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Goa: an 'Aurorised' Story

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Goa: an 'Aurorised' Story does she take up the stance of the academic historian, who in this book will have to bear with absence of their preference for footnoted erudition. Aurora prefers rather to “imagine and interpret” the process of conversion, subversion and compromise (pp 240-49) to which the population and the land were subjected since its occupa- tion by Afonso de Albquerque in 1510. She prefers to build her “story of Goa” on the basis of her own choice of sources, giving the pride of place to family remini- scences and other kinds of oral traditions and F N Souza’s canvases, but above all to the two major rivers of Goa. Maria Aurora believes that the “view from the river is dramatically different”. This river- borne perspective would certainly make Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha keen to come to Goa, even though Aurora does not extend her view to the Buddhist or any other phase of pre-Portuguese Goa. Unlike Rushdie’s Epifânia, his Aurora’s grandmother, here we find an Aurora who reveals a sound respect for the Portuguese, but whose heart belongs to a greater India. The Portuguese get almost off the hook of Goa: An ‘Aurorised’ Story most academic historians: they are pre- sented as non-aggressive as a rule and father’s “alma”-discourse, a passionate and without delusions of superiority. We are Goa: A Daughter’s Story, emotion-charged reconstruction of Goa. told that their coercion did not mean by Maria Aurora Couto; ‘The Sunday Magazine’ of The Hindu of violence against human person, but only Penguin Books, New Delhi, 2005; April 4, 2004 had reviewed this book under the violation of right to practise Hindu- pp 436, Rs 350, (pb). the caption ‘Apparent Divide, Actual ism, or that the citizenship granted to Bridges’, relating Goa to south Asia’s Goans was not matched with the right to macro-level processes, without leaving it highest positions of power, particularly TEOTONIO R DE SOUZA isolated as a dazzling but inexplicable in the church hierarchy and during the pendant on Asia’s hippie and tourist dictatorship of Salazar. alman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh routes. It should not surprise the reader if I cannot but feel deep empathy for the S(Vintage, 1994) depicts Aurora, as the a large part of the book is devoted to the exercise performed by Maria Aurora Couto. last of the Gamas and a daughter of Camões, Goan musical tradition, which serves to My own Goa to Me (Concept Publishers, playing the perfect granddaughter to link and also bind the Bhakti cult with Delhi,1994) was a somewhat similar ex- Epifânia da Gama, whom she wishes to Goan Christianity, Goan “kudds” with ercise of weaving the history of Goa with murder. We are told that Epifânia had Bollywood, a lawyer-politician-freedom my own lived experience of situations of developed a healthy respect for the British, fighter of Orlim with a Souza lady born anguish and opportunities, not very differ- but her heart belonged to Portugal, as she to a music merchant in Karachi and ent from what Couto and most other sons dreamt of walking beside the Tagus, the trained by an Italian maestro in Bombay and daughters of Goa have gone through Douro, sashaying through the streets of and speaking English at home in a pre- at different periods and contexts of Goa’s Lisbon on the arm of a grandee. Aurora’s dominantly Portuguese influenced history. I see Goa – A Daughter’s Story grandfather, Francisco da Gama, had fallen Salcete subculture. Even a rat frequented as yet another worthy attempt to piece prey to Annie Besant’s theosophy and occasionally (p 270) the music classes of together one’s own lived experience with propounded a theory of ‘transformational Father Philip Soares in the Dharwar the help of the life-performances of many fields of conscience’, but his playing with parish of Aurora. Perhaps, he mistook the others, at all levels of the Goan community, Gama rays finished him off, after provok- Goan music for the “laddus” of Lord whose common umbilical bond with Goa ing cruel and satirical editorial comments Ganesha. makes them all, individually and collec- in The Hindu. Those who are familiar with tively, the makers of Goan history. Couto this “Aurorised” version of Rushdie’s novel A New Approach does not hide her belief in the role of the (do not miss Chapter 13 of the novel) will elite, but also presents history in tune with find in the present book, another Aurorised Couto follows neither the tourist bro- Pareto’s “cemetery of elite”. The book seems version, Chico’s daughter and Alban chure approach that goes little beyond to have provided an opportunity for cathar- Couto’s wife, a soulful, or to use