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South Asian Film Festival in Goa from Fri (June 27) to Mon (June 30)
At Kala Academy, and ESG, Panaji, Goa
http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2008-June/076384.html
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--- On Mon, 6/30/08, Antonio Menezes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Selma, you are not , no matter, what Edward deSilva
> thinks you are.
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Dear Antonio,
Thanks for your mail. Much appreciated.
The reason I dwell on the caste system and give details about my own family are
manifold. Let me briefly enumerate them.
a) It helps me put my own thoughts in order. As I said I am writing a personal
memoir and sometimes people will read my posts and it will fire off some
revelation about my family tree and enable me to gather information.
b) Caste was also clan-based. Hence tracing one's caste sometimes leads to
revelations about one's clans, roots and history. We cannot honestly and
legitimately discuss India's history by avoiding the topic of caste.
c) The most important reason I use my family as an example is to show that
caste did not mean material wealth nor did it necessarily create opportunities
for a large section of Goan society. My one grandfather was a "sudra raindar
mundkar" the other "an Afrikar chardo bhatkar". The lives of these two
gentlemen were not tangibly different.
I suspect, and this is just my own perspective on the situation not from any
detailed investigation, that there was a creamy layer of Goan society at the
top who were affluent and elite. But for the vast majority of Goans in Goa, who
pretentiously used the caste system to define themselves, life was a hard-slog
whether they were chardo, sudra or bamon.
There is a dark-skinned, impoverished man in our village in Goa, whose
signature line has always been "maka kath nazale maka zat aha". I suspect caste
somewhere along the way became a lifebuoy by which to hang onto and assign
themselves dignity and privilege which neither nature nor diligence had awarded
them.
take care,
selma
