Hi Roland, Mervyn n Victor !
Roland, thanks for a great review on "Bwana Karani" coming on the heels on Braz
Menezes' book. Like any
book, Mervyn , you were placed under the "microscope" and goanetters came up
with some
criticisms.
Mervyn, you wrote about the District Commissioner , now Sir Richard Turnbull.
The last Governor of Tanganyika
and its first Governor-General was also a Sir Richard Turnbull . Was he the
same person ?
Although I was in my early teens, I remember the name very well, as Sir Richard
- a representative of
Queen Elisabeth- presented my late father- Boaventura in the late fifties at
the State House grounds in Dar es Salaam,
with the insignia of the Member of the British Empire (MBE) - to quote for his
"meritorious services to the government of Tanganyika"
Sir Richard was also responsible- also in the late fifties- for inaugurating
the new "flashy" building of the Goan Institute
( later Dar es Salaam Institute) which was designed by the well known goan
architect - Tony Almeida.(Unlike the Nairobi
Goan Institute which had a "spring" dance floor to be used strictly for
ballroom dancing, Tony -who was decorated with the
prestigious A.R.I.B.A architect's award by the British- incorporated a sunken
dance floor - giving the organizers
the option of using it particularly in December when it was extremely warm).
I attended the Institute's 50th anniversary in 1969 when I had relocated to Dar
es Salaam from my birthplace and hometown
in Iringa, southern Tanzania and was still in the "throes" of a journalistic
career. I cannot believe that in seven years time , they
will be celebrating their centenary.
And now to the delicate subject of caste, I have no intention of opening a "can
of worms" by re-igniting the subject, but I have
also voiced my concerns at several other forums, and like Mervyn, had very
constructive personal exchanges with the
late Dr. Cornel D'Costa about experiences related to me in Tanzania, and what
I heard and observed during my only trip
in the mid-sixties- to the Nairobi Goan Gymkhana Club - the great bastion of
caste in East Africa- at an Easter Gold Cup
field hockey dance.
And Victor and Mervyn, whilst we would wish to send it to oblivion and bury
it, we cannot "divorce" ourselves from this
scourge which we ostensibly inherited from the Hindu culture, as it still
persists in our society - albeit in very subtle forms.
Two diametrically opposite cases in Tanzania attest to it. In the first case,
the mother of the boy did not consent to
his request to get married to his very charming girl-friend. Research I carried
out found out that whilst her parents had some
"skeletons in their closets", the girl had a perfect "track" record. The boy
out of respect- succumbed to his mother's wishes
and broke up the relationship. His mother has since passed away and I do not
know if he is contemplating on re-kindling the
relationship if the girl is still available.
In the other case, the father of the girl told her that if she did not give up
the relationship with the boy whom he described as
"a wretched of the earth": , he would douse himself with petrol (fuel). To his
amazement and on a wider spectrum- shock,
the girl ,who was "bent" on continuing the relationship with the objective of
marriage, told him that she would supply him with the fuel.
Whilst I know the two parties in the first case, I could not corroborate the
facts in the second case.
Cheers.
Tony Barros.
Union Township,
New Jersey, USA
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