When Valmiki writes, it is never a walk in the park. To benefit from the result of his labours you have to take careful, studied steps because the landscape changes with every piece of information he provides.
So it is with his latest series on the Goa freedom struggle where he provides insights which are not common knowledge but deserve more than common digestion. In fact, when finely woven, the whole tableau will be well worth a documentary film. Few westerners will be able to catch the nuances like Valmiki does and the whole story becomes more than just a sum of its parts. In my wish list, I would definitely include an Al Jazeera or BBC or Deutsche Welle collaboration with Valmiki to put on record once and for all the context, the events and the actions that surrounded the intervention. No amount of words however beautifully crafted can bring out the pain, the excitement and the throbbing of history-in-action to which a film would be able to do justice. If Bardroy Britto’s film based on the life of a once-popular Goan musician could stir emotion in the viewers that chanced to see his film Nachom Ya Kumpasar, can you imagine the feelings it will stir in the whole race of Goans wherever they may be, that were affected one way or another by the events taking place which led to an army intervention 60 years ago. Lives were upturned, peace shattered, family separated by a group of men on both sides who had not the least care with regard to the future of the people whose lives they were directing. NB Everlasting thanks to Patrice Riemens for the neutral word ‘intervention’ that so completely describes the action on 19th December 1961 that liberation or invasion could not equitably explain. Roland. Toronto.
