It’s a lovely long weekend with the Ganesh Festival on Friday and then Saturday and Sunday after that. I love long weekends not that I sleep late, but I can write and laze and can sit put and not go anywhere. This time I had to dress up and go to my book club’s iBrowse event which hosted celebrity designer Wendell Rodericks and his book-- ‘Poskem- Goans in the shadows.’

Wendell was game, incase there were tough questions and there were. Most celebs don't like being questioned and it was with a sigh of relief that I mounted the stage when he said, the tougher the questions the nicer for me to answer. For a change there was a large panel on the stage with Stanley Pinto former TOI journalist and friend of Wendell's on the stage. The vice-president Carlos Guido of the KGA, Wendell, myself and ofcourse the Member in charge of the Catholic Club library. A mini- army all set to take on a hall packed with a huge crowd of book lovers.

I began by talking about iBrowse and telling the gathering that its the only event in the club which is open to non-members and for free. Then I requested Stanley to introduce Wendell and I could see Wendell going a bit jumpy with what Stan chose to read from his previous non-fiction book called ‘The Green Room’. Ofcourse Stan had to choose the most salacious chapter and it was amusing to see Wendell fidgeting and every now and then saying Stan, that's enough and almost stretching himself across the table to stop Stan who was ofcourse not to be stopped.

Then I opened the evening reading his intro in the book about the reason for him writing the book. I found his Prologue and Epilogue identical and a bit weird, but he tried to explain his reason which went over my head. I also said as kids we had really nice memories of poskems in my aunts house and that they were wonderful cooks. They seemed happy enough and safe and secure in the big house.

However Wendell talked about the shadowy deals meted out to these women who were misused by the men of the house and sometimes even had children by the exploitation. In today's world the practice seems to be dying and at least no one talks about having a poskem in their house any more.

I did ask why he had such a posh cover for his book of a really wealthy Goan/Portuguese home and the text was shadowy and dark. He had no say in the choice of the cover which was done by his publisher and now they seem to be in trouble, as the lady who approved the picture is dead and her heirs are not happy with the connection he said. Hopefully they got it in writing as it would be a pity to be taken to court over the matter.

The book was strangely spiced with a lot of goan recipes which Wendell said are not given to him by the poskems but by good friends. He in typical goan fashion says we need to say a big prayer before we try out the dish, so it comes out well!

There were annoyed questions and curious ones but the one that I found curious was when a lady from Coorg said they had girls and still do,who were adopted into the house and did all the house work. However they were not given a derogatory name like the goans did. Maybe that's the biggest negative and ofcourse that the girl was allowed to take the surname in Goa, but could not inherit anything. Once the Badkars who brought her in died, she could be sent out into the world with nothing.

I know of this practice in a family very closely related to me where the girl was educated and worked her entire life for the family but once the patriarch died the family told her to leave with nothing. Lucky for her she was taken in by the Little Sisters of the Poor and is able to contribute there and will get looked after for life.

A shameful practice which needs to be stamped out forever.