SUJAY GUPTA
sujay@herald-goa.com
ASSOLNA: Circa June 18, 2020: The trees were filled to the brim with fruit. The foliage in the Menezes Mansion in Assolna was getting thicker and greener with the rain. A diminutive man in his mid-sixties put 17 coconuts in his bag plucked from his tree and stood in the balcão at the entrance of his family mansion, waiting to catch a ride with this reporter back to Margao. His name: Zeferino Ravi Menezes. His mission: to sell his coconuts to a few restaurants.
Zeferino Ravi Menezes’ “18th June” 2020, was very different from what his uncle’s was on “18th June 1946”.
Half the day had just past. A little more than three fourths of a century ago, on this day, his uncle Dr Juliao Menezes and Dr Ram Manohar Lohia had driven in a horse carriage, with Laxmidas Borkar as their third companion and alighted near what is now known as Lohia Maidan, to address a historic rally to give a clarion call for initiating a disobedience movement against the Portuguese.
This year, as always there was a meeting at that spot where speeches were made and the State “remembered” the sacrifice of those who struggled for Goa’s freedom. But there was no invitation sent to the members of the very family which invited Dr Lohia, who sowed the seeds of civil disobedience and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him, almost facing bullets and getting arrested for defying the restrictions on public gathering in force.
“We have stopped expecting invitations. For me, selling these coconuts is my task today. And yes, I need to maintain the house, see that the chair on which my uncle sat (a comfortable chair in the corner of the main hall of the cavernous house, where Dr Juliao Menezes and Dr Ram Manohar Lohia confabulated) and other furniture is well maintained. The show must go on, you see,” said nephew Zeferino.
Well, the show of observing this day like ticking a box in Goa’s yearly calendar certainly does go on. But in this home, one of the most important signposts of history, an ageing couple leads a very quiet life, quite forgotten by the rest of Goa, eating very simple meals, travelling by bus and living the memories of a glorious past, which is reflected in the myriad portraits of Zeferino’s ancestors all over the rooms of this gorgeous home with history seeping from its walls.
The government decided to put two large portraits of Dr Lohia and Dr Juliao on the wall in this hall and had a little function, where the then Chief Minister Digambar Kamat had come. Of course, the right remarks, that the government would look after the upkeep of this home was made. But they were what they were meant to be, just remarks.
Zeferino lives in this stately mansion, which camouflages much of what his daily life and struggles are. His daughter works in the Water Resources Department, a job, to put it mildly, she got after her father literally ran from pillar-to-post. Those familiar with Goa will know exactly what this means.
Dr Juliao remained a bachelor all his life and hence his nephews and nieces were like his own children. While he does remember his uncle fondly, Zerefino hasn’t deep dived into Dr Lohia’s visit, which happened nine years before he was born. Pressed to recount at least one meeting between him and his uncle he said, “I lived in a hostel in Mumbai and could meet close relatives every other weekend. I used to go to my uncle’s home opposite Dhobi Talao which also served as his clinic. This was much after June 18, 1946 when my uncle was a regular medical practitioner. When I asked him about Dr Lohia and his own role, all he said was ‘I did my duty’. He did not want to be in the limelight at all. Ironically Dr Juliao, if he lived today, would perhaps even be most comfortable at the lack of attention he gets when people speak about Goa’s liberation movement or of 18th June itself, where ‘guest’ Lohia’s role (though very deservingly) is spoken of more than that of the son of the soil, Dr Juliao Menezes.
There is history in every nook, in this mansion. The table on which Dr Lohia wrote his notes with his fountain pen which he dipped in ink, the spot in the main hall where the two legends sat, the bedroom of Dr Juliao, which led from the hall, stand as silent witnesses to the history of the movement for civil liberties during the Portuguese rule.
Little did Dr Juliao realise that his friendly invitation to one of India’s greatest socialist leaders Dr Lohia, who he met in Germany and who had just spent time in prison, would spark off a historical civil disobedience movement. An unwell Dr Lohia had come to recuperate and relax at the abode of Dr Juliao, the son of Zeferino Piedade Menezes and Salvação Silva, when many figures of the Goan freedom movement called on him. The trigger for “direct action” was pressed then.
Postscript: This reporter drove Zeferino to Margao with his bag of coconuts. He got down and walked with the bulging bag to the nearby hotel to make his first sale. The Lohia Maidan was less than a kilometer away, where four hours ago, the Goa Revolution Day was observed, a day possible because of two men who decided to follow a path from the home in Assolna from where this hardworking man with coconuts had just arrived.