Kudd it be better?
rnIt may be fashionable to deride migrants from elsewhere seeking to eke out a living in today’s Goa. But in times not too distant, many tens of thousand of Goans had to themselves leave their lands and take abode in places like Mumbai (then Bombay), Karachi, or the many railway centres that dotted colonial India. Some even went further away to colonial Africa, West Asia and the like. In this great Goan diaspora, the kudds (or clubs) of Bombay have played a crucial role.
rnThe kudds, humble though they might have been, helped generations of Goans to get a toehold in a big, heartless city. They found a safe refuge, a temporary home, a circle of friends and informal mentors whom they could rely on till they found their way around the Big City. Since the kudds were located right in the heart of Bombay, mostly around the Dhobitalao area, it made things far more easier for the small man from Goa to access jobs and education in the centre of the mega-polis.
rnBut life has its own logic. With the passing of time, institutions which once played a crucial role no longer have a purpose. Quite a few Goans did well for themselves. More became affluent and moved into their own homes, sometimes plush dwellings in places like Colaba and Santa Cruz; the need for the kudds was less felt. Yet, upto this very day, some exist and continue to play a helpful role to the Goan who has no other roof over his head on landing up at Mumbai.
rnThese days, the Federation of Goan Clubs (Kudds) at Bombay has sought the Goa government help to “save” the kudds in the city which many from here have made their home. The history of the kudds is a rather complex subject indeed. There are many intricacies involved, and one cannot be sure that all facts are placed on the table. In as much as one generation of Goans (and more) slogged to build these institutions and sustain them, another generation has gone out of its way to slaughter the fattened calf, and make a killing over it.
rnIt is very easy for even a tiny handful to squander away community assets. Or, worse still, to privatise them. Many years ago, Olga Esther Baptista (now Valladares) undertook a study of the kudds. It was called ‘The Cudd System—A Study of Goan Club Life in Bombay’ (May 1958). She described it as an “associative form of living that has evolved from a way of life adapted by a section of migrant Goans in Bombay and other parts of India.”
rnThe researcher noted that Goan early emigrants, who were the originators of this system, had come to Bombay “mainly to better their economic prospects”. Bombay was meant to be a temporary home for the duration of their working life, after which they planned to retire to Goa. Many came from the agricultural classes, were untrained in urban occupations and had little education of the type a city needed, she notes. In the 1950s, she estimated that the Goan kudds served a population of about 40,000 Goans in Bombay, that is, approximately half the population of the total Goan population there then.
rnThese are historic and vibrant institutions. They need to be seen not so much in terms of the assets they now control—sitting as a few still do in parts of the city where the prices of land are among the highest in the world—but in terms of the role they have played, and can continue to play. Can these institutions be upgraded, and re-fitted to suit the times?
rnGoa and Goans owe it to the kudds to understand their role, to safeguard these institutions, and to see what new and improved role these can play. At the very least, the Goa government, and our academic institutions, need to undertake studies of the kudds, so we ensure we don’t lose another historic part of Goa simply due to neglect and a sheer lack of understanding.
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