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"Weekender". My dad had already told me about him so I was eager to
hear what he had to say.
His talk dealt with the consequences of using chemicals (pesticides,

insecticides, fertilizers) which he said was a recent happening in the
world. He stressed the need to return to organic farming which he said
was the only sensible way of farming. He also spoke about the role of
earthworms as friends of the farmer.
Many questions followed. Most of these dealt with problems people
faced while gardening at home. Mr Borges in his reply offered practical
solutions which he himself had tried out successfully. For example, to
the query, "Why does a papaya plant die after flowering?" he suggested
building a bund round the base of the plant because water collecting
there rots the papaya base stem. In this connection he also spoke of a
medicine which he and his colleagues had invented to drastically
reduce the diseases which attack papaya. He markets this as "Papaya
Cure". By around noon the talk ended and I left for home.
Siolim The plant exhibition at Saligao had given me an idea of what to
expect at the next plant festival I attended, which was at Siolim. Here I
took an active part thanks to the invitation I received from Alexyz, the
well known Goan cartoonist, who was in charge of the Siolim Plant
Festival called "Green Heritage". Green Heritage was started by Alexyz
and his friends a few years ago and it has proved to be an enormous
success with people eagerly awaiting the event each year.
I woke up early on the morning of August 11th, 1995 and pedalled
away to Siolim, which is a picturesque village across the hill from
Parra. I found myself sitting at Alexyz's doorstep much earlier than
expected. Alexyz and his wife Tecla arrived home in time for lunch.
After lunch, I hopped on the back of Alexyz's Kinetic Honda and we
set off to visit the homes of all those participating in the exhibition,
informing them to keep their exhibits ready for us to collect the next
day.
I woke up on the 12th morning to the sound of Alexyz's gibberish much
like scatman's scat. "Come on man, let's get going", he yelled. He was a
college friend of my parents and he is one of the funniest people I know.
Just being in his company is one big laugh!
Our task that morning was to collect the plant exhibits from the homes
of all those on our list. The tempo arrived at 9.30 a.m. We covered the
base of the tempo with shrubs to act as cushions for the potted plants.
We had a long list of homes to visit. Each time we picked up an item
for the exhibition we tagged and numbered it so we would know the

correct house to return the pot to later. We had to be careful at some
houses otherwise we might have ended with torn pants ripped up by the
huge Dobermans people owned.
When the tempo could carry no more we would return to SFX school
where the exhibition was to be held in order to unload the pots and start
out again. Each round was an experience of new people, new homes,
new gardens. On one round we visited the famous pop singer Remo's
house. His mother was taking part in the exhibition.
It took us all day to complete the list and we eventually made three
trips round the village. We then arranged the pots on the benches in the
school hall. Miguel Braganza (an agricultural officer of the
Government who at that time was posted to the Indian Council of
Agricultural Research in Old Goa) and Francis Borges (the same
person who gave the talk on organic farming at the Saligao Plant
Exhibition) were also there along with several other village boys and
girls all helping in various ways to set up the show which was to begin
the next morning. In fact by the time we finished it was already one a.m.
of the 13th. We would have only a few hours of sleep before we would
all be on duty again at 9 a.m. to complete the last minute jobs before
the festival got started.
The Green Heritage Plant Festival lasted three days. The Director of the
Agricultural Department, Mr P.K. Desai, inaugurated it at 11 a.m
(instead of a ribbon to be cut between the doors of the exhibition, there
was a creeper). He also released a book titled, Green Aid III-Total
Gardening that the Green Heritage had published. The book was
wrapped up in a large money plant leaf instead of wrapping paper. I
thought this an unusual and apt idea. After the inauguration and the
release of the book,