Interconnecting Histories
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GOA I SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2012 IN FOCUS I www.heraldgoa.in CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Siddesh Mayenkar The Day the Music Died… It was mainly for the benefit of the In 2003, the Goa Heritage Action runs the Panjim Inn here. chapel. Every house would make Group attempted to revitalize the The Festival came to a screeching one dish and the local boys and girls once lively suburb with the Fon- halt when saffron groups attempted would handle the bar. The locals tainhas Festival of the Arts, where to stop it claiming it was promoting took care of everything. The money homes in Fontainhas were turned Portuguese culture. collected was given to the chapel. into art galleries for some days. Art “The true history of Fontainhas But there’s so much money today that donations take care of such things,” says da Costa. Every silver strand in Fontainhas has a memory different from the other. Taking a walk down memory lane 80-year-old Ivo de Noronha e Andrade recalls nostalgically the quermesse (fete) and the lively mestiços (of Goan-Portuguese de- scent) many of whom returned to Portugal after the Liberation. His wife Maria Julieta Gomes da Costa e Andrade (77) is quick to add that the quermesse was a great excuse for all the neighbours to get togeth- er and celebrate. Anyone who has seen Mario Mi- randa’s works will recall the frame of a young man serenading his love interest. This is a true portrayal of what Fontainhas was back then, Antonio and Renee Souza Vincent Braganza Vincent Back in those days Vincent Braganza Vincent this area was mainly academic. So a lot of students used to stay here. It was called comen ‘ ‘ salidade, where five or six boys stayed in one house. Many of them played instruments. It was like one big family, everyone knew everyone. Alirio da Costa outside his house says Alirio Costa. “Most of us either works were displayed in heritage played the guitar or violin. So, if it homes in balcãos, verandahs, salas were someone’s girlfriend’s birth- and dining rooms. was its social life in the bygone days. day, a group of boys would go to ser- “We wanted to show what could Events of the season like New Year, enade her at 12 in the night.” Social be done with adaptive reuse of Carnival, Easter, Sto António, Sao ing,” writes Percival Noronha. Truly life here was also tied to activity at homes in Fontainhas. We did it for João, Addau (August 24), Christmas a page from recent history where the clubs, Vasco da Gama, Nacional three to four years, but beyond a cer- and chapel feasts were of exuber- the narrative is constantly changing and Harmonia in Margao where tain point there was no enthusiasm. ant revelry and bizarre pageantry. with the changing face of Goa. the men “suited and booted” would Privacy also became an issue. The Such events used to attract the kind pick up their ladies for the ballroom area has a lot to offer, as the festival of lively house parties full of excite- Bodo aos Pobres (feast for the poor) organised during the St Sebastian n Review Bureau dance. showed,” said Jack Ajit Sukhija who ment that lasted till the next morn- Chapel Feast in 1962 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Interconnecting Histories The Last of the Descendants Edila Gaitonde has survived two World Wars and been part of the Liberation movement of Goa I was born here and I love the ily is also into business. place. I have land in Cotigao but I Maria Carolina da Silva Matos Se- enigmatically, and says no, but the other Goans. fectly the gap left in Portugal’s co- prefer to stay here in the city,” he queira e Souza was pregnant at the “soul of the stories is true.” Edila Denounced by Archbishop Jose lonial narrative, blacked out com- told this reporter. time of the Liberation which decided has lived through 1950s Goa with da Costa Nunes at the time as be- pletely during Salazar’s oppressive Historians categorise descenden- her on staying back in Goa. She re- her husband Pundalik who she af- ing the “shame of the Portuguese”, regime. In retelling her own story, tes into those that come from a di- calls how times then were different: fectionately calls Lica, thrust into a more precisely for turning up to see she recalls the events leading up to rect line of Portuguese parentage, “Everyone knew everyone else in strange and confusing world. She him in a sari, she instinctively un- Goa’s Liberation. In February 1954 and Luso descendentes as those the neighbourhood. The ambience was perhaps the first Portuguese derstood the confrontation taking Pundalik Gaitonde was arrested for who have descended from the male was so friendly and there was no