Short Takes Long Memories available in the Library of the Indian Parliament, New Delhi

Short Takes Long Memories (http://www.rupapublications.co.in/client/Book/Short-Takes-Long-Memories.aspx) available in the Library of the Parliament of India, New Delhi under Social History / Biographies
http://164.100.47.132/pdfload/MyFolder%5CEnglish_Jan_2012.pdf

Three Speeds - Slow, Slower, Stationary

In the summer, I took the caminhão from Margão to Ponda, a major commercial centre in central Goa, to spend a few weeks at my uncle’s estate in Khandepar, a picturesque village five kilometres from Ponda. Today it takes less than ten minutes to drive down from Ponda to Khandepar. Then, it took more than an hour of brisk walking before you reached your destination.
With other residents preceding, and following in, my footsteps, I did not lack for company during my trek. As I walked, I met villagers on their way to Ponda either to catch the caminhão to Panaji or Margão or to sell their produce in the market.
The trees lining the roads would offer a shady place to rest when I felt myself wilting under the summer sun. The thought of diving into the cool waters of the Khandepar River in the company of the other village boys spurred me on. That and the prospect of participating in the evening soirées on my uncle’s porch.
Just before sundown, a group of his neighbours would converge around the red-cemented seats lining my uncle’s balcão. He would be seated in a rocking chair in his favourite spot by the door, a tiny gold-coloured snuffbox in his hand. As each friend arrived, he would pour a small quantity of snuff onto his palm and offer it to the newcomer.
Taking snuff, they say, is one of the rare occasions when the hand that giveth rests beneath the hand that taketh. Each villager would take a pinch of snuff between his thumb and his forefinger, put it in one nostril and then the other and sniff deeply. I would watch the exercise fascinated, hoping for a chance to mimic their actions.
One evening, I summoned the courage to ask my uncle to allow me to sample the snuff. I had watched the three-step sequence so often I felt I could do it with my eyes closed. At first, my uncle demurred, contending that I was too young for these adult indulgences. When I persisted, he relented and let me sample the powder.
I pinched. I pushed. I sniffed. I began to sneeze loudly, uncontrollably. My throat was on fire. My face hurt. Water poured out of my eyes. As the mist before my eyes cleared, I caught a glimpse of the expressions on the faces around me. They oscillated between concern for my well-being and amusement at my predicament.
I never went anywhere close to a snuffbox again.
...............................


Experience life as it was lived in Goa, India just before its Liberation from Portuguese rule 50 plus years after Goa became part of the Indian Union in

Short Takes Long Memories by Prabhakar Kamat and Sharmila Kamat

Available at:
http://www.amazon.com/Short-Takes-Long-Memories-Kamat/dp/8129118211
http://www.rupapublications.co.in/client/Book/Short-Takes-Long-Memories.aspx

after reading some of the reviews like

http://www.thesundayindian.com/en/story/short-takes-long-memories/13/18503/s

and elseqhere in this blog

Replugging Short Takes Long Memories by Sharmila Kamat and Prabhakar Kamat

http://southasiabooks.com/short-takes-long-memories-p-71611.html

For the Francophone World and where Deutschland is Uber Alles

http://www.amazon.fr/s?_encoding=UTF8&search-alias=books-fr-intl-us&field-author=Sharmila%20Kamat

http://www.amazon.de/s?_encoding=UTF8&search-alias=books-fr-intl-us&field-author=Sharmila%20Kamat

Goa - What Happened Then - Learn about Goa pre and post 1961 in Sharmila Kamat and Prabhakar Kamat's Short Takes Long Memories

Fifty years later, we wonder what was life back then? Was it a ‘golden Goa’, as the discourse sometimes suggests? Or, was our tiny region dominated by everything negative, as those allergic to everything Portuguese today suggest?

A book review of Prabhakar and Sharmila Kamat's Short Takes Long Memories by Frederico Noronha in Planet Goa

http://www.planet-goa.com/content_details.php?id=489

On Amazon: Short Takes Long Memories by Prabhakar Kamat and Sharmila Kamat

http://www.amazon.com/Short-Takes-Long-Memories-Kamat/dp/8129118211

Short Take Long Memories in Pudhari newspaper (Marathi)

Photo/video coverage of the release of Short Takes by Oscar winning songwriter Gulzar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0zbYZeaPRg
http://www.goaartlitfest.com/galf2011/photovideocoverage_2011.htm

At Goa Lit Fest - Short Takes with Gulzar

Photos: Galileo Fernandes

Mr Damodar Mauzo, Sahitya Academy Award winner speaks introduces the book and the authors

Sharing with the audience his views on Goan literature, the changes in Goan society over the past decades and how a book like Short Takes Long Memories serves as a chronicle of a land that moved overnight from being part of the Estado da India to a part of free India.

