REFLECTING IMAGES OF GOA
By
DALE LUIS MENEZES
I had read Reflected on Water: Writings on Goa about a year ago and had
completely forgotten about it. A few months back, Jerry Pinto, the Bombay-based
journalist who has edited this book, came down to Goa for the Goa Book Club
meet. This rekindled my interest in the book and I said to myself, I must read
it again with greater scrutiny.
The book contains essays, excerpts, short stories and poems of many
personalities and on diverse topics that are related to Goa. Jerry Pinto says
that the pieces in this book are like mirror images of each other; offering
contrasting images which at times are true and sometimes are false. This book
in a way gets us to rethink about the images and perceptions that are generated
about Goa. Some of the pieces genuinely tried to look at Goa afresh, while
others were seen entirely from racist and casteist frameworks.
In At Donna Georgina’s, William Dalrymple describes a visit to a landowning,
upper caste Catholic lady. He begins by skimming over the history of the
Portuguese in Goa. One gets the impression that Dalrymple is subtly trying to
poke fun at things Portuguese. Britain (England) has always assumed a superior
status over Portugal for over many centuries. Why else would Dalrymple describe
the portrait of a viceroy as “…he looks as if he is on his way out of a
brothel,” as well as point out the “accent heavy with Southern European
vowels”? Elsewhere, in this particular essay, Donna Georgina in response to
Dalrymple’s remark about the liberation of Goa gets visibly miffed and says,
“Did you say liberation? Botheration more like! (emphasis in the original)” and
that Goa was invaded by the Indian army rather than liberated.
Misunderstanding Goa is an excerpt taken from Prabhakar S. Angle’s Goa:
Concepts and Misconcepts. It is an attempt to do away with the many wrong ideas
that got circulated in the media regarding Goa. Prabhakar Angle tries to say
that Goa is a place that was devoid of any Portuguese influence. In an essay
titled “Some Contrasting Visions of Luso-Tropicalism in India” [(1997)
Lusotopie: 377-387], the noted Indo-Portuguese historian Teotonio R. de Souza
has this to say about Angle’s Concepts and Misconcepts, “Obviously Prabhakar
Angle is on a war-path against ‘lusotropicalism’ and exudes strong prejudices
against the style of living and behaving of the Goan Christians. Such an
attitude takes him to easy generalizations, and to close his eyes to obvious
realities, even though they may affect only a minority of the Goan population,
namely about 35% Goans who profess Christianity and had closer
cultural-religious contact with the Portuguese… Angle and several others
[like him] need to be understood as part of the cultural resistance against
the disturbing effect of the Portuguese colonial and missionary policies, and
as such they are not without foundation. But it would be ridiculous to close
one’s eyes to the reality and refuse to admit that the Portuguese presence did
not leave deep traces in India for good and for bad.” Angle’s bias is clearly
visible when he wrongly spells Percival Noronha’s name as Perceval Narona (I
wonder why it was not edited in this book).
On p. 9 and p. 16, there is a quote which William Dalrymple attributes to Donna
Georgina (p. 9) while Prabhakar Angle says that William Dalrymple is quoting
Percival Noronha (p. 16). Who exactly said it? The extract From Goa and the
Blue Mountains by the 19th century British traveler, Richard Burton is also a
repetition of biases as his racist world-view is well known.
The reader would find many articles or essays that reminisce (or rather is it
Saudades?) about the “good old days”. Take for instance Laxmanrao Sardessai’s
The Goan Bread Vendor. In this essay, Sardessai laments the extinction of the
unddo (or oondo as the translator of this essay spells it) from Goa. The
Konknni aphorism Te poder gele ani te undde-i… is frequently used. “Look at his
bread – all the paos are the same colour and shape, like all citizens who are
‘equal’ in today’s democracy,” as he observes regarding today’s bread. What
does a statement like this mean? Laxmanrao Sardessai is not wrong to lament the
loss of a delicacy which as a child he cherished but should the poders (bakers)
stay in the same economic position they were always in? Shouldn’t they and
their children have a shot at a better life?
Naresh Fernandes writes about his tedious and winding search of the elusive
humerus of St. Francis Xavier in Macau in Tomb Raider: Looking for St. Francis
Xavier. Naresh is an awesome writer and every time I read his work I say,
“Damn, when will I write like him?” In this essay Naresh also discusses the
problems of contemporary Christians in India, how they are perceived and after
so many centuries of contact, is Christianity really foreign to India? Of
course, the essay ends with Naresh finding the elusive humerus, although quite
fortuitously. An interesting piece on tiatrs by Cynthia Gomes James and one on
Konknni cinema by the late Andrew Greno Viegas is a must read.
The celebrated George Menezes asks, Where has all the Culture Gone? George
Menezes in his characteristic finesse gently pokes fun at the absence of basic
etiquette in today’s Goa. The familiar theme of how good Goa was in the “good
old days” and how it should never change resonates here.
Goa reflects in the myriad pieces of this collection. But which Goa are we
talking about? Reading through this book, I couldn’t help but feel that the Goa
in this book was not the Goa that I live in. Then again it might just be me.
But exactly how far can this book lead us to a fresher and more nuanced
perspective from the oft repeated epithets (or rather stereotypical clichés)
like “Kashi of the South, Rome of the East and the Pearl of the Orient” is
something that you should decide.
Comments/feedback @ www.daleluismenezes.blogspot.com
(A version of this article appeared on Gomantak Times, dt: July 25, 2011)
END OF ARTICLE
Find my writings @ www.daleluismenezes.blogspot.com
