Fugitivo
-Brian Mendonca
Fugindo
da cidade
para o mar
O mar
para a cidade
Sempre.
(Enroute Goa Express train
2001)
Translated from the Protuguese as:
Fugitive
On the run
From the city
To the sea
From the sea
To the city
Forever.
Shamayel Amin from the Goa University came to interview Brian Mendonca. Some of the questions fielded were:
How did you get into writing?
I think the poems wrote themselves. My first poem 'Requiem to a Sal' was written when a tree was being hacked in our backyard. I felt I need to express myself. I felt this urgent desire to document a Goa which was changing rapidly.
How did you go forward with your publication?
No publisher cared for the poems I wrote. Even though the concept of writing a poem in every state of India was never attempted before. So given my experience in publishing I self-published my poems in two volumes.
What was the response to the book?
Overwhelming. Everyone welcomed the poems. The poems resonated with the people specially when they were on the place they lived in or were familiar with. The first book of 500 copies -- Last Bus to Vasco: Poems from Goa (2006) -- was sold out and so was the reprint. The next A Peace of India: Poems in Transit (2011) is almost sold out.
How do you manage teaching and writing simultaneously?
One will find the time if one loves what one is doing.
What message would you give for today's youngsters?
Stay with the written word. Your rewards will be great.
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Pix taken by Brian with interviewer Shamayel Amin in the college campus on 1 November 2017.
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