Letters from Portugal
Circa 2011- A Goenkar in Lisboa
By Jason Keith Fernandes
To be a Goan in Lisbon is to be in a relationship, caught between two
rather ditferent lands of nostalgia, or more appropriately, saudades.
The first is a nostalgia, a terribily bitter-sweet longing for Goa that
has been left behind. The names of streets, the colour of buildings, the
facades of some these buildings, trees, even the names of most people
here, constantly remind you of Goa. Here in Lisbon lie the final resting
places of people you grew up with on a first name basis; Afonso de
Albuquerque, Vasco da Gamma, Amalia. Lisbon, you could sometimes say,
bears the imprint of Goa. For me personally, as someone who grew up in
Panjim, Lisbon is Panjim enhanced. It is also on many fronts, the
possibility of what Panjim and Goa can be, if we in Goa can get our act
together.
This possibility is not the mere aping of Lisbon however, for there is
much to be critiqued and improved on in Lisbon. This is where we come to
the second kind of nostalgia, a longing for the old. This nostalgia is a
dead-end. There is no future in mourning for the Goan pre-1961 past.
This history is either extremely problematic to claim, or it was in fact
the history of a small set of Goan families who have access to Lisbon
and its metropolitan elite. The Goan living in Lisbon in 2010 does not
necessarily need to rely on this past to forge a contemporary
relationship with the city; the present moment gives one enough and more
opportunities to do so.
It is precisely this present moment that could allow as to reinvent the
Goan. We need to look beyond the chapters of history celebrated by these
small select Goan families and look at the manner in which the silent
members of Goan society reinvent this relationship. Such an exploration
would allow us to move away from the problematic colonial and
nationalist articulations of our relationship, and shift toward a more
cosmopolitan relationship based on mutual respect and sharing.
This look of a Goan living in Lisbon (and in extension, Portugal) is not
based solely on Goan emotions and experiences. On the contrary this look
at Lisbon is also based on the recognition of the fact that the
contemporary Goan is also a South-Asian. To be South-Asian is to
recognize that not only is the contemporary Gpam npr as am Omdoam
citizen, but is engaged with a larger sub-continental politics. This
truly sub-continental lens, freed from the shackles of restrictive
nationalism, provides the Goan with an enhanced vision from which to
examine and introspect on the Lisbon experience. To fail to do so would
otherwise lead us to fall back into the narrow ruts of the nostalgic
longing for the Estado da India under the Estado Novo. As I stressed
before, this experience is too limited to provide support for a
reinvention of a new Goan relationship with both Portugal and the world.
In deed a relooking our relationship with Portugal will also impact on
the manner in which we relook our relationship with the people we share
the subcontinent and the country with.
But perhaps the reinvention of a relationship is beyond the capacity of
a tiny column. My offerings here will seek to diary the manner in which
a contemporary Goan negotiates life in our former metropole. Who knows
what will come out of this exploration? (ENDS)
Jason Keith Fernandes is currently engaged in doctoral research at
ICSTE's Dept of Anthropology in Lisbon. When not agonishing over the
state of his dissertation, Jason offers unsolicited opinions on law,
cliture and identity politics, He also desperately misses Goa.
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First published in the Herald, Goa - February 6, 2011
