MARGAO
It was around 12 noon on Sunday. Our Lady of Snows Church Parish Priest, Fr Conceicao D’Silva, was huddled around a tombstone, spruced up and beautified, meters away from the Raia cemetery.
Realisation soon dawned that the Parish Priest had joined the villagers in remembering the 1918 Spanish flu victims from the village and to offer prayers for the recovery of Covid-19 patients.
The tombstone standing near the Raia cemetery bears testimony to the devastation that was caused by the Spanish flu around 102 years ago. If locals are to be believed, around 319 people from Raia village had fallen victims to the deadly Spanish flu that had swept across the world around 102 years ago in 1918.
The tombstone near the cemetery has been the cynosure of all eyes since the Covid-19 pandemic had raised its ugly head in the state, more so in Raia, which had recorded several Covid cases.
Locals started offering prayers near the tombstone after Covid cases were detected in Raia, with people invoking the Almighty to protect them from coronavirus.
Fr Conceicao said the Spanish flu that raised its ugly head in Europe in 1918 had claimed lakhs of lives across the world, including Goa. “There were many deaths in Goa in the talukas of Bardez, Tiswadi and Salcete because of Spanish flu. Those days people had taken out processions in their respective villages with the statue of St Sebastian. There was a Jesuit priest at that time, who was performing the funerals of the deceased. He also suffered and died. He later rose to become a saint,” he said.
Fr Conceicao said the tombstone not only reminded the people of the Spanish flu that swept the world, but has brought local people together to offer prayers to Almighty to save the people from coronavirus, he added.
Margaretta T Costa, proprietor of Nostalgia, said people have come together near the 102-year-old tombstone, which bears testimony to the Spanish flu that had devastated the village at that time. “We have to help each other and overcome the coronavirus,” she said. Margaretta had lent her help and support to renovate the tombstone and beautify the place.
Local resident Xavier Fernandes pointed out that soon after the government enforced the first lockdown on March 22, a group of Raia villagers assembled near the tombstone on March 30 to offer prayers for the wellbeing of everyone.
“That was the time when the Covid-19 pandemic was just raising its ugly head in Goa. Again, the people assembled near the tombstone in May to offer prayers and since then people come and offer their prayers to protect them from the coronavirus,” Xavier said, as he thanked the proprietor of Nostalgia for taking up renovation of the tombstone.
The tombstone, which was built in the memory of the Spanish flu victims, has the following words inscribed on it: ‘E M DAS VICTAMAS De GRIPE De 1918.’
