GAVIN ALVARES
I had the enormous good fortune to know Glenda Zemira De Souza, when she moved in with my mother as a temporary paying-guest in 2004. She was only after transitory lodging, whilst she sorted out her circumstances, but she ended up staying for almost 14 years. During that time, she became an inseparable part of the family, a chum to my mother and a treasured friend to me. Our village adopted this rather strange, fiercely independent, tree-hugging, jean-clad, tomboy of a girl, with her brilliant smile and her enormous wild hair with whom she waged a daily - and unsuccessful - battle to tame. She was a common sight in our Vaddo, whizzing around on her cherished but battered old TVS Suzuki bike, wearing her equally battered helmet and her fluorescent back-pack, ferrying a menagerie of injured or sick creatures, of the four-legged or feathered variety, to the vet or the hospital.
Glenda earned her living diligently and honestly, by working for various international animal charities, or by house-sitting, pet-minding and doing various jobs for a set foreign and OCI residents staying along the beach belt. She was trusted by one and all, unpretentious to the core and honest to a fault. People left her in charge of their pets, houses, valuables, money and belongings. She never let them down. She understood that most important basic lesson in life - it takes years to build trust but it can take a second to destroy it. On the rare occasion she ever had to borrow money - invariably to rescue some unfortunate soul - she would not rest until she repaid every last paisa back, which she did without fail - every single time.
She was a nature enthusiast who went out of her way to look after ailing or injured animals; volunteering most of her time and energy for Animal Rescue, Mission Rabies and other environmental or conservation issues that were dear to her. Countless strays in our village were sterilized and vaccinated through her efforts. She had a fiery temper and woe befall anyone she caught littering; once fiercely haranguing me for buying my mother a roll of environmentally-damaging plastic cling-film for the kitchen. I discarded all manner of cling-film and other single-use plastics from that day on. Jettisoning plastics was infinitely better than copping a earful from an impassioned Glenda. My mother was a quivering, nervous wreck on garbage disposal day, watched over by the gimlet eye of Her-That-Brooked-No-Argument when it came to wasteful use of plastic. She mulched wet garbage, set up composting pits, planted trees, experimented with vermiculture, segregated garbage to the point of OCD and fed a myriad dogs, cats, rats and birds with any food scraps she could lay her hands on.
She had lived her life unaided thus far, without debt or dependence; she owed no-one; indeed, the ignominy of leaving behind debt caused her more anguish than the illness that afflicted her. Juxtaposed against this, was the image of our Chief Minister and one-time Dy Chief Minister flying themselves across the planet, to avail of the best of treatment at the cost of hard working taxpayers like Glenda. Sometime just after the monsoons set in this year and tired of being cooped up in bed, with her legs failing; she expressed the desire to go out for a drive. We drove all the way south to the mount of the Chapel of the Three Kings in Cansaulim. She willed her tired legs and weary body to walk up to the mount overlooking the magnificent expanse of South Goa. Glenda sat there for one final time, in harmony with the beauty of her beloved Goa, resplendent in the rains. She took in the lush fields; an emerald and shamrock green tartan quilt spread across the landscape, melding into a canopy of coconut groves near the shoreline. She gazed at the silver beaches adorning a tempestuous teal and stone-gray sea. She traced the soaring white steeples of the seven great churches of the South - visible from the Mount - with her finger. She marveled at the immense and exuberant Frangipani perched at an impossibly defiant angle on the edge of the cliff below her, as she watched a herd of cows; little dwarf-like miniatures in the distance, amble across the fields on their way home. She raised her face to the overcast sky; a lustrous, polished shield of pewter forged across the heavens, and felt the rain-mist carried on the wings of a sea-breeze as she breathed in the essence of peace, of tranquility and of Goa. Then in the distance, out at sea, when she saw the clouds darken and an all-encompassing brooding, indigo shroud of rain sweeping in, she turned around and said, very simply, “I am content”.
Glenda found peace at Shanti Avedna on the 27th of September 2018. She was only 41. The homage paid to her by a church overflowing with people would have embarrassed her reticent self endlessly. Her brief life on earth, was a life that was filled with the celebration of nature, of triumph over adversity; one of meaning and fulfillment in the simplest way possible. She gave of herself to her beloved animals and to the people of her adopted village.
Glenda will be remembered long, long after today. She will be remembered riding her rickety bike, carrying her assortment of dogs, cats, birds and snakes. She will be remembered for boldly taking on garbage-littering locals and tourists. She will be remembered for her ready smile and her penchant for helping those around her that needed help. She will be remembered fondly in the village for her innumerable acts of selflessness, for her compassion and for her empathy. Goodbye Glenda, much too soon. I had much yet to learn from you.
