My dear Koko,

Sorry for disappearing off to Goa again and leaving you in the lurch in Pune –  not that you will care given the fact you seem to have teamed up admirably with the pretty lady dog you met on Balewadi High Street. Her mistress, a little bird tells me, serves you gourmet food in the kitchen of the Jazz and Spice restaurant that she runs. I hope you choke on your beef steak!

I like to think though that you may be missing me.

I would have been there but work called, and if it is not to be retirement in an old age home being fed on porridge but choosing the tougher life in Pune cooking for the wife every day of the week to wheedle my way to her heart, or keeping the kitchen spotless so I don’t get thrown out of the house, or just enjoying myself by tending a work-in-progress terrace garden – and, of course, quaffing whiskey on the quiet while watching TV with you (or just gabbing about football), then work and more importantly, remuneration, is that which is desperately needed.

If you can pay for your own whiskey, you stand a better chance of avoiding the old age home and slurping porridge…

I will be away two weeks because after a week, the wife will miss my cooking. After two weeks, she’s tired of her own cooking, and I don’t blame her, you can’t eat your own cooking day in and day out.  

You will recall no doubt that the best food ever cooked for you when you lived with us, was on days where the wife and kids had gone on holiday, leaving you with me. I remember your disdainful looks because I ate bread and omelette for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And it tasted like soggy newspaper every single time.

You laugh, dog, but you will surely salivate recalling my superlative Beef Biriyani – chunks of succulent beef tossed in a tablespoon of powdered methi and half a cup of curd and some finely grated garlic and rice, then cooked slowly, adding water slowly till the rice gets juicy and takes on the taste of the beef.

Bet you didn’t know it was medicinal too, you silly dog: the methi helped you digest the powerful amount of beef you ate; the garlic is what got everyone admiring the sheen of your coat, and the bones you chewed down to highly polished caricatures of themselves made your white teeth stay sharp and gleaming.

But to come back to the bane of my life: after two weeks of not seeing my pretty face, the wife immediately thinks of her cook, her lunch, her dinner, and seems positively pleased to see me. Even pours my  first drink

*********    

So, am I enjoying the work I’m doing in Goa? Is it better than an old age home?

Probably not, although, to cut a long story short, you would have made perfect company for me as we totted whiskey and cried in our glass and bowl, one of us sitting at a table in a small village bar, the other squatting at my feet.

And it didn’t even have to do with your African teams losing out in Moscow 2018!

What disturbed me you will ask?  

Well, I have spent five days looking at a river in South Goa that is slowly but surely being amputated, even as I write this. Let me explain:

I know this river from the first time I saw it in 1972. Then in 1974 till 1976, when I lived and worked in Margao. Those days, the river seemed so wide when you crossed the bridge at Margao, either going south running parallel with the river, or, leaving the river and heading east to the sea off Colva.

It looked so beautiful, you stopped. Those days, if it was just before sunset, you got the post-card image of a view from the ancient bridge linking Margao to the other side. Below you, there were fishing boats getting ready for the trip out, patiently waiting for the high tide to build so they could head back to sea and another night of fishing. The next day, before the sun broke, they would be back with the catch for the Margao fish market. A little ahead, downstream, there were offloading points for large sailboats bringing in tiles from Mangalore.

And of course my history of this river is inexplicably tied to a crazy friend who discovered bars and family restaurants not even a long walk from the river – from source in Verna to where the River Sal breaks into sea at Betul, so one can truly say that we drank as much feni as the water it held. Don’t ask for too many details before I have digested them.

Today, perhaps the ‘city’ of Margao, without even knowing it, is systematically assaulting the River Sal – reducing a large portion of it to a limb to be thrown away, a useless appendage. This is the part where the river has its many sources. Of the part of the limb remaining, everyone perhaps is not fully aware that the river will soon be made into a longish saltwater creek – only stretching from the sea along a length of less than half of what the river is today. You do not want to know what’s going to happen to the many sources of water where this once-lovely river began. You do not want to know what will come in the cusp between the parts of the river now severed into two?

There is another similar phenomenon that has taken place in North Goa, where a river with several tributaries coming in from higher levels in villages around once broke to sea. Today it’s a creek about half a kilometre long. It’s a pity I never took you to Mumbai, dog, but in less than five years, both these man-induced creeks, garbage lining their banks, sewage dispelling all but scavenging catfish, will be like the one that comes between Bandra and Mahim and then breaks into a dark, dismal, almost turgid sea.

But you can read about this poor river when I write my piece up and we can cry together then. Right now, there are also good things happening.

On two evenings, I watched a tournament taking place in Benaulim – not that far from this river in South Goa that’s being slowly amputated bone by bone. The football was not spectacular apart from two players, one on each day, standing head and shoulders above everyone else. But what got me was the fact that there were close to 1000 spectators, if not more, watching and cheering at each of the matches.

Of course, what was even more interesting was that I embraced my instinct and followed four gentlemen who I overheard discuss which of two bars they intended to visit after the match. There was no sign of the wife in my conscience and the kids had flown the coop so I dutifully followed them at a respectful distance. What tilted the choice – and I am sure you will concur with me – was that the second bar, apparently, had a new cook who had given the Beef Fry a taste and flavour worth eating again and again.

More importantly, they seemed to love football.  

In fact, while I kept pace with them,  I kept hearing the name ‘Bibiano’. Simultaneously, in chorus, each more excited than the other, each took it on himself to heap praise on this mysterious ‘Bibiano’, the only sound I could hear while they analysed this player, and I just took it for granted that the world would soon know who ‘Bibiano’ was – in all probability, given the cadence of his name, a new football superstar from Brazil or Portugal.

