Dear all This August will be the 21st Anniversary of the conception of World Goa Day. I note that the ugly boil of caste still appears and needs to be lanced once and for all preventing our mtv and wiii nutured generation from being infected. My refined understanding of this subject came in the year of our Lord 2004 through scintillating reading end to end Silvano Barbosa's hardback "The Sixth Night".
This well researched material points out why our community behaves the way it does. Although astonished when Ben Antao did a review I am not surprised to hear that Silvano got a barrage of hate mail, this can only come from ignorance. In the United Kingdom I tried to publicise the book on Goan Voice to no avail. After all we still live in a society of getting the formula right for two Goans to agree. The majority of us are too busy with better things to do rather than doing things better. I am elated to inform readers that this gem of a novel is now available for download all over the world from Kindle & Amazon.com. In response to an article in Contact, the magazine of the Goan Chaplaincy written by goanetter, the late Dr. Cornel Da Costa on "Quixotic Catholicism among the Catholic Goans" on Catholicism and the caste system in Goa in which he states that "the systems of belief between Roman Catholicism and Hindu caste belief are entirely incompatible and contradictory", Rose Fernandes wrote: "Caste", "class" or whatever other name you wish to use, may be based on a different system but exists in societies all over the world, not just among Goans. In England, predominantly a Christian country, you have the aristocracy class, the upper middle class, the middle class, the lower middle class and the working class which still exist today just as you have the "Bamons", the Chardos", the Mahars" and the "Kunbis" in Goa. Those who appear thankful that the "class" system has evarporated in the Western world will, I am sure, have their belief shattered if they spend time in "villages" in England speaking to the "gentry" there. In an article by Kevin Hobson "The Indian Caste System and the British", he stated "The caste system had been a fascination of the British since their arrival in India in the 18th century. Coming from a society that was divided by class, the British attempted to equate the caste system to the class system. As late as 1937 Professor T C. Hodson stated that "Class and caste stand to each other in relation of family to species. The general classification is by classes, the detailed one by castes." In this respect, Kate Fox has written a fascinating book "Watching the English" (ISBN 978-0-340-81886-2). On page 117 of the book she has written a paragraph under "The Brag-wall Rule" that could easily mirror our people. In her book she writes: "Another helpful class-indicator is the siting of what Americans would call your "brag wall". In which room of your house do you display prestigious awards you have won, or photographs of yourself shaking hands with famous people? If you are middle-class or below, these items will be proudly on show in your sitting room or entrance hall or some other very prominent place. For the upper-middles and above, however, the only acceptable place to exhibit such things is the downstairs loo. This trick is "smart" in both senses of the word "posh and clever"): visitors are highly likely to use the downstairs loo at some point, and to be impressed by your achievements, but by displaying them in the loo you are making a joke out of them (taking the piss, even) and thus cannot be accused of either boasting or taking yourself too seriously." (NB: For readers who are not familiar with the term "loo" it is used in England for "toilet".) In the chapter on "Dress Codes" for females on page 286, Kate Fox also writes" Too much jewellery (especially gold jewellery, and necklaces spelling out one's name or initials), too much make-up, over-coiffed hair, fussy-dressy clothes, shiny tights and uncomfortably tight, very high-heeled shoes are all lower-class hallmarks, particularly when worn for relatively casual occasions." And for "Dress Codes" for males on page 290, Kate Fox writes "large, bulky, ostentatious metal watches, especially gold ones, are a lower class signal - even if they are frightfully expensive Rolexes (or those James-Bond-wannabe gadgetty ones that tell you what time it is in six countries and will work at the bottom of the sea and withstand a nuclear attack)." Around May this year I was delighted to come across Goa Book Club and was fascinated to update myself that we had so many authors. The post that caught my attention was Goan Short Stories Competion 2011 from Savia Viegas with the various prizes. I say this because when I was once a teenager and entered a worldwide essay competition run through the Swedish Embassy in Nairobi, my entry came two thousand and something but at least I got a hard copy of the winning first fifty. Can I request that the Organisers of the Goan Short Stories Competition 2011 share the winning entries with us. Perhaps for this year for World Goa Day a non monetary writing competition of not more than three thousand words could be launched. I will be happy to look at and co-ordinate ideas with those interested. Please send me your ideas not later than 15 August 2011 by e-mail to [email protected]. This will be my bit for World Goa Day Melvyn Fernandes Surrey United Kingdom 29 May 2011
