Goan migration to a forgotten region
Published on: January 19, 2013 – 23:54
More in: Panorama
This is a story of de Souzas, Lopeses, D’Souzas, Menezeses, Farias and Reises, among others. In a word, it’s a Goan story set in a distant land, once a part of India and Bombay Presidency, but today a foreign country.

Early on in the book itself, author Mascarenhas gives us a hint that Goan migration to Karachi (“Kurrachee” then) did not happen in a vacuum.
General Sir Charles James Napier, Knight Grand Cross (1782-1853), known for having conquered Sindh (“Scinde”) for the British, had a battalion of Royal Irish Fusiliers, who were mainly Catholic, says Mascarenhas. The port of Karachi grew manifold and Karachi became an all-weather port with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, and harbour improvements in 1873. In 1878, the North Western Railway line linked Karachi with Punjab and Delhi and “the city grew dramatically” (p. 2).
This is the story of migration into Karachi. The other side of migration out of Goa — would need to be looked at and completed from this end, obviously. It is still not understood.
Even if today largely overlooked and forgotten, we get a hint of the wider canvas of Goan migration into Karachi. St Patrick’s Church was built in 1878 “as more and more Catholics began to come to Karachi”. It was “no small church, for it could accommodate more than 700 worshippers” then too. It was, in turn, connected with the Discalced Carmelites, the Capuchin Fathers, the German Jesuits, and then the Italian, American and Spanish Jesuits.
If Goan Catholics are seen as largely lacking entrepreneurial talent back home, this was not the story there. Gaining good education from institutions like St Patrick’s High School and St Joseph’s Convent, they started small businesses like bakeries, furniture shops, and the leasing of horse-drawn carriages (gharries). Some even were behind prominent firms like Haydn Company, the Union Press and the often-mentioned The Indian Life Assurance Company (ILACO), that was later nationalised.
From a wider point of view, one very interesting story comes out in Appendix I (p. 157) which gives a copy of a document penned by A N Menezes, describing the “origin and history of the Cincinnatus Town” and dates back to 1914! It begins with the narration: “In February 1906, I along with D F Faria and Caciano Villa Reis, had gone to pay a visit to P J D’Mello, at his piggery in Garden Quarter….”
While some of this might appear as trivia at first glance, it is obviously playing the useful role of joining the dots and building a wider picture of Goan migration to a region now largely cut off due to the vagaries of history.
In its 15 brief chapters, the author looks at the start of St Lawrence’s Chaplaincy, its parish, and it’s sometimes troubled times. The founders of Cincinnatus Town “gave priority to the building of a church which they dedicated to St Lawrence”. They built this with their personal resources, and even the Catholic Mission got involved only at a latter stage. The church’s design is a “unique blend of Christian and Muslim architecture”. Other details might interest those who have a closer knowledge of Karachi.
But some chapters of this book focus on wider issues of relevance to anyone interested in the under-researched reality of Goan diaspora history, which clearly shaped the Goa of today. This comes incidentally at a time when the setting up of the Chair in Diaspora Studies at the Goa University has just been announced and is moving ahead.
There are chapters on Catholic Life in Pakistan (p. 75), and also the “Creation of Pakistan itself and its aftermath” (p. 69). Initially, Pakistan’s founder Jinnah told the Constituent Assembly in August 1947 that the “religion or caste or creed” people belonged to would have “nothing to do with the business of the State”.
But the tide turned. Services in the “Government of Pakistan, the Sindh Government, the defence forces and the police no longer attracted Catholics. They began to feel the effects of discrimination almost immediately after Partition.” (p. 81) In a way, they were the community that got caught in the crossfire. The collateral damage of religious intolerance on the subcontinent.
Yet, looking back, the history of Karachi, Sindh and what today is Pakistan, continues to have a long line of Goan names, even if the “migration syndrome” set in among the Catholic Goan community there too.
This book fills a useful gap in understanding various aspects of Goan life in Karachi. It is a simple but neatly-crafted title, and its subtitle makes its wider focus clear (“The Garden Area with the Settlement of the Christian Community”). One minor complaint is that its table of contents lacks page numbers, making navigation across the book a bit tough. It is also bereft of photographs, which could have really added value to this volume.
Priced at Rs 350 (Pakistani rupees, at that) it is nonetheless a worthy buy, but getting copies here, what with the international boundary that we have lived with over the last two generations, is not going to be easy. One anticipates that “Pakistani Goans” who are now back in Goa could, at best, ask relations or friends there to get back a copy during their annual pilgrimage home.
It is perhaps time for a more detailed book that tells the story of this distinct strand of Goan outmigration. And there are the skills that could easily do it — ranging from the Colva-linked Menin Fernandes (who runs the insightful goansofpakistan.org website), to others like engineer and civic and environmental campaigner Roland de Souza, or Deborah Santamaria (active as a community networker, and whom one met at Calangute) or our own Karachi-born recently-retired director of education and historian in Goa Dr Celsa Pinto.

