Wandering through halls with a hundred doors: Book Review of Let Me Tell You About Quinta

Ever since the Indian army marched in and annexed the Portuguese State of India to the Union, Goan society has been involved in an incredibly intense churning. This churning has occurred as Goans sought, and continue to seek, their location within the larger Indian polity; as they sought to make sense of the rapid changes that overturned the social structures of a highly stratified society held in place through late Portuguese imperialism; as new elites emerged and waves of, until-then, foreigners landed up to radically transform the Goan landscape. A churning that has been on for some decades now, it would not be wrong to say that this process reached a particularly intense moment in the past couple of years. It is within this context that Let me tell you about Quinta should be read, evaluated and appreciated. A good number of Goan, and non-Goan artists, musicians and writers have attempted to grapple with the upheavals that have beset Goan society, and it must be said that Let me tell you is clearly one of the finer products of that churning.

Set in the village of Carmona, Let me tell you about Quinta is narrative that spans three generations (including an illegitimate one) of a Catholic bhatcar (i.e. landed Goan) family and its multiple Others. Weaving between time-periods, pre-colonial, colonial and the post-colonial, the narrative is punctuated by the voice of the initial narrator of the epic, and the figure closest in time to us; the readers. Indeed, the delicate texture of time that this narrative produces is one of the finer features of this book, fine-grained in its attention to detail, yet never leaving one exhausted from the burdens of history. And yet, the central protagonist of the narrative is clearly Quinta do Santo Antonio the highly contested property that, like so many Goan homes and properties of the late-colonial epoch, framed the emergence, lifestyles and the eventual dissolution of one class and the burgeoning of another. This grand Goan home, like others in the territory, measured carefully the lives its owners would lead, and mapped the relationships they would enjoy or suffer with their relatives and minions; living on, even as the eaves of these homes eventually come crashing down. It should be said, that one could use this one book as a fairly effective way into getting into a broad and yet sensitive understanding of Goan society and its history.

Let me tell you however, does not limit itself to merely weaving its tale via reference to the quotidian. On the contrary, the magical or the enchanted trespass quite frequently into the tale, be it in the form of birthing fluids that deluge automobiles, women who speak quite casually to spirits that tattle tales of buried wealth, and curses that eventually ruin families. If it were just this however, Let me tell you would fall well into the realm of fantasy, or magical realism. However, because the fantastic that the narrative presents are from well within the vernacular traditions of Goa, this book is poised quite comfortably within the realm of contemporary mythology. The most exciting feature of this book therefore is not the deft weaving of Goan history, or its sociological insight, but the manner in which it has done both of these while integrating the same into the spiritual traditions of the land. Most efforts on this front, especially by Goan Catholic authors tend to tumble headlong into an embrace of brahmanical myth, as they thrash about seeking to recreate the history of a Hindu past that they believe they have lost. Not so Let me tell you, that catholically embraces the fluid movements of Goan history while simultaneously rooting itself in a living and breathing mythological traditions of village Goa, or perhaps more appropriately village Salcette (the taluka within which the novel is so firmly set.)

Because Let me tell you emerges from out of this great Goan soul-searching, because it is located within the mythos of the Goan space, and because it is cognizant of the nuances that time has wrought on this space, it is an intensely political text. Like the time-frame of the narrative, this commentary is pronounced upon various locations of Goan time, not restricting itself merely to the contemporary moment. However, because it is Quinta that is the central figure of the book, the most fundamental comment is the lament for the loss of the Goan homes and the families that built them. Take for example this hugely evocative “‘What a life’ wrote Preciosa to Sun, ‘this was a land of open door, now we have to lock ourselves in to avoid people.’”  And yet, while the narrative mourns the passing of an age, because it reflects on the morality of the actions that built and sustained those home, and eventually came to pass, it is a cathartic lament, creating through this narrative the legitimate space for those former subalterns, the minions of homes like Quinta do Santo Antonio who have now come to succeeded to the Goan earth that they were so long disinherited from.

