Chapter 19
Linda got up in the morning, said her prayers, brushed
her teeth, changed, had her breakfast and was ready to go to the Lyceum for the
registration and the orientation. The Lyceum complex was about four kilometres
from her hostel. She walked past the Municipal Garden, passed by the Imaculada
Conceição Church and walked up the steep steps of Liceu Nacional Afonso de
Albuquerque.
Here again she was alone,
alienated among the sea of foreigners. The few Goan students there, turned out
even worse than the white foreigners. They never once smiled at her or
attempted to make her feel at home. How could there be such insensitive people
in her own land who could treat their own kind like this, she thought. Linda
felt awful. Back home in her neighbourhood she was like a princess, everybody
treated her with respect. And here, in Panjim, she felt like an untouchable.
Inwardly Linda resolved to concentrate her energies on
her goal of achieving a very good education rather than wasting her time on
such useless emotions. Linda finished the paperwork in the registration office,
obtained the classroom number and timetable, attended the orientation class and
went straight back to the hostel. In the afternoon, she went for a walk along
the whitewashed walled bank of the river Mandovi.
At a glance, Linda seemed to be a young girl of medium
height, with a beautiful round face, a slightly long nose, large brown eyes,
with long jet black hair doused with coconut oil and combed into two braids.
She sat on a bench near the wharf. She wore unfashionable clothes, a simple
blue skirt and a white cotton blouse and a pair of slippers. She wore no
make-up. No one looked at her twice. It was almost as if she didn’t exist. She
was a non-entity – just another fresh arrival in the big city.
The big majestic river Mandovi ran through the city of
Panjim, the capital of India Portuguesa, the Portuguese empire in India; a city
lined with Mediterranean style stately homes with white and yellow stucco walls
and brown tiles, low buildings, narrow cobbled roads, quaint little boutiques
and small alleys. The tallest building was the five storied Hotel Mandovi,
fifty yards from where Linda stood.
It was still very hot in Panjim and the monsoon had
not set in yet, but Linda felt the cool breeze coming from the river. On the
other side of the river to the north, she saw the hill of Betim with lush
vegetation and a lighthouse on top. The Betim hill continued towards the
estuary of the river to the west, where the sun was setting over Fort Aguada at
its westernmost point. And just below the Fort, there was the infamous Aguada
Jail, and a little closer she saw the Church of Reis Magos. To her east she
could almost see the distant island of Divar, and Ribandar.
Despite the unfriendliness of the people in the city,
Linda admired the beauty of Panjim. Presently she saw a barge slowly moving
towards the Arabian Sea on its way to the Port of Murmugão with its cargo of
iron ore, mined from the hills of North Goa bound for the refineries of Japan.
Linda closed her eyes to imagine how the caravelles of Afonso de Albuquerque,
must have sailed through this same river as he conquered Goa in 1510, changing
the history of this territory. She visualized hordes of Portuguese missionaries
navigating the river at about the same time in search of new converts to
Christianity in this land.
Linda suddenly came out of her reverie to face
reality. Everyone around, except the river, was hostile to her in Panjim. As
soon as she had come to Panjim the day before, she had felt unwelcome there.
Now she had to go back to that unfriendly
hostel. And how would she fare at the first day of school at the Liceu
tomorrow? These thoughts made her
even more uncomfortable. Except for Rosa Maria, Sister Augusta and the
registration clerk at the Liceu,
Linda had not been spoken to by anyone in the city of Panjim for the last
twenty-four hours. Wasn't that amazing?
Linda admired the serenity of the river. It was very
quiet there, except for the sound of the lashing waves. She felt very close to
the river. She felt she could communicate with it, its waves and the cool
breeze coming from it. She would disclose all her inner feelings to this mighty
river. Amidst the deadly enemies of Panjim, Linda had found an ally.
"Oh River, can I be your friend?"
Linda's whispered words mingled with the cool breeze
and the currents in the river.
"I feel so lonely out here. Oh River will you be
my friend?"
And immediately she saw a huge rush of waves coming
toward her as if the answer was a resounding "Yes". Linda was strangely
thrilled as if she had just found a secret friend and she wheeled around in a
full circle with excitement. Nature had just accorded her a big welcome. Linda
had communed with River Mandovi.
When Linda first found out she was a Shudra, she was
determined to overcome that stigma. She did not want to revolve like a
satellite around upper caste stars. She wanted to break out of that orbit,
never to return to that kind of life. Thousands of years of subservient life
had to end. Now was the time for a new and modern order. It was 1958 and she
was on her own. It was time to begin breaking free of those shackles.
She had already laid the foundation for this. She was
probably the first one from her caste in her village to achieve 19 out of 20
optimo marks in her primary school Segundo Grau examination and was the
first one to have finished the Second Year of Lyceum. Now she was one of the
very few from her caste to have obtained admission to the prestigious school of
higher learning in all of Goa, the Liceu
Nacional Afonso de Albuquerque in Panjim. She had to build up on that.
But she had to make some changes in her life first:
learn to be thick skinned, learn to speak the Portuguese language fluently and
memorize her Portuguese prayers. She had what it took. And she had a great
companion to talk to, to whom she could bare her soul – the mighty River
Mandovi.
Excerpts from the novel, The Sixth Night by Silviano C. Barbosa (published in
2004)