A view of the audience

Damodar Mauzo speaks in admiration of Prabhakar Kamat's photographic memory and how it helped Short Takes Long Memories become such an accurate, almost photographical, account of Goa over the years. He also finds the snippets of life in Portugal in the 1950s enthralling as recounted through the author's experiences

Goa - served sunny side up.

As Goa enters its Golden Jubilee as part of free India, Sharmila Kamat takes the audience on a tongue-in-cheek tour of Goa- past and present by reading extracts of her first book, "Mango Mood"

Fun and frolic, music and dance.

Fish and feni, a little romance. 

Where life is soçegado, the pace is sedate.

And every bridge has a duplicate. 

MANGO MOOD - serving Goa Sunny Side Up

 



The book reads like a film observes reviewer and academic Augusto Pinto as he allows the audience to get a flavor of Short Takes Long Memories by relating some choice passages from the book.



Goa University Professor and noted writer Dr Kiran Budkuley shares some of her thoughts on the changing face of Goan writing in English.



What a wonderful occasion to release the book comments well-known lyricist, writer and Oscar winning songwriter Gulzar referring to the connection between the day being the Golden Jubilee of Goa's Liberation from Portuguese colonialism and the theme of Short Takes Long Memories being the tale of Goa's passage to Indian after 451 years adrift in the Ultramar Portugues

Ladies, gentlemen and gentle readers...... SHORT TAKES LONG MEMORIES

Lyrical prose from the author of Jai Ho!



IAS Officer and diplomat Mr Prabhakar Kamat autographs a copy of Short Takes Long Memories for the award winning lyricist, writer and director Gulzar

Goa University History Professor and writer Dr. Pratima Kamat  reading choice extracts from Short Takes Long Memories

Director of the International Centre, Goa, Nandini Sahai speaks on the occasion

Short Takes Long Memories released by Gulzar at the Goa LitFest on Golden Jubilee of Goa's Liberation

On the Golden Jubilee of Goa’s Liberation, Short Takes Long Memories, a ringside view of Goa’s passage to India from 451 years of Portuguese rule, was released by noted lyricist and scriptwriter Gulzar at the Goa LitFest being held at the International Centre, Goa. The book, a memoir of Goa’s first IAS officer and diplomat Prabhakar Kamat, is co-authored by Prabhakar Kamat and Dr. Sharmila Kamat and published by Rupa Publications, New Delhi. In addition to a reading from Mango Mood, a tongue-in-cheek look at present-day Goa by Dr. Sharmila Kamat (Rupa Publications, 2011), there was also a discussion on literary trends in Goa. Eminent writer Damodar Mauzo, Goa University academic and noted writer Dr Kiran Budkuley, well-known reviewer and academic Augusto Pinto and Director, International Centre Nandini Sahai, participated in the discussion.
Picture courtesy: Galileo Fernandes

Short Takes at the Goa Lit fest Dec 17 - 22, 2011 at the International Center, Goa

http://www.goaartlitfest.com/galf2011/participatingauthors_2011_II.htm#Prabhakar

http://www.amazon.com/Short-Takes-Long-Memories-Kamat/dp/8129118211

New Arrivals at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

http://www.indiahabitat.org/newarrival/

Short Takes on Long "Memories and More" - The Times of India

Written like a comedy film - Review of Short Takes Long Memories

Provides a view of colonialism - compares governing styles pre and post Liberation Goa

Review of Short Takes Long Memories in DNA

http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/slideshow_book-shelf_1588699-4#top

On the Bookshelf - Review of Short Takes Long Memories in DNA

http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/slideshow_book-shelf_1588699-4#top

On the DNA Book shelf - Short Takes Long Memories

http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/slideshow_book-shelf_1588699-4#selected_thumb

Written like a comedy film - Review of Short Takes Long Memories in Goa Today September 2011 issue

Narrated with a smile and many winks  by former administrador turned IAS Officer and diplomat

Review of Short Takes Long Memories by Augusto Pinto  in the September 2011 issue of Goa Today

"Fifty years ago, we wonder what was life back then ... " Read about Goa in the past in Planet Goa's review of Short Takes Long Memories

"Fifty years ago, we wonder what was life back then ... Was it a Golden Goa as the discourse suggests?...."

Read about how Short Takes Long Memories takes the reader on a memory trip to another time, another place in amchem Goem in Frederick Noronha's review in the August 2011 issue of Planet Goa

And in The Freedom Village Tribune in Portugal in the News

Short Takes Long Memories

Short Takes, Long Memories (Rupa, Rs 195) by Sharmila Kamat and Prabhakar Kamat describes itself as a “ringside view of an eventful period in Goa's history”. .....