For the dexterity with which Savia Viegas weaves these many projects together, for its breathless and graphic storytelling, the book is an intellectual delight even if one is not interested in Goa, its politics or its history. Indeed, because of the manner in which it involves itself with the genealogies of a creole society, a number of readers have commented on, and drawn parallels with the works of Marquez and Allende. However, those unfamiliar with the nuances of Goan cuisine, language, hierarchies and idiosyncrasies may at times find it difficult to navigate and make sense of the narrative. Viegas, or the publishers Penguin, would have been well advised to include a glossary along with the narrative. However, one could also perhaps simultaneously discern from this lack of a glossary, the decision to pluck Goa away from its location as an aberration, where it is merely ‘a small part of India’ and return to it its universal significance. While on the subject of language, it should also be said that the few forays that the narrative makes into other languages, be it Hindi, Konkani or Portuguese detract from the breathless beauty of the narrative. One can understand the temptation to invoke the vernaculars to give a flavor of the land, but given Viegas’ skills that have thus far been acclaimed, these little flourishes serve only a cloying flavor that could have well be dropped. Introducing the vernacular tongue into a text written in a different idiom is seldom easy, and this attempt is not Viegas’ brightest moment. There is another grumble associated with language and this one involves the dropping of the accents that communicate the sounds of the Portuguese language used in the book. This, along with spelling errors, is often a ‘mistake’ committed by Anglophone publishers of texts that invoke languages other than English. For a text that seeks to weave the Portuguese language convincingly into its narrative however, this is an appalling oversight. 

The last of the grumbles associated with the production of this book involves the images located in the text. Five in number, Viegas commences each part of this four-fold narrative with a pictograph assumedly crafted by her hand. These images share an interesting relationship with the text. Not quite a show-and-tell, it is as if these images are the remnants of the dreams from which the narrative was born. Given that these images would been executed in colour, and given their association with the text, it is a shame that they appear in the book not in the lavish colour or Viegas’ no doubt technicolour dreams, but in muted and disappointing shades of greys.

Savia Viegas’s book is a delight at so many levels; so do, do let her tell you about Quinta.

Let Me Tell You About Quinta
By Savia Viegas
Penguin Books India, New Delhi, 2011, 254 pp., Rs 299
ISBN 0143415220

(This review was first published in Biblio: A Review of Books Sept-Oct 2012 as Land of Open Doors)

Standing on the shoulders of giants: A chapter from ‘The Training Manual for Younger Activists’

I attended a couple of days ago, a meeting by a group of young activists, who like many of their compatriots were concerned about the state of Goa. The idea was, as with others, to save Goa from the fate that it seems determinedly headed toward. One of the highlights of this meeting were the sage words from one of these young activists; Goa was headed towards becoming another Bombay. It was going to become the base for big capital, and as with the old Bombay, the social groups who earlier constituted the space, would be forced to move out. This person was speaking in the context of the Bombay Goans and the East Indians, but he might as well have added the Parsis and other sundry groups that constituted the old Bombay. The new Bombay is a space for the national and international money bags, even as the city is awash with labouring groups from all over the subcontinent.

Despite the obvious enthusiasm to address the problem, and the willingness to form a group to address the problem, I came away from the meeting with a deep depression. The depression had something to do perhaps with the fact that these enthusiasts were ‘young activists’. The young is not a reference to their age. There were some older persons in the group. The young is a reference to their experience as activists. This was clearly, the first time that these folks were attempting to come out into the public sphere and assert their stake in the governance of the land. And yet, merely because we are young as activists, there is no need for us to reinvent the wheel, as I perceived was the case, and the problem, at that meeting.

The Goan public sphere is no stranger to activism. Right from the seventies Goa has seen persons emerge from out of the blue to take a stand in the way the state ought to be governed in the larger interests of its people and its environment. Some of these activists have gone down the political party route and are thus lost, in some measure, to the larger public cause. However, a good number of them have continued to remain in the popular space, outside of party politics and continue to raise their voices against the injustices in our land. One of these activists points out how in the seventies, when the first environmental protests were being raised in Goa, the Chief Minister of the time scoffed at them. ‘What environmentalists are you speaking about’, he is reported to have asked; ‘you can count them on the fingers of your hand’. What may have been true in the seventies, does not hold true today. Those seven voices today have grown into a voluble chorus, graced by a number of committed souls and fine minds with keen analysis.

In such a context then, younger activists have no reason to reinvent the wheel and contemplate how or where they ought to begin their fight to save Goa. Our first attempt ought to be to engage with these older activists. These activists represent a range of political positions and preferred and tested strategies allowing us to gain in this process of engagement, a political education and a choice as to our preferred route of engagement. This engagement would also allow us to plug into existing networks and causes, building on the foundations that have already been laid. Why start from scratch when there is already such a wealth of effort and energy at our disposal?

