-Brian
Mendonça
I still cannot believe that Alito is not with us. He
was a man I would have liked to share a conversation with. He was full of
ideas. Most of all he was very encouraging.
One is still coming to terms with his passing on.
You almost expect him to come bounding out of the next corner and regale you
with his latest ideas.
Alito did not teach me. Yet he had this aura that
surrounded him wherever he went. Whenever I spied him I would seek the
opportunity to sidle up to him and wish him, ‘Good morning Sir.’ This became
‘Good morning Alito’ in due time. Such was his affable nature.
My first encounter with him was when a Digital Story
Telling (DST) workshop was being conducted at the hoary Massano de Amorim, in
Panjim. He was moving among the participants and encouraging the novices as
they got acquainted with the software. Later, we realised he was regularly
training his students to create DSTs on their own lives. By presenting the
story of their lives visually and digitally Alito empowered them. The public
also came to know about the sordid state of affairs in many Goan
households.
He was very interested in research. When he happened
to visit, he asked about the status of our research journal. When I shared with
him that we had no subscriptions, he promptly bought a copy of all the issues
we had printed so far.
The last time I saw him was at a seminar in January at
Goa University. I thrust a copy of my paper into his hand and asked him to whet
it. He smiled, but the feedback was absent. Something was wrong, though I did
not know it then.
When I saw the larger-than-life sketch of Alito’s
face by Bharat Jagtap on the September issue of Jaag – the monthly literary magazine in Konkani – I felt elated and defeated. I scoured
bookstalls in Panjim and Mapusa to obtain my own copy. I needed to ‘find’ Alito
again.
However, I was told that Jaag does not retail across the counter. How can Konkani survive when
a well-brought out issue is not available for general readership? I learnt it
was available only on subscription.
As I gaze fondly on the cover of Jaag I realise that this is what Alito
wanted us to do, viz. Jaago (Wake up). Wake up and make a difference. We do not have
much time. Seeing his face on Jaag
made me appreciate that Alito - and Jaag
- traversed many worlds. Alito was appreciated across languages. I was humbled
by the tribute Jaag paid to Alito by
featuring him on the cover.
This dialogue between
local literatures and English –‘the steam-roller language’ – is critical. We
are losing generations of readers who have ceased to be bilingual. It’s as if
Konkani in Devnagari is a world beyond English readers in Goa. Alito was the bridge
between the two.
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