Goan vibes were in full swing, complete with melodious tunes in the Konkani language and traditional music, at Goa Fest 2022 held on the grounds of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the southern port city of Karachi recently.
Among the beautiful damsels and stylish men turned out in their best outfits was Saphrina Bella Coelho, a banker who regaled the colorful gathering with a Konkani ‘masala medley.’
“Good things should never end,” she told. “We are Pakistani Catholics with a Goan ancestry; hence we prefer being called Goans.”
Coelho is part of a small community of some 5,000 people in Karachi, descendants of Catholics who arrived in Pakistan from Goa, a former Portuguese colony in western India.
During the British colonial days, their ability to handle English and Western lifestyle helped them get employment in government services such as the judiciary, port, police, railways, post and telegraph, and healthcare.
The partition of British India in 1947, at the end of colonial rule, gained them Pakistani citizenship, making their return to Goa almost impossible.