Stories of the East Indian, but not just fiction FN So Godfrey Pereira descended on the Goan world in cyberspace with a bang! About 11 years back, the former SUNDAY and INDIA TODAY journalist wrote this attention-grabbing letter to the Goanet. This was in times when Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and much of social media were still in their infancy, and locally-produced networks were still ruling the roots.
In it, he raised concern about the way Goa was going and how its people were doing little or nothing to counter its challenges. Pereira then wrote: "Recently I journeyed back to Goa. In the twenty-five years that I had been gone, there had been changes for the worse. I could see that. Calangute, poster beach for tourism, had tacky bhelpuri stalls and loud Bollywood music; and dirt -- and dog feces, similar to the old Chowpatty Beach in Bombay before the state government cleared the leper's colony." The title of the article says it all: "A Letter To The Bleddy Goans From An East Indian Bugger." To know more about it, and the issues raised, google for it online. The language might seem rough, but it's exactly how some Bombay Catholics speak it. There was an outcry over the short article he wrote. Discussions continued. Someone, according to the writer, threatened to cut him and process him into Goan sausages, for the words he dared write. Even the late George Menezes, in one of his columns, responded to what Godfrey Pereira had said to Goans. Pereira's earlier novel was discussed, but only in niche areas. Not surprising, as happens with many books dealing with slices of the Indian reality which are "far from the mainstream". Hrishi K covered the book in a podcast on 94.3 Radio One in which he called it: "Not just a fictional novel [portraying] nuggets of East Indian life... (relevant to) anyone who had East Indian friends. After Bloodline Bandra, I look upon Pali village and all those other wonderful villages in a completely different light." As we all know, the East Indian Catholic community in Bombay (now Mumbai, earlier Bombaim) is one connected to Goa. These areas were once the "Provinces of the North", till the Portuguese lost the same to the Marathas around the Battle of Vasai in 1739. The Provincia do Norte (Province of the North) region covered the town of Baçaim (Vasai today) and also distant places. Including Bombay, Thana, Kalyan, Chaul and Revdanda. Baçaim, around 50 km north of Bombay, on the Arabian Sea, was an important trading center. Its wealth came from a trade in horses, fish, salt, timber, basalt and granite, and shipbuilding. One question that comes up all the time is: Why are East Indians called East Indians despite being in the west of India? Recently, Godfrey Pereira, got in touch to mention that his second book was on its way. He is already the author of 'Bloodline Bandra'. It came out in 2014. "Bloodline Bandra was a reaction to what happened to me in NYC, when I migrated to the United States," he says. He had then offered to work for a newspaper in New York City. The book focuses on how "Indians abroad exploit their own kind, mercilessly". In the novel, David Cabral is a journalist, an East Indian from Pali village. Among the characters in the book are ones with names such as Salt Peter, Freddy Fakir, Basco Big Stomach, Carla Four Eyes, Lorna Leg Spread, Spunkless Joe and Small Tree Big Fruit. It was published by Harper-Collins. This is also a story about the East Indian community, one increasingly coming under pressure even as the city they were the original inhabitants in gets richer and more urbanised. They speak their own variant of English. "I documented Pali village, as to what the culture of the East Indian was," he explains when we spoke online. "Basically, it's my story. Unfortunately it's my story." His next novel is 'Four And Twenty Blackbirds; An Indo-British Migration To Madness', and touches on some rough edges. Says Pereira: "What the book says, partly, is that the British built on the foundations of corruption in India, they didn't create it. It is about a British guy, who was born in Bombay and has never seen England, and began a black market operation between Southampton and Bombay. It is historical fiction." It's due from Speaking Tiger in New Delhi, in December 2021. Pereira shared his journalistic journey -- from a student mag, to the Bombay magazines, shifting to prominent newsmagazines of the time, travelling to cover the Gulf War from a place like Israel. The journalist feels only too few books have come out featuring the East Indian community -- with exceptions like Viva Queimada by Neville Gomes. He has strong views about migration. His own experiences are filled of pain. He also criticises the East Indian community -- himself too -- for "having left". He highlights property problems within the community (as with other communities too). His article cautions that what happened to places like Bandra yesterday, is repeating itself in places like Goa today. ### ᐧ ᐧ ᐧ
