panaji pakistani journalist of goan origin cyril almeida has come a long way from his home in islamabad crossing wagah to india from atari amritsar then to mumbai via delhi until finally landing in goa he undertook the tediously long journey and abided by the staunch imposition of a cityspecific visa to be part of the goa arts and literary festival galf for the third consecutive year people in goa are very kind and have great interest to know what pakistan is like he said the almeidas moved to prepartition pakistan when karachi was part of the bombay presidency when the partition took place 30 years later the family decided to stay on as there was a thriving goan community in karachi that is how the origins of goans in pakistan began he said although this is almeidas third visit to goa the rest of his family are visiting the sunny state for the first time ever they are very excited to be here he confessed almeida who speaks impeccable english and urdu says that he doesnt know konkani but finds familiarities in the linguistic skills of the locals the accent expressions and pronunciations of the goan vernacular sound very familiar to my ear two generations ago people would either speak konkani or be familiar with it but now we largely speak pakistani english he said asked what his preconceived notions of goa were he said i had heard of two goas one of the party and beach life and the other of the traditional life which revolves around the community and catholic church on first coming here what struck me was that people have a thoroughly modern sophisticated and international lives in goa and there is an intellectual vibrancy out here thus instead of getting a culture shock almeida experienced a culture familiarity some of the cuisine is thoroughly recognizable to what my grandmother used to cook like the fish and prawn curries traditional dried seafood etc familiarity with the traditional names of these dishes had slipped with the passage of time but the taste continues to remain the same he further added that he takes home the goan rechado masala on each visit asked about the minority communities in pakistan almeida said that the precise figure of the pakistani population is unclear as they havent had a census since 1998 it could be roughly about 200 million people of which 98 are muslims and the rest form the minority the minorities are spread out in various parts of the country hindus tend to be concentrated in sindh and christians in punjab while some parsis are in karachi though the older generation of goans in pakistan still visits goa for the feast of st francis xavier most of the younger generation have moved out and settled in western nations people are still trying to hang on to their cultural past but its hard with the shrinking population he said pakistani journalist of goan origin cyril almeida toi