simply die.
non-Fiction
By R. Benedito Ferrão
Paul Melo e Castro talks about the translations Life Stories: The Collected Stories of Maria Elsa da Rocha (Goa 1556, 2023), Weeds in the Red Dust: The Collected Stories of Epitácio Pais (CinnamonTeal, 2023), and Regional Tales (CinnamonTeal, 2024) which brings together stories by Augusto do Rosário Rodrigues.
By Jessica Faleiro
Your first book Shadow of the Palm Tree (2019) brought to light the presence of the slave trade the Portuguese brought to Goa. Your second book when god died (2023) brings to light the Goa Inquisition, another significant historical event in Goa that isn’t talked about very much. What was the motivation or inspiration for choosing to portray this particular moment of history in your latest novel?
By Heta Pandit
Why do we call it a book release, Rochelle? In fact, isn’t it just the reverse of release? Holding, reading, and experiencing a book is an inhalation, a holding in of your breath, a waiting for a revelation. That is exactly how I felt when I began reading Coins in Rivers. I wonder why the perpetrators of all the atrocities described against women are men. You write as a feminist; you see and understand scars. Even the ones under the skin. And yet, I see a soft gentle touch, not the caustic, harsh, and scarred perspective of a hard-core man-hater.
poetry
By Tino de Sa
Procession of One
Bleak, unlovely and unrepentant
for the many unspeakable sins of her arid past,
summer returns.
Without shame she uncovers the riverbed
with its harvest of pebbles,
too dry again for the melon seeds to root.
By Jessica Faleiro
During a routine consultation, the cardiac interventionist frowns at my father’s ECG reading. He’s immediately admitted into the ICU, where he’s restricted to seeing visitors for only thirty minutes, twice a day. The ICU security guard, Raj, allows me into the ward after visiting hours, when he realises that my father is in for a long haul. It occurs to me that he’s seen as many dead people wheeled out as live ones wheeled in.
By Salil Chaturvedi
Issue no 25
Sure enough
four petals a touch of orange in the stem
knee-high
That’s Farsetia.
This is the only place you will find it
On top of a hill, green in August
A short-lived trick
Then, a return to bare and rocky.
book reviews & excerpts
Review by Michelle M. Bambawale
I encountered Maria Aurora Couto through her two earlier works. In Goa: A Daughter's Story, I marvelled at the grandeur of the life she described in the palatial houses of Salcette, with their colonial connections through the Portuguese language, music, food, and lifestyle. Filomena’s Journeys: A Portrait of a Marriage, a Family, and a Culture, was heartbreaking.
Review by Selma Carvalho
We have to have an honest conversation about the role of the regional writer, that faithful chronicler of the immediacy of the life he encounters around him. He has no greater purpose other than to document this life—its history, nature, people, idiosyncrasies—captured by his indefatigable pen and preserved for posterity. Without the regional writer, literature cannot thrive, authenticity cannot thrive, geographical specificity cannot thrive.
By Augusto Pinto
Issue no 26
Raktachandan by Sanjiv Verenkar is the latest Konkani book to win the Sahitya Akademi award. It is the eighth collection of poetry of this veteran journalist and writer of books on contemporary Goan history. The title Raktachandan refers to the tree species pterocarpus santalinus (red sandalwood in English) that has many medicinal qualities. Among other uses, in the days before modern balms and ointments invaded our pharmacies it was used as a pain-killer for a variety of aches, wounds and swellings.
Banner image of Goa is by Chelsea Marques and downloaded from unsplash.com
The views expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect those of the Joao Roque Literary Journal. They are here in the spirit of free speech to evoke discussion. Free speech is the pillar of a free society. You can write to lescarvalhos@yahoo.com if you wish to lodge a complaint.
By Caroline de Souza
Antonio sat on the edge of his canoe, grey, grizzled and tired from the day’s fishing. He had been at it all morning and the noon-day sun beat down upon him relentlessly. Sweat glistened and shone and poured down his forehead and arms as he wiped himself with his bare clothing. He gazed far out at an endless grey ocean and an endless grey sky that hovered just above it and at a grey line that divided the two. Sometimes, the sea was blueand the sky would change its mood to match the new hue.