Goa is young as a democratic political society, and the qalb (the upheaval) that we witness today are signs of a population coming of age politically. We must remember that the Portuguese era was not so much a time of suppression by the Portuguese regime, as much as a time of suppression of the common man by local elites who collaborated with the Portuguese state. This domination has continued since ‘Liberation’, making some mockery of that term. What was missing was the presence of larger popular democratic institutions and the current tension in our society allows us the opportunity to create these. If this politically poised population is to mature therefore, what it requires is an investment in some kind of institutionalization. It is this institutionalization that still seems somewhat lacking in our state. This allows for younger activists to continue thrashing wildly while they seek to address the rot in the state.

Institutionalization does not however mean forming registered bodies or groups. It does not even mean taking the positions of all the existing and older activists as gospel truth. Institutionalization should mean merely the creation of a framework for a consultative process. A process through which we can gather, discuss, agree and disagree, and in the process sharpen our analysis and then be able to strengthen each other’s causes. If we can stand on the shoulders of giants, it should be possible for us to see beyond the dark that threatens our present and look into a promising distant future.

(First published in the Gomantak Times, 2 June 2010)

Recovering the Republic - I : Recovering Power from a cynical use of the Law

The column a couple of weeks ago asserting that the centenary of the declaration of the Portuguese Republic was also a Goan event, received a few responses that convinced me of the need to follow that argument with an explanation of some sort. These responses were shocked by the connection made between Dalit and Bahujan consciousness in Goa and the declaration of the Portuguese Republic. The Portuguese Republic, they were at pains to explain, was not an angelic affair committed to equality throughout the Portuguese empire. It had dictatorial tendencies, was entirely concerned with issues in the metropole (that is continental Portugal) and in fact laid the foundations for the persecutions of the Estado Novo under Salazar.

To be fair to these responses, I must admit that they were rightly triggered by my use of the word ‘celebration’ in the context of the Declaration of the Portuguese Republic. Celebration suggests an uncritical appreciation of an event. Commemoration would be a more appropriate term, given that it requires solemn stock-taking of an event, weighing both pros and cons.

Having acknowledged the error in choice of words, I believe that I have gone some distance toward assuaging the outrage of my interlocutors. However, I would now like to address the question that they put to me, whether one can be justified in laying claim to an event that did not have the liberation of the Goan Bahujan in mind. Surely, one critic suggested, this Bahujan activist was mistaken?

The original column that sparked off this response, indicated rather clearly the two edged, cynical use of ideas of liberty and equality that marked the inauguration of the European republics. The bourgeois classes that spearheaded these revolutions made a cynical use of these ideas, largely to ensure a larger support base as they attacked the feudal regime. However, having done so, they were now hostage to the idea that was then implemented by the masses in the slow progress of democracy. Suhas Palshikar, in his essay in the must-read book titled ‘Humiliation: Claims and Context’, edited by Gopal Guru sums it up rather aptly. ‘Democracy’ he says, ‘even only a very formal democracy - cannot be stopped from infusing some amount of democratization’. The moment the bourgeoisie introduced the rather novel idea of ‘power to the people’ they were inviting a group, hitherto outside of the frame of power politics, into its very heart. Once invoked and legitimized in the course of the French Revolution, the roll of democracy was unstoppable, as formerly disenfranchised masses seized the opportunity to rid themselves of inequality.

To understand the complex and cynical politics of Republicanism, have a look at the history of Haiti. The French Revolution was marked by the slogan of equality for all, a slogan taken seriously by the black slaves in Haiti, who declared their freedom and independence. This was, to be sure, hardly the intention of forces dominating the Revolution. The resistance of the French to this declaration led to the Haitian Revolution that eventually saw the declaration of independence of this territory. Equality in republican Europe, was not intended for people of colour, nor for the colonies. Not in France, nor in Portugal. But this should not blind us to the fact that the mere declaration did in fact result in a legal change that allowed people to assert claims that could never be legitimately made until then.

