Preserving culture through the Arts. A few weeks ago, I was researching the life of the famed modernist artist, Francis Newton Souza and I came across a letter he had written to Victor Musgrave, who was his dealer at the time, refusing to exhibit in Venice because the Indian government wanted him to bear his own expenses to the exhibition. He writes, “The Government of India is so idiotically lethargic in cultural matters.” And as I was reading this at Grosvenor gallery, the curator came in to tell me that M F Hussain had died, in London, in exile, hounded out of India – the land he loved. How badly we treat our artists, our writers, our intelligentsia; the very soul of our society. In Goa, if you are an artist you have less chance of making a living than a house-painter. If you are a randpin or caterer, you can earn a successful living because there are endless parties, weddings and funerals to cater for, but not if you are a writer. Then the very purpose of your existence is questionable. One wonders, how amidst this abyss of indifference, an intelligentsia has managed to survive; it survives because the human spirit is resilient and seeks knowledge because knowledge is worth seeking for itself; not because it is profitable in the material sense; it seeks abstract thought because abstraction in thought and dialogue is never a fruitless endeavour.
Our writers, our artists, our musicians are the very custodians of our Culture. What is culture? Some people say it doesn’t exist in this fast evolving, homogenised world that we live in. But we know it; we recognise it; It is that most intimate, most exquisite moment in your life when you hear the verse of a long-forgotten mando, see the spirit of your land captured on canvas by an F N Souza; it is that delicious discovery when you read something in a Victor Rangel-Ribeiro novel and come face to face with a profound truth that is specific not to everyone but to our own community. And in that moment of discovery, through understanding the aspirations, values and morality of your community, you understand something deep, intense and honest about yourself. In that moment your life is transformed. I pity the man or woman who distances themselves from their Culture, from their Community. I believe they suffer a terrible, terrible leanness of spirit, an emaciation of the heart. What a terrible burden of lonliness to bear. To preserve our Culture through the arts, Goans need platforms, which is why I am delighted that the Goan Association (UK) and the NRI Office have so strongly supported the need to give our Goan writers this platform at the Global Goans Convention. There are detractors who will ask what is the purpose of a Global Goans Convention? The purpose is dialogue. Even as we commemorate the past, we must dialogue with the future. Our writers and artistes create that dialogue for us. We can never quantify the value of dialogue, but we must constantly engage in it, through our writing, through our art, through meeting, through discussion. It is integral to the development and evolution of every society. Thank you
