Tribute to Dr. Olivinho Gomes
by Zulema de Souza, President, International Goan Organization of Ontario.
and Past President of the Goan Overseas
Association
of Toronto.
It is with immense sadness that I wish to convey the Goan community's heartfelt
sympathies to Dr. Olivinho's family, and to others who have benefited from his
work
as a historian and author.
Dr. Olivinho Gomes attended as an invited guest to the International Goan
Convention
organized by the Goan Overseas Association, Toronto, Canada, held in Toronto,
Canada, August7 - 21, 1988.
Dr. Gomes was one of the presenters at the "Academic Deliberations" i.e.
Aspects of
the Goan Cultural Heritage.
An ecerpt from his presentation reads thus: "This paper will attempt to
portray a
brief profile of the Goan cultural heritage, providing glimpses of the varied
factors of a physical, racial, artistic, socio-economic, linguistic and
historico-political character that have shaped it and the manifestations that
they
have given rise to in the matter of concrete expression and achievement in
different
fields of human endeavour. It will try to isolate the distinguishing traits
of
this cultural ethos with the values, propensities and predilections that have
animated it through the ages, enabling the Goan to hold his own in the
variegated
environments he has been thrown into in quest of greener pastures.
Goa has been a melting-pot of various civilizations that landed in its bosom.
The
traditional Hindu with its allied Buddhist and Jain streams, the Perso-Arabic
and
the Latin-European Christian faiths and the cultures that they embodied, met
and
endeavoured to mate on its fertile soil in a rare coexistence-cum-synthesis,
absorbing also into their substance the ancient austric element that still
survives
in the age-old Goan village communes, with the Dravidian and Sumerian traces in
it.
This blend of a distinctive Goan culture, appearing on the surface as a client
sub-culture, with its propensity to adapt itself to changing circumstances
while
jealously retaining its core, has always submerged and over-ridden the
structures of
the dominant regimes that ruled its homeland throughout the vicissitudes of its
chequered history, and emerged triumphant, though considerably emasculated in
the
strugle against heavy odds consping towards its extinction".
Dr. Olvinho Gomes will be long remembered for his contribution to the Goan
community
all over the world.
A copy of his presentation in the Convention Proceedings, Published by the Goan
Overseas Association
Incorporated in the Province of Ontario
ISBN 0-9695037-0-9