her describing the sun and sands of Goa, nor sis by seeking to unveil the main causes of Economic and Political Weekly October 1, 2005 4325 the declining and dying feudal elite to which collaboration of Hindu artisans, traders can now be consulted online), she could a large part of her ancestry belonged. and diplomats (p 263). I can recall having have traced interesting details about her Through Maria Couto’s account, re- chatted with Couto during her visit to ancestor’s capacity to draft legislative searchers like the present reviewer will Portugal and also during my visits to Goa. projects in the company of Bernardo Peres perhaps find a wider readership for re- I remember having conveyed to her my da Silva. He was back in the Portuguese search on Goa’s agrarian economy and the conviction that with her socio-political parliament after suffering exile from Goa baroque style of Christianity introduced by background she was better placed than the in 1832 and after an aborted attempt by the Portuguese (p 158), the imposition in scholars born and bred exclusively in Goa his relative and opium-baron Rogerio de Goa Portuguesa of a “xendy” tax along the to present Goa on a larger canvas. That Faria in 1835 to bring him back to power Mughal “jizya” model (p 200), the seems to have happened and a comparison to serve his own business ambitions by Mhamays of Goa, the debt owed by Jesuits of the book reviews at the local and na- ousting the Portuguese through a naval to Bhagvatiny Camotiny at the time of their tional level bear witness to it. expedition he planned from Bombay, but suppression, and African slavery in Goa Couto discovered in her genealogical which landed on the rocks of Vengurlá due (p 219), Lam Jaku’s (the reviewer’s grand- lists a great-great-grandfather Antonio to little attention paid to the announce- father) tirades against the pants-wearing Caetano Pacheco, who has a road named ments of early arrival of the monsoon that (“calção-kar”) rulers and their native lack- after him in Margão. In 1955, the postal year (p 366), Bernardo Peres da Silva con- eys (p 239), the Jesuit impact upon the services of Portuguese India issued a stamp tinued to be re-elected as MP for Goa till Goan agriculture and culture (p 251), the with his picture and name, to commemo- his death. He continued his political ha- native Oratorians of Goa (p 319), the Pinto rate 450 years of the foundation of the rangues on behalf of his land and his people Revolt (p 324), and many other bits and “Estado Português da India”, to which in the Portuguese parliament, even when pieces of information that do not always he was elected as MP to serve in the no minister in government cared to listen carry overt indication of their source. Maria Portuguese parliament in 1839. Had Couto or respond to his demands. Silva did not Couto’s wide and rich survey of oral tra- gone beyond oral tradition, listening only relent till the end and earned for himself ditions and her encyclopaedic readings to Priti Camotim, and “senhoras” Hira a mausoleum in Lisbon’s glamorous also validate many of my research conclu- Sardessai and Hira Sakhardando in Lisbon, “Cemitério dos Prazeres”, a kind of open- sions, including the fact that Portuguese and found time to glance at the records of air museum erected by the liberalism and colonialism was sustained with the active the Portuguese parliament (many of them secularism of the mid-19th century that 4326 Economic and Political Weekly October 1, 2005 took the burial grounds away from the researchers that he was truthful even in Contrary to general belief, more white medieval Catholic church precincts. most details, but was forced to put into the blood transfusion may have entered the mouths of others whatever he himself Goan society through white females who The Old Aristocracy wanted to say about the Portuguese atroci- married propertied and influential Goan ties and opportunistic behaviour in Asia. “ganvkars” than through Portuguese males If I have pointed out in some detail the The Portuguese Inquisition would not let for whom native taboos made it difficult above cases, it is meant as an indirect him publish his book had he said those to find high caste native mates. These are comment on Couto’s lamentations and things as personal testimony. He had just some provocations, hoping that Couto frustrations of the Goan feudal “bhatkars”, devised a literary style. Maria Aurora Couto will accept the challenge and answer some affecting significantly the destinies of her seems to have laboured under some kind of these questions in the near future by ancestry, including her beloved father of self-inquisitorial pressures and done a delving little deeper into the feats and (p 356) and inspirer of this book.
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