Christmas the Goan way
Published on: December 24, 2011 – 02:15

By Maria Lourdes Bravo da Costa Rodrigues
In Goa, the Catholic community celebrates the birth of Christ with great pomp. Christianity was brought to this tiny hamlet by the Portuguese, who converted the native Hindus and Muslims of Goa.

However, they were not successful in converting the entire population, even after having offered incentives -monetary and otherwise – and having ruled over Goa for 450 years. Consequently, Goa never had more than 40 per cent of Catholic population during the long span of four and half century of Portuguese domination. But, they have left indelible influence in our socio-religious and cultural life, and Christmas celebration is one of them, though with a very Goan touch.
Christmas was a time for the family to get together and celebrate. Old and young would all join in the celebration. Preparations for X’mas would start well in advance. The young lasses would look out for the latest arrivals and the tailors would be kept be kept busy making the dresses as per the fashion in vogue. The youngsters were occupied with making decorative items for X’mas tree, the star and the crib. The house would wear a festive look, with the star lit and the lights put in the verandah of the house and around the crib.
The women were kept busy preparing an assortment of goodies. This array of sweetmeats and other items prepared for Christmas is in Portuguese called consuada and in Konkani cunsoar. However, it is interesting to note that the Portuguese use the word in different connotation. Consuada for them is the supper the family has on the eve of Christmas, at midnight mass or after the midnight mass. The Christmas supper is very significant because all the family members join in this meal, and those who do not live in the same house village or city, come home on this occasion. This traditional supper is called the ceia de natal consists of bacalhau cozido com batatas, overtemperados com alhos, azeite e vinagre acompanhado de couve cozida. (Boiled dry cold fish with potatoes and eggs, to which garlic, olive oil and vinegar is added to taste, along with boiled kale)
Although many food habits have directly influenced the Goans, and those in contact with the Portuguese have a penchant for bacalhau. This traditional supper did not come to Goa, and if at all it came, it did not stay.
Very few Goans families observe this tradition of Christmas supper, and the main meal is Christmas lunch when all the family members join to celebrate the birth of Christ the King.
For Goans consuada would invariably include the neureos and voddes, a must in every house (Unless mourning the death of a close relative, who departed not more than a year ago) along with mandares, dodol, cormolans, teias de aranha, pinaca, doce de grao. Babinca, rebucados de caremal, fruit cake were additional items for the more sophisticated, which also include doces cristiali zados and marzipans.
Preparing the consuada was a ritual to the house wife, and some of them were prepared well in advance. Many family members also joined in the preparation. As a child my favourite pick was the rebucados de caramel, which was toffee of hardened sugar caramel, wrapped in colourful papers. Sometime the paper would stick to the toffee and it was troublesome to remove it. Frutas cristalizadas are crystallized fruits.
The consuada prepared, the crib and the star lit, the family is now ready for the Christmas mass. The Missa de Galo ie the midnight mass is the main event of celebrations. The mass starts a little before midnight, so that at midnight the priest can intone the Gloria in Excelsis Deo. At this moment the church bell rings joyously to announce the birth of Christ the king. Burning of crackers accompany the bells to make the moment more festive. After the mass, relatives and friends wished one another Boas Festas.
The main meal on Christmas Day usually consisted of chicken, pork sorpatel or cabidel, voddes and arroz refogado. Sannas could also be added, though not usually a practice on this day. The more sophisticated families had a more elaborate menu, which include the turkey.
Friends and relatives visit one another during the festive seasons, which end with the feast of Three Kings, on January 6. In Daman there is a tradition of visiting in group, in the evening during the festive season, the Catholic houses, in adoration of the infant Jesus. (The same way we take “Our Lady” from house to house in Goa). These visits are called louvores (to praise the Lord) and prayers are recited. After the prayers vale nascido (beans) are served to those present.
Another tradition was that during the X’mas season the kumbhars (potters) would exchange their ware for voddes. Money was sent in the past, and the living standards were low for most of the people and therefore the barter system existed in Goa. I was told that children could buy with the kumbhars the earthern toys, like budkules, mitheiro for as much as 3 to 4 voddes.
Life has changed today and traditions occupy the back seat, in a society where everybody seems to be busy, and rushing to reach their destination. Let us hope people will make some time and observe the Christmas festival in a traditional Goan way.

