Remember the grand old balcão fights of Goa? They would invariably start in the back-yard, some old disillusioned housewife crying foul over the neighbour's coconuts falling on her roof or their dog chasing her chickens. Then like a bad smell they would swirl through the house making their way to the balcão and in this swirling movement they would gather force like a tsunami and capture everyone in their vicinity including the men of the household who would elect themselves as Generals of the battle and little children who would enlist as foot-soldiers. The women would hitch their kapod unto their waist, the men would stand up-right in the balcão with a dando club for effect and the children would run about frantically not knowing really what was going on except that there was a fight raging with their neighbours and that for the next month at least they wouldn't be allowed to play with the neighbour's children.

The women like dervishes would gain momentum in this cross-fire exchange of verbal vitriol making sure to bring to light every titbit of information that had been gleaned from various sources which was usually the neighbour's maid, such as the night Padre Vicar paid a visit while the man of the house was away and stayed long enough to sample those delectable bolinas the wife had made just that afternoon. The men of the house would interject into this fray frequently with foul obscenities usually calling into question each other's legitimacy. These fights would go on for hours on end until twilight would gently peep through the evening sky and the neighbouring audience watching in mute fascination would tire and close their thick, ant-eaten wooden windows. When this grand opera curtain dropped on the day's entertainment both households would peter out and resume early next morning.

For those of us worried that we Goans are losing our traditions, at least this one that is being not just preserved but virtually pickled in cyberspace, no puns intended. Men of seeming intelligence and quite some education can while away endless hours in the most inane arguments, hurling the most churlish abuse at each other and making public the most private information. It is quite enough to make those men in the balcão cower in fright if not embarrassment for their own inadequacies on the brawling Richter scale. Here in cyberspace Goan men have learnt to give full airing to their gigantic egos fuelled by an overdose of arrogance. Now, don't get me wrong there have been some magnificent, arrogant men in history like Byron who we find attractive, despite his preference for under aged boys, girls and sodomy but then, Byron was Byron with the talent to match his ego. Goan men on the other hand leave a lot to be desired and their constant flexing of imagined muscles, their perpetual childish need to be reaffirmed by external validation and their blatant lies about their accomplishments somehow reminds me of little, speckled cockerels who perch themselves on the walls at the crack of dawn and crow themselves hoarse in the firm belief that they are responsible for making the sun rise.

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