Palshikar extends this logic to nationalist struggles in colonial settings as well. He points out, no doubt referring to the nationalist history of British-India, that ‘similarly, the moment the nationalists in colonial societies departed from exclusively conspiratorial and secret methods and waged ‘people’s struggles’, they were running the risk of their nations being claimed by ordinary people’. Large portions of the Indian elite were not comfortable with the idea of the unwashed masses gaining a say in the governance of the country. This discomfort continues today in such assertions as made by the ‘Friends of the BJP’ when they stress that we as educated know better than the rest of the ‘illiterate’ population.

Clearly then, once the democratic idea is invoked, it fundamentally changes the rules of the game. People who formerly could not even imagine themselves as equal, now begin to hear the powerful voice of the law tell them that they are equal. This powerful voice may be cynical, not meaning what it says, but having uttered these magical words, is now powerless against the influence of its own logic.

A legal history of the territory of Goa would have to necessarily recognize that the Declaration of the Portuguese Republic, that extended equality to all citizens, as a significant moment in this history. To argue that the Portuguese never intended Goans to be equal, is to raise silly nationalist arguments that seek to begin a history of this territory post-1961, or prior to the start of the colonial period. Its purpose is precisely to obscure the fact that this declaration had profound impacts on a far away territory, and was a significant moment in its legal history. A legal history is built on recognition of legal pronouncements, and the job of a legal historian is to probe the impacts that this law has had on different segments of the subject population. In such a history, while we highlight the intention of the law, we also inquire into its consequences intended or otherwise. When we commemorate the events marked out in such a legal history, it is necessary for us to dwell on all facets of this moment.

In the companion piece to this column, I would like to argue, why it is not nostalgia of the Portuguese that motivates the commemoration of the declaration of the Portuguese Republic, but in fact a more domestic agenda of Dalit empowerment. This agenda is least concerned with the predilections of other segments of Goan society. These segments wish to either brand the colonial period as one long, dark, nightmare, without any redeeming feature; or on the other hand, as a glorious dazzling history that sadly ended in 1961. This agenda is interested in unshackling Goa’s colonial history from the shackles that these two groups have placed on it and open up new and democratic ways in which we can imagine and empower ourselves.

(A version of this column was first published in the Gomantak Times 3 March 2010)

Garden Restorations: Panjim’s Jardim Municipal, somewhere, beyond the green and the heritage, there lies a rainbow

The degraded state of the Panjim Municipal Garden, the Jardim Garcia d’Orta has been a sore point for some time now. However, on hearing news of the plans for the re-development of the park, my heart sank further. What new travesty would this latest venture bring? As if to prove these fears true, there was sometime last week, news of a confrontation with the powers vested with re-developing the Park. It appears that a number of the trees in the Jardim were slated to be cut, to make way for lawns and flower beds. Before the debate degenerates into an argument for the value of trees and a green lung, I would like to place the issue with a larger context.

Earlier columns have grumbled about the manner in which a Northern European understanding of the garden has colonized our mentality. In addition our understandings of the garden space have also been frozen within domestic frameworks, resulting in a narrowing of our garden-vocabulary. To place the Jardim in context therefore, we need to affirm that it was not just a ‘garden’ but a Public garden. Within the various types of public gardens one may find, the Jardim was an Alameda, a promenade garden meant for walking, and shaded by a variety of trees. Like Alamedas across the Iberian world, this garden too was (and continues to be) marked by commemorative monuments. The monument in this case being the column formerly dedicated to Vasco da Gama and now crowned by the Ashokan lions. The shading of the paths and the benches of this Alameda however were not randomly arranged, but followed, as is still visible if one looks closely, a formal symmetrical pattern. This feature of the Mediterranean garden drew from Islamicate sensibilities, that itself drew from the Roman. This formal arrangement however, was only the center of a much larger symmetry, represented by the buildings that enclosed the rectangle of the Jardim.

The Mediterranean public garden however, is not simply a space for relaxation; it is also a ritual political space. It is the symbolic representation of the public space, where the citizens gather, affirm their commitment to order in civil society and where the State affirms its commitment both to the citizens and to the notion of public order. This would be one way to think of the band-stand that stands at the centre of the Jardim. Every Sunday the Jardim hosted the band of the armed forces which played to the citizenry of Panjim who gathered there in their numbers, to see and be seen. In this ritual action, week after week, the notion of a civil society, and citizenship therein, would be reaffirmed, by State and citizen alike.

