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India Maria Aurora Couto. Goa: A Daughter's Story. New Delhi Penguin/Viking. 2004. 436 pages. Rs495. ISBN 0-67-004984-0
MARIA AURORA COUTO, the author of Graham Greene: On the Frontier, writes in Goa: A Daughter's Story: "Reading Greene's essay [on Goa] again after a gap of some years, I am reminded of Dr. N.P.S. (Ratan) Varde's elucidation of the adjective socegado and its noun socego. ... As Greene suggests, the Goan village, whether Hindu or Christian, exudes peace, an atmosphere created as much from contentment within the home as from our landscape blessed by waters, hills and abundant, varied harvests of paddy, fish, coconut and mango. A landscape in which Hinduism, as in the rest of the country, has deep roots which remained strong even when faced with aggressive uprooting." She challenged Greene, however, when he asked whether the Goan Christian was like the Creole of Latin America. "It was after a heated discussion that he agreed that the Latin American had nothing to fall back upon as the Spanish conquistadores had practically wiped out whatever had remained of indigenous culture. He concluded the debate with a twinkle in his...