Going Back to Our Roots (book excerpt) Brenda Rodrigues [email protected]
There are too many tales of old Bandra families being forced to part with their ancestral properties for a song. This is an excerpt from a book called The House at 43, Hill Road. It is published by BombayKala and is priced at Rs 550 $17.99. ISBN 978-81-938353-2-6. See the cover at http://bit.ly/43HillRoad The book is expected to soon be on sale via amazon.com -------------------------------- This book is being launched on Sunday, August 26, 2018, at 4-5.30 pm at the Morello Hall, Holy Family Hospital, Bandra. The function is open to all. -------------------------------- At the entrance to the sanctuary of Mumbai's most famous Catholic shrine, the Basilica of Mount Mary, you will see a marble plaque engraved with the words: "This Buttress is Erected in Memory of the late Mr. & Mrs. Braz Rodrigues, Hill Road, Bandra." My story opens with Braz because it was he who built the family house on Hill Road, around which the events recounted in this book revolve. Braz, the eldest son of Luiz Rodrigues of Parwar (or Pacura), Bandora (as Bandra was known then), and Maria Xavier of Ranwar, Bandora, was born on 19 May 1811. The ancestors of Braz Rodrigues were Christians who were either converted by the Portuguese or intermarried with them and belonged to the clan of kunbis (farmers), the original land-owner inhabitants of Bandra. They lived in Parwar, one of the 25 villages that comprised Bandra. Parwar nestled on the eastern slopes of Calvary Hill which was to the north of Pali Hill. Few in modern-day Bandra would have heard of Parwar, and most even in the Rodrigues family, would not be aware that this was where their ancestors had their homes. In 1850, the entire village of Parwar was burnt to the ground by the British administration because it was infested with the plague, this being the standard procedure they adopted to contain the disease. As there was no way to prevent the loss of their homes, the inhabitants of Parwar migrated to other villages in Bandra like Palli and Boran. In those times the trauma when families had to uproot themselves and move away to a new location was not all that earth-shattering, as houses were quite easily available at monthly rents of just a few rupees. In fact, those were the days when landlords prayed for tenants to come. A century later they would pray for them to go! The probate of Braz Rodrigues' will refers to him as a "Bandra Portuguese inhabitant." Braz had adopted the dress, manners and customs of the Europeans and belonged to the elite class of westernized Indians. He, his children, and even his grandchildren were fluent in Portuguese, which was considered the language of sophisticates. In fact, his last will was written in Portuguese. All his children too could read and write this language fluently. Braz married Luiza Catharina D'Abreo, of Palli Village in Bandra. They had one son who died in infancy but I was unable to locate any record of this birth. He was probably buried in a separate cemetery in which unbaptized children were interred in those days. Luiza died on 21 April 1853 at the age of 38. Without any records to go by, I presume that she died in childbirth, at the same time as her infant son. Her grave, with inscriptions in Portuguese, is in the centre aisle of St. Andrew's Church in Bandra, right up front -- in a place of honour normally given only to prelates or dignitaries. Luiza was an only child, and her bereaved parents, Jacinto and Monica D'Abreo, willed all their movable and immovable property to their son-in-law, Braz. Soon after, Braz tied the knot again, with a 20-year old. The age difference between them was 22 years. I wonder if his choice was influenced by her name, which was also Luiza -- Luiza Antonia Alvares of Thana -- who brought him a dowry of Rs300, a tidy sum for those days. [An observation I made while working on the family tree was that many widowers married twice or even thrice. This was understandable because when women died either in childbirth or of other ailments, the men needed someone to take care of the children, or else to beget children if they did not have any from the first wife. These multiple marriages complicated the family trees no end, especially when the men married widows who already had children from a previous marriage. What I found rather uncanny was the fact that when the men remarried, their second wives often bore the same names as those of their first wives. Braz's father Luiz Rodrigues first married a Maria Xavier and then a Maria Henriques, while Braz married two Luizas. It was a common practice to keep the same first names running in families by passing them on to grandchildren. And it was also a custom for grandparents to stand as godparents for their grandchildren, and because of this, when I first started working on the family trees, I would get quite confused and had to keep drawing diagrams to trace the connections. 'Braz' seems to have been the popular name of those times. Looking at Church records of the early nineteenth century you will find the names Braz, Anthony, Joseph (Jose), John (Joao), Dominic (Doming) and Nicholas (Nicholao) recurring very often for men, and many a Francesca, Domingas, Maria or Mariana, Catharina and Paula among women.] With the inheritance from his first wife and the dowry from his second wife swelling his own resources, Braz Rodrigues was indeed a rich man, and occupied a position of prestige in society. This scion of the Rodrigues family appears to have lived in grand style, with a retinue of butler and other servants and his mode of transport was a 'dogcart' -- a two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage with seats back to back. For all that, Braz was far from being a man of leisure and engaged himself in at least three distinct streams of business. He owned and ran an aerated water factory called B. Rodrigues & Sons. The lemonade he produced was very popular and regular supplies were made