Last year when I was in Khorjuem, my beautiful island in the sun, I was thoroughly disappointed and utterly depressed when I took a walk to the ferry wharf. As I gazed across the empty expanse of water, the picture postcard scene of the St. Thomas Church standing majestically on the banks of the River Mandovi, somehow seemed incomplete without the living presence of the Khorjuem Ferry.

Our beloved ferry was no more. With the coming of a new bridge, Khorjuem is no longer an island and the ferry without which living in Khorjuem was unthinkable, became redundant.

Feelings of sadness, longing and deep melancholy seemed to envelop me. The ferry was our lifeline to the church, the cemetery and the bazaar. On our way to and from the school we crossed the ferry four times a day. Apart from the food we ate, the ferry was our highway for every requirement.

When was the first time I crossed the ferry? Was it the day I was baptized?

Ever since I remember, the ferry was made up of two small canoes tied together and people waded into the water to get into onto it. It was also a source of great fun when we as schoolboys, manned the oars and literally took the boat 'for a ride'. Much to the chagrin and exasperation of the hapless 'tari', and the screaming of the seemingly frightened girls.

In an age where a boy talking to a girl in public evoked a major scandal, the ferry gave us an opportunity to 'get close' in more sense than one, or to pass on an innocent book which contained a love letter.

Many a romance started and later flourished while waiting for the ferry and crossing it. And much more than that, a lady's umbrella was all that sheltered two blissful people in the monsoon, unmindful of the water above or below!

One of the great lessons the ferry taught us was patience, as we had to wait for half an hour for the next one, if one missed the boat.

The ferry played a great role in uniting the people of Khorjuem. Some time back, the mechanized ferry broke down and there were over four hundred people on either side. Some started a card game. Others were singing mandos, some were joking and laughing and some, like me, began reminiscing about the good old days when the 'vodem' never broke down. Not a person complaining or grumbling.

The Khorjuem ferry had a checkered history. A song we sang went thus, "Adim Khorjuekarank Raja passun bielo. Ugdas tumkam astolo tiam adleam tarincho. Atam Khorjuenkarank borem magta lok soglo. Kiteac tar utronk diunk naca ekui poiso."

The story goes that sometime in the early nineteen hundreds, there was a move to stop the Comunidade (village land-owning collective) from running the ferry, free, and the government river transport authority called Navegasao to take it over on payment basis.

Khorjuem's people pulled the government boats out of the water, burnt them overnight and scattered the ashes far away to hide all evidence. When the then equivalent of the Captain of Ports came, the women waded into the water and prevented him from alighting. He must have experienced the stiff resistance of the people, made a hasty retreat, and reverted the ferry back to the Comunidade. Not only Khorjuem but even the Calvim and Bodiem ferry was made free.

In the early 'seventies, the row boats gave way to a mechanized flat bottomed ferry on payment of 50 paise. Now cars could come across bringing people to their homes and many an occasional porter lost his job.

Normally the 15 minute walk from the ferry to home stretched to over 30, when one came from Bombay or abroad, as one had to wait and talk to every householder by the roadside. But, came the cars and no one knew who came and went and contact was lost.

Khorjuem people crossing and walking together by a 'boatful' was an intimidating force to reckon with and their display of strength and unity in any adversity or on the football field, was admired and envied by many.

Now with the coming of the new bridge, transport and roads have improved. Buses run up to your door. There is no meeting of peoples, the much talked about "unity and strength" has become fragile and the Jolly Islanders have lost their charm, becoming isolated victims of personal ego. Is this the price of progress my beautiful island has to pay?