- -Brian Mendonça
There is a tradition among Catholics in Goa at
Christmas, to visit the families who have lost a loved one during the past year
and give them sweets. The kuswar is
usually home-made and comprises an assortment of Goan Christmas sweets like doce, neureo, kulkuls, and plum cake. Nowadays the kuswar is embellished with Goan sweets like bebinca, guava cheese, pinag, baath, almond sweets, and bolinhas. Chocolate toffee, jujubes, and rose
cookies may also sit proudly on the serving plate.
Arrangements for making the sweets began several days
before Christmas in our home. Queenie put in a lot of effort to prepare sizeable
quantities of neureos, kulkuls, baath, milk-cream, marzipan, the not-so-sweet shankarpali and the ubiquitious naankatai.
Observing the preparations happening on a war footing I wondered how we
would be able to consume so many sweets!
However we were strictly advised not to sample them till until Christmas
day.
What are we going to do on Christmas day?! I was
thinking. I mean, now that the decorations are up, our relatives have left, and
the sweets are done? After Mass, what?
I had totally forgotton about – the kuswar. All those days of hard work in
the kitchen, or at the dinner table . . .
this was payback time. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Queenie laying
out the sweets in transparent take-away boxes.
The tower of boxes had to be distributed now.
It was like it always was with mum and dad. Mum used to
prepare the sweets in paper plates and we children used to go around the
building distributing them. By the time we were done it was time for lunch.
Earlier, the tray of sweets used to be decorated with a
cloth of lace or crotchet. This was replaced by paper napkins.
After giving all the flats on our floor, the next trip
was exclusively for the bereaved families in the society. One lady was so
inundated by several kuswars she gave
us one in return. She had lost both her mother and her father last year. Her
husband is on the ship. Her son is an
amiable dj and has his own music system.
Sometimes when one cannot understand another person’s
grief one tries to block the loss. This causes a communication breakdown.
Giving the kuswar enabled us to
empathize with those missing their loved ones, and find the right words to say.
In Islam, the Eid after the passing of a person is known
as Dokha Eid (Kashmiri) says Professor Aslam. People visit the bereaved family and
help them to live life once more. Life and death are cyclic. Islam mandates
only three days of mourning for the dead after internment.
After Christmas I asked Queenie, ‘What made it seem
like Christmas to you this year?’ She said, ‘Making the sweets, and giving
them.’ She also said that if you want it to make it look like Christmas, you
should make the effort. I couldn’t but
agree. There are hardly any sweets left
now.
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Published in Gomantak Times Weekender, Panjim, Goa on Sunday, 5th January 2020. Pix of Queenie Mendonca taken by Brian Mendonca at their home in Porvorim, Goa on 28 December 2019.
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