JUGGLE-BANDHI

Jug Suraiya
17 November 2011

As it has been since i first visited it 33 years ago, Goa is lush with greenery and the graceful sway of palm trees. There’s only one problem. The greenery and the palm trees are now made of cardboard and wood: they are painted onto huge hoardings advertising luxury villas, high-rise apartments, five-star hotels. The hoardings showing the natural beauty of Goa – its gold and silver beaches, its sun-spangled sea, its exuberance of green foliage erupting out of the rich, red earth – are everywhere. So much so that they seem to smother the real Goa and replace it with a cut-out substitute advertising yet another property development. Goa is no longer landscape; it has become real estate.

Everyone wants a piece of Goa. Particularly builders from Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Goa is being gobbled up by a greedy appetite that seems to know no bounds. A holiday home in Goa is the latest must-have status symbol in metropolitan India. Gracious Indo-Portuguese homes, a hundred years or more old, with their tiled roofs and shuttered windows like eyes heavy-lidded with sleep under the shade of ancient rain trees, are being torn down to make way for raw cement monstrosities with names like Dreamland Villas, Akash Apartments, Sun ‘n’ Surf Resorts.

I’m a sceptic about man-made climate change. But in Goa the local climate does seem to have changed over the years since i first went there. Thanks to the rash of concrete spreading over its fields and hills, Goa is noticeably hotter than it was. Home air-conditioners, once a rarity, are increasingly a necessity. Every Dreamland Villa has to have at least two, maybe more. The inevitable result? Long hours of daily power cuts, which Goa rarely experienced before.

The construction boom has resulted in a parallel growth of motorised traffic, choking the roads and the narrow, winding country lanes, exhaust emissions adding to the heat-island effect. For the first time i witness massive traffic jams in and around Panaji, made worse, paradoxically enough, by a temporary disruption in petrol and diesel supply. Desperate for scant fuel, snaking queues of cars, two-wheelers and buses spill out onto the streets.

The traffic snarl-ups lead to explosions of road rage. Road rage? In laid-back Goa, fabled for its ‘sosegade’, its don’t-worry-be-happy philosophy? Apart from Dreamland Villas, Goa also seems to be importing Dilli’s in-your-face aggro. Which would be a tragedy, not just for Goa but for all of us who might not be Goans but who love the place and all that it once represented, and still does against mounting odds.

What is it that makes Goa a paradise, a paradise so sought after by all and sundry that today it threatens to become a purgatory? Its natural beauty, its tranquil, unhurried pace of life are part of it. But perhaps the most inviting thing about Goa has always been its hospitality, its welcoming inclusion of the outsider, of the passing stranger. All traditional Goan homes feature beside the front steps two in-built stone seats for the comfort of weary passers-by.

Goa’s generous hospitality has long been abused, first by the Portuguese who came in without so much as a by-your-leave and hung around for almost 450 years before being persuaded to leave with the help of an Indian army boot in their pants. Goa celebrates its 50th anniversary of liberation next month. But even as it does so, it’s witnessing another invasion: that of rapacious property ‘developers’ who will bribe, bend and break all rules to turn the Goan paradise into the unholy, unplanned mess that is the rest of urban India.

The signboard pointing to Goa has always been a welcoming ‘Goa Way’. Maybe its time to change that by shifting the ‘a’ in Goa so as to tell unscrupulous exploiters to ‘Go Away’.