to Government House. He also owned and managed a chemist shop in Meadows Street, in the heart of the business district in Fort, Bombay. However, his main focus appears to have been real estate for which he developed a discerning eye, going on to add to the properties he had inherited by acquiring several more. Fortune continued to smile on Braz and reward his industry. Just how much he multiplied his wealth may be gauged from the schedule of assets in his will. The bulk of his estate consisted of immovable assets, with the list of his properties covering three foolscap sheets. Jewellery, cash in banks and loans to others made up the rest. The sum total of his worth in 1871 was recorded as Rs46,212. Certainly an immense fortune for that day and age! Consider this: just one of the listed properties, the shop in Meadows Street, Fort, Bombay was valued at Rs3,000. At a conservative estimate, such commercial premises in the heart of town would be worth over Rupees 50 crores today! Among his assets were two houses in Pali village, three coconut groves in Juhu, one mango grove on Pali Road near Calvary hill, some 50 rice fields in Pali-Khar, where T.P.S. III (Town Planning Scheme III) has now been developed, and also, grasslands known as batties, containing brab and date trees. In addition, he purchased from Braz Fernandes, the Portuguese Vice Consul, two houses on Mount Mary's hill, jointly with Daniel Ignatius de Monte. At that time, neither Braz nor Daniel could have guessed that one day Daniel's granddaughter (Agnes Esperance deMonte) and Braz's youngest son (Dominic Bonaventure Rodrigues) would be united in matrimony -- and live in the very house I am writing about.... The house at 36 Hill Road came to be called burra ghar (Big House). Visiting priests, bishops and religious were known to have stayed there and several wedding celebrations were hosted there. In fact, in preparation for one such wedding, a large quantity of liquor (no doubt a local brew, commonly referred to as ‘country liquor') was stored on the loft. For some reason, the wedding was called off and the liquor was forgotten. When somebody stumbled on this cache about 14 years later, a celebration followed, and the quality and potency of the spirit was declared the best ever sampled. It was either Braz or one of his sons who built an oratory with a cross inside it near the junction of Boran and Bazar Roads, where the Rosary was recited and the 'cross feast' was celebrated once a year with the traditional distribution of boiled gram (chickpea). In time the pious practices petered out, the tablet bearing the inscription vanished and the place became a convenient station for fruit and vegetable vendors to store their baskets and a spot where vagrants and destitutes congregated. Then, some good Samaritan took it upon himself to restore some of the original dignity. He made a collection from interested Christians, had the place cleaned and painted and he also installed a gate to keep vagrants from desecrating it. Every year, come summer, I used to buy Rajpuri mangoes to make pickle from a couple who still sit in front of this prayer nook. Braz had six children by his second wife (three sons and three daughters, one of whom died in infancy) and he was very keen that his family should continue to all live under one roof. His will even mentioned that the house on Hill Road was not to be divided and was to be home to all the members of the family who wished to stay there. This noble intention could not be sustained for more than one generation. (The family later grew to 29 grandchildren and a greater number of great-grandchildren.) A regrettable trait which Braz seems to have passed on to quite a few of his descendants (and which we are not proud of) was his hot temper. One day he reportedly beat his coachman so severely that the man eventually died. Nothing came of it, perhaps because of his influence and affluence. I don't know about Braz's other sons, but he certainly passed on this short temper to his son, Dominic as illustrated by an incident I shall narrate later. Dominic's son, Anthony, also inherited this trait and passed it on to his children (three of them were red-heads, and this supposedly was why they had fiery tempers). On 4 June 1871, Braz Rodrigues signed his Last Will and Testament. It contained these words: "... being of perfectly sound mind and in sound health, but fearing death and not knowing the day or hour." Was it a premonition? Because the hour struck just three and a half months later on 24 September 1871. In his will, he left Rs150 for his funeral expenses, which included the price of his coffin, Music Master Musicians, and a hearse to be drawn by two horses. He also stated he desired to be buried in the grave of his deceased first wife. We have no clue why this wish was not honoured. Instead, Braz was interred in a fresh grave inside St. Andrew's Church, on the right side of the aisle, near the midway door (now covered by pews). The inscription in Portuguese records that his second wife Luiza Antonia who died on 31 January 1886 at the age of 53, was also buried in the same grave. When Braz Rodrigues died at the age of 60, his widow, just 39 years old was left with five young children ranging in ages from 14 (Nicholas) to just 1 (Dominic Bonaventure). The children were of course too young to carry on the businesses, so the chemist shop was sold and the aerated waters factory fizzled out to die a natural death. Braz Rodrigues came five generations down the line from the patriarch Joseph Rodrigues.... Another four generations later, came another Joseph Rodrigues (my husband Joe), with whom this branch of the Rodrigues family ends. * * * While Braz prided himself on being a Portuguese inhabitant, his descendants were proud to be known as ‘East Indians'. To understand how this came about requires a foray into the demographics of the seven islands of Bombay in the last decades of the 19th century. The region had a fair sprinkling and