-------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | Goanetters annual meet in Goa is scheduled for Dec 27, 2005 @ 4pm | | | |The Riviera Opposite Hotel Mandovi, Panjim (near Ferry Jetty/Riverfront)| | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Diaspora Jigsaw
By V. M. de Malar [EMAIL PROTECTED] Let's admit it; we feel more whole these days, when so many children of Goa come back to celebrate holidays in the homeland. Sleepy bylanes and quiet vaddos bustle with activity, with lights and star lanterns, with family reunions and ceremonious parties. Laughter resounds, joyful music rings out, our gentle village culture may be under great pressure, and it languishes quite forlorn most of the year, but this is the time of replenishment, when so many from the diaspora return home. What an interesting return it is. The multigenerational Goan family reunion, circa 2005, is a sociologist's bonanza. Several generations laced throughout the Lusophone and Anglophone worlds have borne rich and unusual fruit. Keep your ears open and you'll easily pick up clipped British tones interspersed with the slower Australian drawl alternating with those characteristic slower North American cadences and much more. East Africa, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United States, Kuwait, Qatar, U.A.E, Saudi Arabia, you name it, our striving community is there in force. It is a story of struggle and achievement, of tremendous fortitude in difficult circumstances. There's mind-boggling adaptability. There is no surprise that the first successful NRI in the West was a Faria from Colvale, or that we've contributed mighty freedom fighters to the anticolonialists in Mozambique and Kenya, or that the only Indian cabinet member in the UK is our own Keith Vaz. We've got Goans representing Canada in field hockey, another in Norway's football team, and yet another bright young star burning up the amateur golf circuit in the USA. This week, Victor Menezes gave 1.5 million dollars to the IIT campus which nurtured his early promise. This grandson of Pomburpa had a stunning career in international banking, including a stint as CEO of global behemoth Citibank. It's the most striking corporate success story in our diaspora, but hardly exclusive, not when you count Menezes's brother Ivan, the North American CEO of giant distiller Diageo, or the IT honcho Romulus Pereira, or Tony Fernandes and his giant-slaying budget airline, AirAsia. Alas, few of these overseas achievements have meant anything to Goa. We Goans have a marvellous capacity to fade into the landscape, but the flip side of this is that we can very easily become alienated from another, especially in the diaspora. So, associations proliferate to a ludicrous degree, round up five Goans in London or Mombasa and you find that they hold six different pompous titles in seven different absurd Goan clubs. It's cruel irony, we're the world's best at adapting to adverse circumstances, but the world's worst at adapting to each other. Part of this is history's burden, the plight of a systematically denationalized people that suffered genuine trauma during 450 long years of colonization by a second-rate European power, and two centuries of iniquity during the Inquisition. The fabled Goan cultural fluidity was a survival mechanism, first of all. Part of it is simple economics. Our homeland languished for centuries; generation after generation has been compelled to leave. They flooded in different directions -- to Portuguese Mozambique and British Tanganyika, to Macao and to Brazil -- it's not very easy to come back together after that psychologically violent dispersal to the ends of the earth. But we're in a new era now, with Western diaspora into third and fourth generations, and Goa the prized tourism destination in a resurgent India. Other parts of India have tapped the diaspora, and are reaping huge financial, cultural and social rewards. There is no reason why we cannot do it, and we really have to do it if we are to hold on to what is recognizable in our homeland in this period of rapid growth and development. I walked the normally quiet hillside near Saligao this week with the youngest generation of Goans, with American citizen holding hands with Australian, with Mumbaikars joining voices with Londoner and Torontonian. Tagore's aptly named 'Stray Birds' came rushing to mind, a diasporic plaint: "lead me in the center of thy silence to fill my heart with song." For it's almost 2006, and we've turned a corner into unknown territory. As we put together the puzzle of Goa's future, let's hope that some of those missing pieces come back. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- VM is a long-time Goanetter, who is now back at home-base, Goa. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- GOANET-READER WELCOMES contributions from its readers, by way of essays, reviews, features and think-pieces. We share quality Goa-related writing among the 8000-strong readership of the Goanet/Goanet-news network of mailing lists. If you appreciated the thoughts expressed above, please send in your feedback to the writer. Our writers write -- or share what they have written -- pro bono, and deserve hearing back from those who appreciate their work. GoanetReader welcomes your feedback at goanet@goanet.org --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Goanet, 1994-2004. Building community, creating social capital for a decade. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Goa - 2005 Santosh Trophy Champions | | | | Support Soccer Activities at the grassroots in our villages | | Vacationing in Goa this year-end - Take back & distribute Soccer Balls | --------------------------------------------------------------------------