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| CULTURE
& SOCIETY |
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Photo
feature |
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COMMUNITIES
SERENADING
MEMORY
Myth and Memory,
an exhibition of photographs on Catholic Goa by Prabuddha Dasgupta
opens in Delhi this month. Panjim-based poet Manohar Shetty
previews the show, writing of the receding culture preserved in these
haunting images
Click
on the picture below to see a photo-essay on the subject |
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‘What
was beguiling in the homes that I visited was the sense of suspended
time, almost as if you could interchange the real people with
the photographs of their ancestors on the walls, and nothing
would be altered, nobody would notice’
Prabuddha Dasgupta
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The roman catholic
community is a major minority in Goa. Though their numbers here have fallen
from 38 percent of the population in 1960 to 26. 6 percent in 2001, they
are still a vibrant and influential presence. Contrary to popular notions
of the susegado — laid-back — Goan, they are an industrious,
politically active, enterprising community, with a long history of migration
to East Africa, Portugal, Canada, the UK and the Middle East. Together
with Goa’s low birth rate (the lowest in the country), this departure
for better opportunities abroad has led to their numbers dwindling back
home. But Goa would not be Goa without their combative, effusive spirit,
their robust tiatr (from the Portuguese teatro, for theatre) and their
enigmatic and chequered political leadership.
Portuguese proselytism
and zealotry flourished in the years following the conquest of Goa in
1510 in what are known as the Velhas Conquistas (Old Conquest) territories
of Salcette, Bardez and Tiswadi. It was only more than 200 years later
that the other areas of Goa, known as the Novas Conquistas (New Conquests),
came under Portuguese domination. By then, under the reformist Marquis
de Pombal, proselytism had waned considerably. Thus, in present day Goa,
the Catholic community is a more dominating presence in the Old Conquest
areas. It is mainly here that we find the Old World, gracious, urbane,
‘Western’ order. However, there is no such thing as a Catholic
aristocracy (a common misnomer) insofar as there are no descendants left
here who can claim any genealogical link to Portuguese royalty.
Dasgupta’s sentient
images mark a gentler past, away from the beaten track of fun,
feni and swaying palm trees |
Though Goa was
ruled by the Portuguese for 450 years, there was very little miscegenation.
Mixed Lusitanian bloodlines are very rare and only a few such families
of mesticos (meaning those of mixed descent) now live in Goa, most having
migrated to Portugal and other Western countries. The serenades have
long faded from the so-called Latin Quarter of Fontainhas in Panjim,
and despite what the tourism brochures — and learned travellers
— say, there have never been any cobblestone streets here. (Only
low-grade tar.)
A devout and tolerant
community, church-going is very much in the air, having reached its
apogee during the bjp regimes at the Centre and in the state. The seminaries
are full and, trance music apart, among Goa’s lesser-known exports
are the scores of ordained priests sent to clergy-starved parishes across
Europe.
The abandoned homes
and the overwhelming senescence in these sombre images by Prabuddha
Dasgupta speak sadly of the many young Goan Christians who have left
these shores, never to return. Ancestral roots are falling apart with
the invasion of fatcat developers from within the state and across the
country, as well as foreigners on frenzied ‘Portuguese-style’
house-hunting sprees. Dasgupta’s sentient pictures mark the forfeiture
of the future — and a gentler past. The introspective studies
of simple Goan folk within their homes and kitchens move tellingly above
the beaten track of fun, frolic, feni and swaying palm trees.
Exhibition
on view at the Visual Arts Gallery,
India Habitat Centre,
New Delhi, between September 16 and 19, and at Bodhi Arts,
Qutab Institutional Area, New Delhi, from September 22 to October
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Sep
09 , 2006
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