How do young boys come of age in the old-fashioned semi-Catholic Indiantown of Mangalore? By searching for answers, through curiosity, endless obsession, and the universal power of love. Two coming-of-age stories, one as Catholic as a naughty Pope, another with a magical, Marquezian, Macondo-like setting, are woven together in this book of fiction and nonfiction (including essays) set in and around Mangalore. set in the coastal South Indian town of Mangalore and its surrounding villages. A colorful, witty, vibrant buffet of local culture, character, history, religion, and myths, "The Last Catholic Colony" is made much more digestible with plentiful humor. The nonfiction includes fictionalized scenes, such as the one at the Hole Khan Coffee Estate, where two society women engage in a scornful tirade against the Crackmatics (Charismatics), or one where a Lord Bishop complains of his burdens and a Konkani writer delivers fatal slaps to mosquitoes. This book is also about the Catholicism that once was so important in it, and the people, the characters and mindsets that it produced, partly in adapting to a Hindu environment and heritage.An affectionate, nostalgic book, it is also a historical and sociological record of people, thoughts, characters, and ways of thinking. Ultimately, therefore, it is a universal book, a book about human beings and how they interpret and deal with life, how they negotiate their dreams, where these dreams originate from, and what results.The authors, Richard Crasta and Franky Dias, were born into Mangalorean Catholic families, and continue to have near and dear ones, many of them fervent Catholics, in Mangalore and its surrounding villages.Richard Crasta's novel, The Revised Kama Sutra (from which a few chapters are included), has been published in ten countries and seven languages. Franky Dias is a writer and composer who lives in Toronto and the South of France. Many of his compositions are available on YouTube.Excerpt: "Ah, passion! Mangaloreans were big on passion — the Passion of Christ, that is. Other institutions or products that might easily have flourished in Mangalore: Passion fruit, Golgotha Hotel, The Whey of the Cross, Barabbas Detective Company, Roses with Crown of Thorns (no extra charge)."Well, passionate, witty, and possibly more Catholic than Pope Francis.