It was almost three decades ago. That was the first time I met Eddie Fernandes. Actually, in hindsight, the word ‘met’ might be misleading, and ‘encountered’ might be better.
At that time, young overseas Goans were just beginning to play around with the Internet, and the potential it offered. It was the year 1994. Herman Carneiro with Goanet, Marlon Menezes with GoaWeb (later GoaCom) and Ulysses Menezes with Goa-World had taken the first giant steps for Goans through cyberspace just around then.
Some of us who were into the ‘content’ side of things were quick to be drawn to this potential. Eddie Fernandes was one of them, and a prominent one at that. He would have been in his 50s then.
Eddie is still going strong. Not many may be aware (or giving due credit) to his initiative, GoanVoice.org.uk. This website has been up and running with amazing regularity and consistency since around the late 1990s.
The beginning
The first time Eddie communicated with me, he was then still working as an Engineering Librarian at the University College, London (UCL). His wife, Lira Fernandes, also into the Library Sciences, was then a librarian at the BFI, or British Film Institute.
Eddie had so much to say in that initial communication. So, instead of writing, he actually sent across a series of cassettes in which he had recorded his voice!
We later exchanged books related to Goa, and one thing led to another. At one stage, he was very keen to build a common digital online listing of books on Goa, available in different libraries in Goa and elsewhere.
This would have helped to make visible what books on Goa are available and where. Now, sites like books.google.com, the books-related search website, can also achieve this. But that would have been an idea before its time, and quite useful to Goa too.
Unfortunately, good ideas can sometimes require time to take root in Goa. So things didn’t quite work out there as planned. Maybe we can say say it was was an idea that came up before its time.
Goa-focused library
Eddie Fernandes has also probably the largest privately-owned Goa-focused library of books in any part of the world. If I recall right, he had a collection of 5,000 Goa-related books even then.
As you might expect, Eddie traces his roots to Kenya, and then shifted (like his wife, Lira) to study library sciences in the UK. He has stayed on there since. His interest in books and Goa has made him a skilled collector of books on this topic.
It might seem hard to believe that there are actually so many books related to this tiny region called Goa anywhere on this planet. But there are indeed.
Eddie mentioned somewhere that, while collecting the same, he would pick up Goa related books during his travels to diverse parts of Europe, including Lisbon. Our former capital of the empire has (more in the past than now) some rare old Goa books for sale in the antiquarian or second-hand books in the heart of town.
Goan Voice
But Eddie’s claim-to-fame is undeniably the website called Goan Voice. (As an aside, it was named after an old Goan expat newspaper, of the same name, that was run in the former colonial Kenya in or around the 1930s or 1940s.)
Put briefly, this site offers a fascinating 360-degree view of what is happening across the Goan world on any given day. Using his superior information-finding skills, honed from years of experience as a professional librarian, Eddie collates the best of information from here, there and everywhere.
He has been doing so for years. Even when he goes on the European customary holiday, he manages to get the updates done one way or another. Eddie Fernandes also keeps his readers updated with some obituaries, especially of deaths within the Goan diasporic community, and this probably partly supports the site, which is otherwise free to access.
On an average day, news comes in from all over the Goan world. For instance, at the time of writing, the latest updates tell us about a Goan chef in the UK, the United Goans Affiliation UK Limited (a new Goan association, reported in The Goan), Gujaratis (?) travelling on fake Portuguese passports, articles of interest from the local press, Goan doings in Germany, “Mhadei News”, tourism-related updates, F&B updates, debates about Goan history, et cetera.
In days when the Internet was not so easy to access, GoanVoice.org.uk played an important role in keeping the diaspora (or Daizpora) Goan community connected. As did the networks mentioned above.
Of course, this is more a kind of a portal, offering links to already-published news. That approach has its pros and cons. You get a wide-angle view about what’s being said about Goa worldwide. But one is also restricted to what has already been written about itself.
In a situation where Goa is mostly understood in cliches, this means that stereotypes and narrow views get echoed about Goa (seen largely as a place for inexpensive or no-holds-barred holidays). But, if you read closely, there’s always something or the other of interest that one can find from what Eddie Fernandes has collated.
But the work of Eddie Fernandes, who traces his roots to Ribandar, is useful in another way.
In times when the Goan community -- especially Catholics -- seem to be floundering, and wondering about their role in the world and their home, it’s easy to get discouraged and demoralised.
You don’t know if you’re coming or going. Things can seem bleak for the community -- hit by out-migration, a lack of opportunity at home, political uncertainty and needless controversy created by those who rule us. This has been the case in the past too.
But an antidote can be to read or scan the news on a site such as GoanVoice.org.uk. This helps to rebuild faith in ourselves. To understand that whatever may be the problems looming overhead today, the community is indeed making its mark (some problems apart) in very many different parts of the globe. And that talent is definitely ingrained in it, in a way that a set of good and talented persons cannot be kept down for long.
