Mario Miranda - Cartoonist

The Mirandas of Loutolim have lived in the same small area on the north bank of the Zuari River for more than five hundred years. They were the Sardesais or revenue collectors of a small village called Raciem when Goa was ruled by the Bijapur Sultans. They were Hindus and Brahmins by caste. When, in the mid 16th century, the Salcette district was conquered by the Portuguese, the family converted to Roman Catholic Christianity and took on their new name, Miranda.

The house is in Loutolim, in the district of Salcette. Loutolim is small, sleepy and redolent of the flavour of a much older Goa. The center and heart of Loutolim is the church, and within a dog's bark of it, is this house.

It is approached by a lane, pink, because it has been hewn out of the crumbly laterite stone which forms the soil of India's western seaboard. The lane ends up before a wrought-iron gate set in a low wall. And beyond the wall, looms the house foursquare and white, as though sitting for its portrait to be painted or more likely, for tourists' cameras to flash.

Facing the gateway and set to one side of its frontage is a portico embellished with baronial flourishes complete with a heraldic crest engraved on a tablet which is set into its masonry. A couple of steps through the portico lead to a solid wooden door of extravagant dimensions. As you are trying to locate the doorbell you become aware of a tremendous clamour within the house: of several dogs barking furiously and human voices, both male and female, shouting orders.

The door is open and there stands the owner of the house, Mario Miranda.

He is above average height, well set, with skin the colour of weathered teakwood. He has plentiful hair, tousled, dark-brown and flecked with gray. His eyebrows are straight and thick. He has a prominent nose, a firm chin and soft-brown eyes, widely set. He is dressed in an open necked shirt and cotton trousers. His stance, head thrust slightly forward and shoulders hunched, reminds you of a boxer's crouch. His face breaks into a smile as though he is really pleased to see you, even if, as is quite likely, he has been dragged away from his work-table: for he is a busy man and like most artists who work at home, has no fixed working hours.

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