05 Dec 2020  |   05:12am IST

Diary of a ‘liberated’ Goan in her 90s: Cherished memories, shock and hope of Goa’s resurrection

Diary of a ‘liberated’ Goan in her 90s: Cherished memories, shock and hope of Goa’s resurrection

Sujay Gupta

Silences. Like heavy rain-laden clouds. Dark and brooding at times, introspective and immersive at others, they carry many burdens. Like in the expanse of the desert where nothing moves, silences are only punctuated by the sound of the sifting of sands and that’s all you hear as you move from one dune to the other. Eerie and quiet.

Like a hospital room from where a soul has just left the body taking with it the core of existence, you hear the silence of death.

Yes, silence is not always the absence of sound but of a body bereft of a soul. Can a land such as Goa too be bathed in silence, like a soul-less body too? The much-beloved 91-year-old Dr Margarida da Veiga e Miranda of Loutolim passed away this week. Her passing isn’t exactly big news. What is, is the fact that in the 60th year of Goa’s liberation, a generation which has been educated, grown up, imbibed and experienced the years before liberation, as an era of rules and order and justice with an inclusiveness that is evident  even in every reflection, written, spoken or narrated, the custodians of that past are leaving us. And in the custody of those who have no linkages with that past. And this isn’t about nationalism but about ideals. And these were not Portuguese ideals, but Goan ones. Honesty, transparency, respect for the rule of law and others, the right to speak up and expect and get justice, wasn’t a gift of a colonial power, but whose seeds were sown on our verdant Goan soil, by Goans who enjoyed when these ideals bloomed.

When the crossover happened, “liberation” changed a few obvious things but it didn’t change the soul of Goa which further re-emphasised that the golden years of pre-Liberation had more to do with the soul of Goa, than the role of Portugal.

The Goan idyll, given by nature, and Goan ideals imbibed by fine Goans across generations were both home-cooked. Even the gorgeous homes, including the one in which Dr Miranda lived, were not ‘Portuguese homes’ but built by Goans who were nationals of Portugal.

When Goans who are in their nineties, and especially those from Salcete, who have led full active lives and followed the changes in Goa intensely leave with treasured memories of seventy years go and remorseful ones of 70 months ago, it tells you something of the erosion and eradication of this glorious civilisation.

And here is the harsh truth. Goa has had ‘a mixed relationship with India post-Liberation, in as much as the very phrase ‘liberation’ has been questioned, obviously to the chagrin of those who have questioned the temerity of bringing the successful takeover of Goa on December 19 to disrepute.

But what if we delink liberation from the narrow confines of nationhood and widen its expanse to include the will of the people, their freedom to decide about their destinies, the freedom of local governments to decide on the shared future of its people, then perhaps the sweeping general-purpose definition of liberation can be relooked at.

We can indeed celebrate this sixtieth year, if Goans have greater control over their destinies, their land, their environment. When they can rightly say that the Centre’s interest can be at odds with Goan interests and if so, Goan interests should take precedence.

In the Portuguese era, the freedom to hold power to account by writers, journalists and even freedom fighters was “liberating”. Do we have the same liberation now? That is the liberation that Dr Miranda missed deeply in her twilight years. That is what the venerable intellectual Dr Rafael Viegas of Curtorim (89) yearns for and misses. And which is why men and women in Goa in their late seventies and eighties scan the obituary pages of Herald each day to mourn the loss of yet another of that era who had shared values and beliefs that nurtured our land and gave soul to our soil.

It is in this context that this columnist recalls a former writer colleague, a brilliant historian and researcher, young in age but renowned in his sagacity Jason Keith Fernandes, who now lives in Rome in response to an immensely spiritual calling. About four years ago Deepti Kapoor a novelist whose first novel was called ‘A Bad Character’ wrote a piece in The Guardian, “An idyll no more: why I’m leaving Goa”, whose title itself explains the nature of the piece.

In a scathing riposte, Fernandes wrote a piece ‘Goa- the idyll that never was’, in which he stated "Kapoor does not acknowledge her own role in the mess that Goansfind themselves in. Kapoor is silent about the privilege that she enjoys – the privilege of the (largely North) Indian elites, who dominated British India, led the anti-colonial nationalist movement, and who now operate as the embodiment of colonial power in places like Goa. This is precisely the relationship that is to blame for the many ills that Kapoor documents, and that allows Kapoor to escape Goa with relatively no loss, while Goans are left not only with a ruined ecology and social fabric but a continuing brutal colonial relationship with India. The relationship of the Indian elites to Goa is by no means innocent. For that matter, neither is the relationship of India to Goa. Rather, these relationships are built on the wilful ignoring of history, to enable Indians to create Goa and Goans not only as property of the Indian empire but as a pleasure park where they can imagine themselves to be in their own little part of Europe.

Goans have known to embrace and welcome everyone. They still do. The take-over of Goa by those from outside the State wouldn’t have been possible without this open arm policy. But where the lines have been drawn is the narrative that is being pushed down Goa’s throat that Delhi knows best. And that is what left the last of that era like Dr Miranda wonder when did this become established and accepted. In her years as a student and then a medical student and then as the daughter-in-law of Loutolim married to Dr Antonino de Miranda and into a home of learning and letters, in the mid-twentieth century, no one told her that “Lisbon knows best’’ or for that matter “Lisbon’s interest is Goa’s interest.

And even after Liberation, when she actively played a part in the Opinion Poll in her village and surroundings literally going from door to door to explain the irreparable losses if Goa was merged into Maharashtra, worrying when the trends of the referendum starting trickling in from North Goa, and exhorting the people of her village to go out and vote (‘Every vote counts, no one should be left behind’, she said to all who could hear), no one told her ‘Delhi knows best’ or ‘Maharashtra knows best’

The Opinion Poll is the only single piece of evidence that is ever required that it is an established fact that Goans know best. And Dr Miranda and her generation were not just bystanders but architects of this phenomenon getting embedded in the psyche of every true Goan.

Hence when she read or heard, even through her failing health in the last three weeks of comments by Goa’s Power Minister and Chief Minister that projects like the railway Double tracking were Centre’s projects and hence Goa had very little role (except give dictated permissions to fast track these projects)she was rightfully dumfounded. She once looked wistfully and asked “What is happening to Goa?’, the question underlying her disbelief at the changing DNA of Goans in power more than blaming the Centre for its obvious power games.

And as she walked into the sunset, to a better place, she had a fervent hope that the young of today would find some spark in the embers of the ashes of a  collapsed dream and resurrect fragments of the glorious past, that was her present for decades. She loved to read and hear of the agitations, and never forgot to ask if young people were there for them. She believed till her very last that the pen was still and would be the sword and that the young would win back Goa for us.

But this isn’t her story alone. But of all Goans of that vintage who are struggling to find a way to pass on the legacy of humanity, honesty and courage to a generation which pauses only to pick up their Portuguese passports and head to the UK, only because the Goa that once was is a blip in the expanse of the ocean.

But maybe, just maybe, Goa will get its soul back. And be less bereft. It has to be in order to make souls like our beloved Dr Miranda’s truly Rest in Peace.


Sujay Gupta is the Consulting Editor Herald Publications and tweets @sujaygupta0832

IDhar UDHAR

Idhar Udhar