By Sheela Jaywant
With the first rains, we tie nylon ropes to the fixed hooks in the small passage in my flat which leads from the kitchen to the toilet. Up near the ceiling, lengthwise, so that we can hang clothes above the sink and washing machine, outside the bathroom door. We have separate toilet and bathroom; that way, family members can simultaneously hurry with different personal chores while hastening to work in the morning.
By Sheela Jaywant
Issue no. 15
The men of the Gaitonde family were rarely seen in the ancestral house. The Portuguese had left; the cry aamchey Goyen aamkaa jaay (our Goa must be ours) still echoed around; it wasn’t yet certain whether the Union Territory would be merged with Maharashtra. The villagers kept their distance from my politically active family; my eldest uncle, Dr. Pundalik, had, in the 1940s, done an unthinkable thing. He married a Portuguese girl, Edila, who lived with the family for some years.
