------------------------------------------------------- CONVENTION OF THE GOAN DIASPORA FROM GOA INTO THE WORLD Lisbon, Portugal June 15-17, 2007 Details at: http://www.goacom.org/casa-de-goa/noticias.html -------------------------------------------------------
This sounds like a romanticised expat's vision of Goa! I lived here since 1966. Life was always tough, more so in the past. Travel was slow and impossible. Jobs were few. My parents had difficulties in adjusting both ways (when the settled in Brazil, and when they came to a place they imagined to be "home"). We had no illusions; even as a kid I knew where the shoe pinched. I wish those who romanticise the past would actually spend some time living and working in Goa, and not taking a holidayers' perspective of this state. We're just getting caught into the stereotypes that Bob Newman is talking about. One would have expected Selma to take on a less-romanticised view of the Goa of the past. There were *always* definitions of who were the 'outsiders' and who the 'insiders'. This boundary kept changing (caste, community, class, and now ethnicity). But it was there all the time. We kept thinking of The Other as the problem. I recall imagining as a kid how peaceful life would have been *if only* The Other had to somehow vanish! Later, I realised that it was the tricks our mind plays on ourselves, and we keep bluffing ourselves, hankering about a 'peaceful life' which is always elusive. Yes, 'development' (however this is defined those in power, the government, the officialdom, and above all industry, the consuming middle-classes, and the Permanent Government that rules despite never ever facing a government) has brought more stresses and strains. We were perhaps more happier when life was simpler. Maybe because we weren't seduced by the so-called "good things" in life, that only come at a big price (environmental degradation, envy, and above all dissatisfaction on not getting it). But this is no excuse for expats and those of us enjoying the "good things" in life (I'm writing this from a conference hall in Pune, awaiting a nice veg meal I didn't pay for!) to prescribe or even sugest a return-to-roots. This is wholly out of sync with the aspirations of the vast majority of Goans (and I don't use the term in an ethnic sense), specially those who have been deprived for generations, by this very idyllic lifestyle they were denied and which we are talking about. At the end of the day, I think the greatest disservice (among the good things they've done) played by expats and returning Goans, is to have a romanticised view of Goa. To want to retain having a picture-postcard view of Goa, which can only be attained by depriving people opportunity, by retaining inequitious structures (including our skewed land ownership patterns), and by keeping half or more of Goa as 21st century serfs of sorts. Communal tensions is not 'development'. After the Sixties, it is rearing its ugly head only recently: and it's up to us to believe the Manohar Parrikars that the jostle for power between BJP and Congress is only incidental here. But let's not pretend that some form of jostling for power (whether based on caste at the 'upper' end of Catholicism, class, language, whatever) was not present from the Goa we knew. In four decades, only the definitions of who is Them and who is Us have changed. Our tensions have always been there! Even if we chose to forget the past. Or selectively remember it. --FN On 13/05/07, Carvalho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > We've lived in a fool's paradise for so many years. I > come from a village not far from Margao. In my youth, > the village was like a postcard, an excerpt from a > fairytale book, an oasis of peace and tranquility. > > The evenings were lightly scented with jasmine and the > smell of squishy, pulpy mangoes pervading the air. > >From across the fields one could hear the foxes cry. > It was customary for my grandmother to sit in her > voltaire while the rest of the family would sit around > her in the balcony. There with the sky lit only by > stars, the elders would talk late into the evening > about the crops, the neighbours, tidbits of > information heard here and there about the rest of the > world. They didn't know much about the world then, > they were simple people. We thought, and as Shastikars > still do think of ourselves as living in an oasis of > harmony. > > Progress should have brought us more peace instead it > has given birth to a maggot of hate that keeps feeding > on fear and ignorance. > > Selma -- FN M: 0091 9822122436 P: +91-832-240-9490 (after 1300IST please) http://fn.goa-india.org http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com Konkani Wikipedia (under incubation) needs your help! http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/kok ------------------------------------------------------- Goanet recommends, and is proud to be associated with, 'Domnic's Goa' - A nostalgic romp through a bygone era. This book is the perfect gift for any Goan, or anyone wanting to understand Goa. Distributed locally by Broadway, near Caculo Island, Panjim & internationally by OtherIndiaBookStore.Com. For trade enquiries contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------------------------------------