It is important to note this fact, a few days prior to the commemoration of the integration of Goa into the Indian Union. Very often forgotten in our celebration of the end of colonial rule, are the political specificities of the territory of Goa. Despite being a colonized space, Goa was nevertheless marked by citizenship. This status, peculiar to the Goan within a colonized sub-continent, emerged for the Catholic native elite from early colonial rule, and was open to all, regardless of religion from 1910. It is in this context that we should see and cherish this (and other Goan) public garden(s). We should also remember that this garden was a product not of some colonial mind, but of the local sons who were on the Camara Municipal. These local sons burned with the same zeal for independence, that Indian nationalists did, but owing to their political location as citizens, were able to articulate this desire within the confines of the Portuguese Empire.

Viewed in this manner, the Jardim Garcia d’Orta emerges as heritage garden with strong indigenous roots. These indigenous traditions of democracy and politics have however, largely been forgotten as they have been overlaid by the political traditions and understandings of the former British-India. This is perhaps nowhere as tellingly demonstrated as in the fate of the Jardim; first ravaged by the bureaucratic masturbation of the (British-Indian inspired) Forest Department’s tree plantation drives, and subsequently left to ruin as all wholesome notions of democracy have gone to mud.

The re-development of this garden and its structure, then, cannot simply be initiated de novo, nor can the debate be restricted to the need for a green space in the urban city. The re-development must necessarily be undertaken in the spirit of a Restoration. I capitalize the R here, for this Restoration is not to mean merely a physical restoration that one submits an edifice to, but a Restoration in the sense of a socio-political renewal as well. The Restoration must take the ritual space and history of the Municipal garden seriously, keeping the citizen once more at the centre of the development. If under the Portuguese regime the real (as opposed to the legal-theoretical) benefits of citizenship were restricted to the culturally equipped and bourgeois denizens of the city, then this Restored garden must ensure that those unfairly labeled ‘anti-social elements’ are not excluded. The garden as it did in the old days, must allow citizens to interact with each other, renewing both the use of the garden and civil society at large.

Incorporating this political dimension into our viewing of the garden as a heritage structure makes the word heritage bear more weight than it normally does. The formal stylistic arrangement of the park is no longer a mere aesthetic fetish, nor a fancy obsession with our past. It is a testament to a way in which we would like to see our democracy. It is also a testament to the fact that our colonial difference is worth embracing for it has something very valuable to contribute to the Indian democracy. In both these cases, the Alameda styling of the garden is critically tied to a definite kind of public and political culture. In addition, as opposed to the Northern European inspired garden of British-India, which stresses sun-kissed expanses that guzzle water, the Mediterranean inspired Alameda garden works with the local environment to provide the shade within which tropical life thrives.

If there is a debate around the development of the Municipal garden in Panjim, then that debate cannot and must not be restricted just to the issue of green cover and lung space. There is as I have laboured to point out, a much larger context within which it must necessarily be seen.

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 16 Dec 2009)

Credits
Image of the newly planted Jardim Municipal courtesy Dr. Paulo Varela Gomes

Image of scene in the Alameda Gibraltar Gardens from Wikipedia

Cosmopolitanism and Culture: Should the Goan be ashamed of being Cosmopolitan?

It is the events at the Goa Konkani Academy’s commemoration of the adoption of the Official Language Act, on the 4th of February that provides the meat for this week’s ramblings.

The key speaker at the event was Advocate Uday Bhembre who spoke on the Official Language Act in the context of Culture (Asmitai). In the course of his lecture Adv. Bhembre made a rather stunning observation. He referred to an event in Margao sometime ago, when Goans were referred to as being cosmopolitan. Uday baab smiled. The word cosmopolitan at first blush sounds very nice he said. But if you go to look at it, what it really means, is that you have no authentic culture or identity that you can demonstrate to the world as being uniquely your own.

It was now my turn to smile. Clearly the venerable Bhembre had been plucking his fruit from the wrong tree. Most cultural theorists, philosophers and political thinkers would be hard pressed to agree with his understanding of cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitanism for most of the world means the ability to appreciate the culture of others and relate in a positive manner to these cultures, taking, imbibing adding on to it, enriching one’s own cultural position. In doing so, one’s own cultural position definitely gets changed, but this, it is the firm belief of cosmopolitans, is only a positive accretion, as one moves from being the frog in the well (the Sanskritic kaupamanduk) to being a citizen of the world.

