Guest Posts

"My evolution into an author started with the pandemic. The time, not so long ago, when we were all locked down at home, consumed by the uncertainty of getting Covid-19 and the certainty of a toilet paper crisis. I took to blogging, to process my emotions and to record this strange time in our history. My blogs were enthusiastically received by my doting family, friends, and all three of my social media followers. A couple of friends encouraged me to write my “Year in Provence” story about my life in Goa. I was delusional enough to think I could turn these blogs into a published book."

My trailing-spouse adventure began in 1993, when my husband Bharat was offered a job in either Dubai, UAE or Nairobi, Kenya. We evaluated both opportunities and chose Dubai for the safety of our young family. (Our son Kunal was two years old when we left India.)

After a decade of expat life in Dubai, my husband Bharat was transferred to Thailand. We welcomed the opportunity to move to Bangkok to learn about a new culture — both modern and with a long, rich history. 

Our golden retriever Neo loved these walks in the park, too — once he was able to join us in the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, due to the U.K.’s stringent quarantine laws for dogs moving from Thailand, he first had to spend six months in strict quarantine

After nearly two decades as an expat family in Dubai, Bangkok, and London, we focused on repatriating to India once construction on our house in Goa had been completed. Working towards this goal, my husband Bharat accepted a job in New Delhi at the end of May 2011, and we landed “back home” in India that summer.

After 18 years of living as an expat in Dubai, Bangkok, and London, and looking in from the outside at the host country and culture, I now find myself in a strange, unique, position of living permanently in Goa, India. 

When I learned that Couto’s essays were published posthumously in At Home in Two Worlds (Speaking Tiger, 2024), I could not wait to read it. I devoured the book in two sittings. Couto writes with authority on Goa’s history, language and literature, with scholarly rigour and yet remaining profoundly personal. At Home in Two Worlds resonated closely with my own beliefs about homecoming and belonging. It explores the Goan’s deep connection to the land, our syncretic history, her shock at the many Goan stereotypes that have emerged since the 1960s, and her horror at the state’s divisive politics today.

Cres was born and brought up on Vypeen Island, which “was one of the earliest Portuguese settlements in Kerala in the early 16th century." Her family has Dutch-Portuguese ancestry with a bit of Chinese thrown in, as some of her mother’s ancestors were from Macau.  A strong Portuguese cultural influence persists across Goa, Kochi and Macau (all of which had a Portuguese presence) in the cuisine, blue pottery, intricately carved furniture and sailors who travelled back and forth. The language her parents spoke was a Vypeen Indo-Portuguese Creole.

“This book has three authors, Antonio Rodrigo Aguiar, Marjorie Valerie Lobbo and Sharbelle Aguiar Fernandez,” these were poet, author, civil servant Tino de Sa’s opening comments at the well-attended Romance on the Airwaves (Goa 1556, 2026) book launch held at the Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Porvorim, Goa. In that beautiful back garden, on a cool January 9, 2026 evening,  Sharbelle could not stop beaming with pride.

In 1987, when 20-something adman Bharat set eyes on Michelle, an intern, at a pre production meeting, he was struck by a lightning bolt. Never a romantic, to his eternal amazement, his first reaction was, ‘I will marry this girl!’