I was quite elated when I first read the term “Ghar Wapsi” headlined in the newspapers thinking that the much talked about and drooled over black money stashed abroad was finally coming back as promised! After all, what else can it possibly mean? I mean, who would in an unemployment infested and money order orientated economy like ours will actually want the Dubai-kars and London-kars to return for good. Goans like to venture out and explore the globe, but our heart always remains in Goa and we eagerly await an opportunity to be home – be it the Christmas season, the village feast or the occasional family Kazar!
Reading on, I realized that this thing called “Ghar Wapsi” was a lot more complicated than homecoming and black money… I called up my friend Baltazar, supposed to be a double graduate in Anthropology and rumoured to be close to the Ghar Wapsi guys, to demand an explanation. Baltazar, like myself is a born Christian – our forefathers have been Christians for the last many centuries and we have never ventured too far away from home. So where does this “Ghar Wapsi” thing actually fit in, I asked. Baltazar, as usual, took great pain to explain that our ancestors were forcefully converted to Christianity by the Portuguese and that “Ghar Wapsi” is an initiative to help them get back to their native faith.
Baltazar`s explanation has left me more baffled than ever: The last time I heard about the dead coming back was when Jacklu the famous exorcist from Nuvem was alive and kicking. In those times, medical services seldom extended beyond the local village physician and any illness, mental or otherwise that could not be diagnosed, was promptly attributed to possession by evil spirits.
As soon as the possessed victims were brought to Jacklu, he would immediately splash ‘Holy water’ on them. That done, his hefty assistants would harshly ask the victims to reveal their identity and start beating them till they mentioned a name. More splashing and thrashing later, the reason for coming back would be extracted. Some returned to rest-in-peace as soon as their demands were met but some others simply refused. In such cases, Jacklu had to bring back the friendly ancestors of the victims to help him drive the evil spirit inside a bottle that was later sealed and buried. They said Jacklu was a mineworker, I suspect he was a cop in his previous life, specialized in the ‘art’ of extracting confessions from innocent people arrested on fabricated charges.