If there is a large global opinion that runs counter to Bhembre’s understanding of the word, why does Bhembre position cosmopolitanism in this manner? The possible answer is that he is probably collapsing the word cosmopolitan with the (British)Indian understanding of Goan culture. For the British-Indian, Goan culture is but the culture of the Goan (Portuguese Indian) natives who took everything they have from the Portuguese. They are therefore cosmopolitan in all that they do, because they don’t really have their own culture.

This British-Indian position is without doubt a violent position that denies the Goan cultural agency. However what is disturbing is that rather than fight this British-Indian (im)position on our own (Goan) terms, Bhembre tries to fight it on British-Indian terms, by rejecting the hybridity of Goan culture (rather than embracing it) and accepting the nationalistic British-Indian position that stresses and celebrates authentic regional cultures, that are united primarily in their derivation from some common Sanskritic mould.

To meet this goal, he reduces the Goan identity to just one feature; Konkani, nothing more, nothing less. Unfortunately however, Goan identity is much more than Konkani, and the definition of Konkani is an extremely contested one. In stressing Konkani, and doing so on British-Indian terms (that recognize primarily brahmanical, Sanskritised forms) what he is doing is rejecting the existing hybrid and cosmopolitan bases of Goan-ness. What we should be very clear about though, is that what this rejection does, is to lay the foundations for conflict and discord in Goan society, one such extant conflict being that spawned by the lack of recognition to Konkani in the Roman script and the dialects associated with it.

It is tragic that Bhembre chooses the more regressive of the British-Indian traditions. Within the modern Indian tradition, we have at least two exemplars of cosmopolitanism, Gandhi and Tagore. Gandhi was clearly uncomfortable with the parochialism that marked the building of a nationalist culture. Tagore was similarly uncomfortable with the building of cultural barriers and the celebration of authenticity that guarded itself from contamination. Bhembre has definitely chosen the winning team though, given that both Gandhi and Tagore are something of anomalies in contemporary India.

Bhembre is a suave and sophisticated speaker and if you weren’t listening closely you would miss the violence that is necessarily a part of his rejection of cosmopolitanism. The violence of this project however was clearly sketched out by the side show that Naguesh Karmali put up when invited to speak at the event. Karmali opined that we are a shameless people. The Portuguese came to our land, mangled the names of our villages to such an extent that today we don’t recognize them in Konkani. And yet, so many years after their departure, we have till date not returned them to their original forms.

Original, Mr. Karmali? For me my village is Sancoale, Cuncolim and Divar, there are other names for these villages, but I prefer to use these, since these are the names I use on a daily basis and the names as used by my family. Are you suggesting that my knowledge and the identity from it is wrong? Am I, my self, my being and my life wrong? Can the one life that a human being has, when not causing harm to another, be wrong?

Karmali didn’t just stop there; i.e. in branding a good portion of Goans as ‘wrong’. He went on to suggest that we should emulate places like Karnataka and Gujarat and other places where the names of places have been reverted to their ‘original’ forms. I will not elaborate on the fact that what these changes have done is to legalize intolerance. Only one name is legally permitted for a place, there is no space for a cosmopolitan identity for these places. Thus the beauty of a Bombay in English, Bombaim in Konkani and Mumbai in Marathi, when spoken by the same person is no longer legally permissible. But the violence of the legal world is not the only kind we should be afraid of, since Mr. Karmali seemed to have more corporeal violence in mind. Can we celebrate examples drawn from Gujarat and Karnataka without also knowing that these same changes have laid the foundations for the shocking anti-minority violences in both States? In Gujarat it was the Muslims that bore (and continue to bear) the brunt of this parochialism; in Karnataka, anyone who does not speak Kannada, or looks non-Kannadiga bears the brunt of this politics of authenticity. But then we should not be surprised by Karmali’s statements and proclivities. This is the same man who was at the forefront of the attacks on ‘Portuguese’ street names in Fontainhos a few years ago, and he runs free despite it.

Cosmopolitanism is a welcome cultural marker. It stands against the sectarian visions of nationalism. Those who actively seek to work against it, only lay the foundation for the destruction of our social order.

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 11th Feb 2009)