Hello, and welcome to my blog!

After many fun years of writing offline, I look ahead to even greater fun from blogging. I hope to connect with readers like you – friends known and unknown from cyberspace. So, a big thank-you for checking out my blog!

I believe life’s journey to be worth chronicling. The things that fascinate us; the people we’ve known and loved; the issues we hold closest to our minds and hearts: they are the stuff that one day we will look back on. Such experiences make up for many a dull moment that we might’ve had to endure. And what’s more, they put a smile on the lips of our fellow travellers… That’s why nothing can be more fulfilling than jotting down those highpoints. 

There’s a lot that we get out of life: aren’t we are duty-bound to give back? I teach undergraduates in the morning and work out at the gym in the evening. I speak a few languages and write in two. I sing in the church choir and anchor a chat show. I write for the papers and post on Facebook. I raise a family and run a charitable foundation… (And have a long wish list of things to learn and do!) Blogging will be my way of sharing what I’ve received. 

I’m aware that a variety of things and ideas out there can boggle a blogger. Shakespeare remarked, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.” Dream I must, but not let dreams be my master… I guess my ethos has kept me rooted. Thankfully, I’ve picked up beautiful lessons from the tradition and culture I belong to. Not only does this joyfully become part of my work, it brings about unity in variety, which, as Somerset Maugham puts it, is the essence of the beautiful. 

Beautiful is my homeland, Goa. And although just a dot on the west coast of India, she has welcomed people of old, arriving by land and sea, carrying merchandise and ideas from across the globe. Goa’s long interaction with multiple cultures has made it a much loved destination – as an oasis of peace and harmony – and it has made me the Goan that I am… A blend of East and West, a microcosm of the modern world: that’s my homeland.

In this globalized, blogalized world, my blog is a Goan take on the globe – and with due to apologies to the great Roman playwright Terence, I say, “I am Goan, and nothing human is alien to me…” 

Óscar de Noronha