-Brian Mendonça
On the first day of college, an ‘Orientation’ was slated in the
mid-morning and we all looked forward to it. The ambiguity of the word left us
wondering about the nature of the orientation, viz. would it be an orientation
about teaching practices? Would it be one about NAAC procedures? Why was this
orientation so critical for the teaching faculty?
The speaker was Jovito Lopes. Lopes went on to cover
a range of issues from health care, water resource management, and teacher
effectiveness. He kicked off with the
hymn ‘Count Your Many Blessings.’ Signposting sugar as the number 1 killer in
heart-related diseases in Goa, he cited a case of how leaves found in Goa could
be used to propel out kidney stones – rather than opting for expensive laser
surgery. Stressing on communication in
the class he urged the staff to empathize with the students. ‘Students don’t
need us,’ he reasoned. ‘Everything is there on the internet.’ ‘But we can
develop values, character and critical thinking.’
Lopes was India’s chef de mission at the Lusofonia
games in Lisbon 2009 and was closely associated with the 3rd edition
of the games in Goa in 2014. In fact, he
said when we needed a break we should make the time-out sign! His wide range of
experience interacting with students as a member of the local managing
committee of Don Bosco college, Panjim, and now with Prudent Media, made him
present his ideas with an elan I envied. His marshalling of his power point presentation
with numerous clips, jokes and anecdotes was quite effortless. He had an
original, if wry, take on the 21st century where everything could be
suffixed with ‘LESS.’
At the end when Lopes asked for feedback some zeroed
on to two slides they felt should be modified. Mired in a predictable, linear
way of thinking we could not care ‘LESS’about the larger picture and value the
wealth of information Lopes had so painstakingly prepared.
As I sat on Bogmalo beach in the gathering dusk the
same evening, I was thinking that Lopes’s presentation was an orientation for
life, not just an academic year. As we sang ‘Count your many blessings’ as a
family in the sand (some of it blackened by tar) I felt it would take a
lifetime to unpack what Lopes had said. His dire predictions that Verna would
be out of water in a few years, and his appeal for in-house expertise to do something
for Goa showed how concerned he was for the environment.
Nursing my Woo-woo – a cocktail at Joet’s bar and
restaurant founded in 1979 -- at the deep end of the near-pristine Bogmalo
beach, I watched Russia and Slovakia battle it out on the screen for the
European championship. The young couple
who we had seen coming to the beach at dusk were still there. Locked in embrace
they just held on to each other as the waves lashed the shore. This was life.
It was too precious to let go.
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Published in Gomantak Times Weekender, St. Inez, Goa on Sunday 26 June 2016. Pix of Jovito courtesy Goa Football Development Council gfdc.in. Bottom pix of Joet's from ixigo.com
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