A corner of Goa that is forever Bharat'

For 71 years and counting, a little caf in south Goa has been celebrating India's freedom from British rule, even during its decades as part of a Portuguese colony, marking each anniversary with buntings, sweets and conversations on the legacy of the past and hopes for the future.

And so it was yesterday too, when Bharat Caf, in a charming Portuguese era building in Old Margao Market, got all dressed up for Independence Day.

On August 15, 1947, when the bells tolled India's freedom from the British, Subraya Sheshagiri Shetti rang in freedom in the caf he had started 12 years earlier in 1935.

Seven decades later, on Independence Day yesterday, Shetti's grandson Deepak Ananth Shetti continued the tradition set by his Gandhian grandfather in the cafe, which boasts a bust of Mahatma Gandhi.

On Independence Day, we garlanded the bust of Gandhi at our cafe, as a tribute to the Father of the Nation. The idea is to instil the spirit the nationalism and patriotism,"Deepak told PTI.

"Like other years, old-timers, who have met my father or grandfather, came over to our cafe and reminisced sharing the cherished memories of Independence Day being celebrated year after year in the years gone by," he said.

His grandfather, he said, was a Gandhian from Karnataka who had dreamt of an India free from the shackles of colonialism.

Subraya Shetty named his cafe Bharat -- a little corner of Indian nationalism in what was then a Portuguese enclave