Only to be expected, I thought. Why would four Goans not root for Brazil or Portugal when there wasn’t a single Goan in the Indian team??

**********

As I followed them, I recounted your email to me. I must say that the cute lady dog you are hanging with these days has got you very computer savvy. And you’re using an Apple you tell me, her owner’s restaurant must be doing very well…hope no one catches you sipping whiskey at the bar…

To come back to your email about the sorry state of African football, I am happy, that you have recovered from the shock of Moscow 2018. I shouldn’t be rubbing it in, but when Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Nigeria and Senegal were eliminated in the group phase in Russia, it left your continent without a representative in the knock-out rounds for the first time since the 1982 finals in Spain!

Even more heartening is the fact that Confederation of African Football held a conference a couple of weeks ago, hosted perhaps by the unluckiest team at Moscow, Morocco. Thanks for drawing my attention to problems not every other country would suffer from: the fallout from fasting at Ramazan in the run-up to the tournament; last-minute serious injuries without having good enough back up players; tactical systems that may have been inappropriate for some opponents; the poor and almost non-existent commitment of some of the countries’ leaders before and during the World Cup. Worth digesting.

You provide me with some shocking data from one of the semi-finals at Moscow, giving me the details, ironically, of Africa’s contribution:

Team A:

Kylian Mbappe – Cameroon / Algeria roots

Paul Pogba – Guinea

Steve Mandanda – Democratic Republic of Congo

Blaise Matuidi – Angola / Congo

Ngolo Kante – Mali

Ousmane Dembele – Senegal, Mali, Mauritania

Nabil Fekir – Algerian

Samuel Umtiti – Cameroon

Adil Rami – Morocco

Benjamin Mendy – Senegal

Djibril Sidibe – Senegal

Presnel Kimpembe – Democratic Republic of Congo

Team B:

Vincent Kompany – father from the Democratic Republic of Congo

Marouane Fellaini – parents from Morocco

Romelu Lukaku – parents from the Democratic Republic of Congo and father played for the national team

Mousa Dembélé – father from Mali

Dedryck Boyata – father from the Democratic Republic of Congo who played for the national team

Michy Batshuayi – parents from the Democratic Republic of Congo

Nacer Chadli – Moroccan heritage and once played a friendly for Morocco

Youri Tielemans – mother from the Democratic Republic of Congo

You probably hadn’t seen the South African comedian, Trevor Noah, who said the cup was won by Africa. This didn’t go down well, it drew angry comments in France – where far-right politicians have long criticised the national soccer team for having too many black players – and a rebuke from the French ambassador to the United States.

“By calling them an African team, it seems you are denying their Frenchness. This, even in jest, legitimizes the ideology which claims whiteness as the only definition of being French,” Araud wrote in a letter posted on the French embassy’s Twitter account.

Noah wasn’t finished. “When I’m saying ‘African’ I’m not saying it to exclude them from their Frenchness, I’m saying it to include them in my African-ness,” he said, after reading the letter on his show.

Barack Obama had his own take. He paid tribute to South Africa’s Nelson Mandela saying that embracing diversity delivered “practical benefits”. “And if you doubt that, he told the audience, “just ask the French football team that just won the World Cup. Because not all of those folks look like Gauls to me. But they’re French, they’re French,” he added.

So wake up and smell the coffee (or whiskey), dog, multiculturalism is here to stay. Check out the connection to Africa in America’s giant basketball league:

Al-Farouq Aminu – Portland Trail Blazers, US, parents from Nigeria

Bismack Biyombo – Charlotte Hornets, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Cheick Diallo – New Orleans Pelicans, Mali

Joel Embiid – Philadelphia 76ers; Cameroon

Evan Fournier – Orlando Magic; France; parent from Algeria

Serge Ibaka – Toronto Raptors, Republic of the Congo

Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot – Oklahoma City Thunder, France, parent from the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Pascal Siakam – Raptors, Cameroon

Luol Deng – Los Angeles Lakers, South Sudan

and Ian Mahinmi – Washington Wizards, France; parent from Benin.

Also, dear dog, is a story of many, many countries, with a past that is as rich as it has been brutal, and there are good enough reasons for a country from Africa to be a flag-bearer and win the cup – a war, won non-violently. Moreover, I hope you haven’t forgotten that Nigeria had one of the best African squads ever at the 1994 World Cup and won the 1996 Olympics by beating Brazil and Argentina with all their stars.

And yet, at the 2010 World Cup, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Ghana turned up with European coaches, who took up the job three months before the competition. You will be shocked at how much European or Latin American coaches earn.

Yet, the money apart, it makes more sense to get local coaches. You should be proud that Aliou Cissé of Senegal and Nabil Maaloul of Tunisia coached their own country, or at the very least, getting coaches like Clarence Seedorf and Patrick Kluivert, Dutch footballers of  African origin. in whom Africa beats.

People don’t understand African passion. Journalists in Moscow were stunned when Morocco’s star Amrabat played with a serious head injury. When quizzed coach Renard said: “He’s a warrior – he wanted to play. He put protection on but he took it off. It’s because his spirit is amazing and I’m lucky to have a player like him”.

That’s Africa, Koko.

I am in Goa for another week at the very least. Till my next mail, enjoy your steaks at Balewadi High Street. I shall tell you about the Beef Fry and a new hero I have found called Bibiano Fernandes. In the meantime, find out how to get to Peru next year!!!

Cheers,

Hartman