some enclaves of Indian Christians whose ancestors had been converted to Christianity perhaps three centuries earlier. Conventionally, these had adopted the surname of their godfather or of the missionary who had baptized them. This accounts for their patently Portuguese surnames like Rodrigues, Pereira, Henriques, D'Souza, D'Cruz, D'Mello, etc. Another stream could trace their ancestry to one or other of the noble Portuguese families which had settled in Salsette, Bassein and Thana. The Portuguese footprint in India was not confined to the region of Salsette but had extended all along the Western coast, and conversions and intermarriages had spawned a host of Pereiras, D'Costas, Silveiras and other Portuguese surnames, also across Goa, Mangalore (Karnataka) and even Kerala (Travancore). Here too, the Christian community had access to good education and could speak English. As people from the southwest coastal regions began trickling, and later streaming into Bombay, they competed with the locals for jobs which required English speaking skills. This irked the sons-of-the-soil Bombay Christians who were called Norteiros as opposed to the immigrant Christians from the south. So one can see how this competitive attitude among East Indians, Goans and Mangloreans started and continues to this day! The land-owning Kunbis were keen to project themselves as a distinct community of superior standing, but their numbers were too small to merit recognition from the Government. They then took into their fold Kolis (fisherfolk who sometimes also worked as palanquin bearers), Bhandaris (toddy tappers who also worked as peons or men-at-arms), Agris (salt pan owners and workers), Kumbars (potters), and Sutars (carpenters). At a historic meet convened on 20 May 1887, the community leaders resolved to call themselves 'The Bombay East Indians'. This is how they finally got recognition from the Government as a distinct ethnic entity. Thus, the family of Braz who formerly considered themselves 'Portuguese inhabitants' now classed themselves as 'East Indians.' The sons-of-the-soil Christian community in Bombay was not homogenous -- some were of purely Hindu origin, and there were those of mixed blood (which fact accounts for the red hair and fair complexions in quite a few families, including the Rodrigues, Henriques, DeMontes and Alphonso clans). The latter group had assumed the dress, manners and customs of the Europeans and there were many who could trace their ancestry to one of the noble Portuguese families which had settled in Salsette, Bassein and Thana. Being rich property owners, they could well afford this more expensive way of dressing while their poorer counterparts could not afford trousers and continued to use a large triangular cloth called the langotti. This traditional costume left their backsides exposed and this led to a lot of jokes among the educated class. These native Christians were allowed to change their class and become elite 'East Indians' by acquiring wealth and property and by adopting European customs and manners. [It does not make me proud to know some of our ancestors were so snooty.] William D'Souza's article on the East Indian Christians (Golden Jubilee Souvenir) says that as the East Indian population increased towards the end of the nineteenth century, their manners, customs and standard of living set them apart from the other Indian Christian communities, and they decided to segregate themselves. First, they called themselves 'Eurasians,' but in 1911, this was changed to 'Anglo-Indians,' and the Europeans who were living in India on a temporary or permanent basis, and who were earlier called 'Anglo Indians,' were now called Europeans. He adds: "The native Christians of Bombay and the suburbs then discarded all differences and retained the original name by which the upper and educated class was already known ..." The highly educated and westernized people among them chose to speak only English or Portuguese in public. It is this educated group that wielded influence and went about creating an identity for themselves. The obvious question that arises is: Why did a people with roots in the West of India choose to be known as 'East' Indians? The glaring misnomer did not appear to faze our ancestors, and later generations have not been able to come up with a single cogent explanation that enjoys universal acceptance. I am grateful to Dr. Fleur D'Souza, former Vice-Principal (Faculty of Arts) and retired Head, Dept. of History, St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, who is an outstanding research scholar, particularly on the subject of 'East Indian' identity, for consenting to provide me with this write-up from The East Indians of Mumbai: Identity, Icons, Issues: "Till some documentary evidence presents itself, we have to be content with informed guesses as to the reason a community on the west coast of India chose to organise themselves under the banner of the 'Bombay East Indian Association.' William D'Souza offers this explanation eighty years ago. As India was referred to as the East Indies in the Charter given to the East India Company, "East Indian was adopted by all classes in India to distinguish the descendants of the Europeans and native mothers." The term that referred to this section of the community came to be adopted by the entire group who did not have European ancestry. Was the name chosen to honour the East India Company as many authors have alleged? The East India Company was bankrupt by the end of the 18th century and consequently lost power. After the Great Uprising of 1857, the British Crown and Parliament took over the administration of India. The Company armed forces, territories and possessions were the legacy inherited by the Crown. The East India Company was formally dissolved by the Act of Parliament in 1874 which marked the commencement of Crown Rule in India. The East India Company did not exist in 1887 when the Bombay East Indian Association was founded."