protesting against Portugal’s contin- Portuguese lineage. Post 1961 most crime. We can’t even dream of that ued presence in Goa at a dinner par- descendentes chose to relocate to today.” Most descendentes worked ty given in honour of Judge Semedo. Portugal, but a handful stayed back. for the government and Carolina’s SELMA CARVALHO The words “Eu protesto” uttered by Those that left have settled well in husband Aires Alfred Vasco de Sou- London Post him are now etched in our nation- Portugal and some even chose to go za was with the Customs. alist memory. He was deported to to Angola and Mozambique on the Life was different for Maria Fati- t’s an exquisite autumn day in Portugal, jailed in Lisbon and later government’s deputation. Many re- ma Alvares who still lives a São London; the faint smell of rotting placed under housearrest at Oporto. turn even to this day for a nostalgic Tome. “I was studying at the Ly- leaves and impending decay, Today, when India has become visit or just to escape the cold win- ceum and this used to be an entirely I overly enthusiastic about slapping a pale blond sun flitting aimlessly ters of Portugal. Portuguese area then,” she says. above red roof-top chimneys, and a its citizens with sedition charges, “Till today the older generation Fatima’s father, Alfredo Lobata Faria gentle wind ruffling my hair. I’m on these lives are an unsettling remind- meets over lunches and dinners worked with the Santa Casa Miseri- my way to meet Edila Gaitonde, wife er that sedition laws are a beastly with a lot of singing of Konkani cordia de Goa which is today called of the late Pundalik Gaintonde, as I colonial hangover, when honourable songs. They want Goan cuisine and the Provedoria. have done for the past two autumns. men were sentenced to long years the talk is mostly of what it was like The Sera in Althino, Panjim, had She spends her summers in England of imprisonment in draughty pris- in the paradise they knew as Goa. been set up as a home for ageing de- and leaves for Portugal before the ons. The idea that one cannot revolt Of course they do not come back to scendentes. The badly neglected di- against the State, that the State is su- hard winter sets in. Edila Gaitonde at her London home settle,” says Margarida de Noronha lapidated building is currently home I sit in quiet awe of the 91-year-old preme and more powerful than the Tavora e Costa. to just one dying senior descendente Edila who has survived two World Catholic woman to marry a Hindu, a place between a staid, old world and individual, is a frivolous and dan- Margarida was only 11 years old looked after by the Provedoria. Wars and been part of the Liberation man so utterly charming he was the the rightful insistence of modernity; gerous one, leading us impercepti- when she and her four siblings were While the older generation seems movement of Goa. It feels somehow darling of Lisbon high society where between a world that saw dominion bly into an Orwellian topsy-turvy forced to leave the state. Within five to be gradually slipping away, the right to be here in her English home, he completed his medical training. over other nations to be the natu- world. At every point in history, we months the Tavoras were back and younger generation of Portuguese biting into round, gingery biscuits, But she knew nothing about Goa ral order of things and a post-war must challenge the State, because their mother held on to her All In- descendants do not see themselves and talking animatedly about Goa. when she arrived to find an “unmix- generation which saw freedom and the State is not infallible, and every dia Radio job. “We all sincerely feel as a race apart and find it quite de- Portugal and Goa are forever bound, able society of orthodox Hindus, equality as a fundamental human thriving democracy must embrace it was the best decision my mother grading to be called anything but bigoted Christians and uncaring right. Fiction often speaks a more the death and rebirth of its State in not by a blurry future, but by an in- took on our behalf,” says Margarida. Goan. n Review Bureau extricable past, at times glorious and Europeans.” honest truth chiselled bare of nice- the evolution of its political con- The few descen- Vincent Braganza at others sullied by man’s inhuman- Edila slowly but inevitably became ties. Edila’s stories provide profound sciousness. dentes that contin- ity. a cultural broker, learning to appre- insights into life in Goa as seen As I bid Edila a fond farewell, ue to live here have In 2011, I wrote the introduction to ciate the nuances of life in a Hindu through the eyes of a Portuguese promising to meet next autumn, I become very much Edila’s second book, ‘The Tulsi and household while at the same time girl.