Writing and Me Xavier Cota xavierc...@gmail.com
While I am mostly tagged as being a translator, and that too of Konkani literature into English, I am not too comfortable being slotted thus. I remember when I was in school, I felt challenged during English composition classes. Once we were asked to write a composition on 'What I Want To Be'. Frankly, I was clueless about what I wanted to be. I looked around the class and saw quite a few classmates sailing in my boat, who were also looking around unhappily. But, then again, several students were working like beavers, furiously putting pen to paper. My bench-mate was one such guy. Curious and perhaps looking for inspiration, I peered into his book. This is what I read—When I grow up I want to be a priest so that everybody will call me Father Austin. I will be able to hear Confession and give Holy Communion. That was a good ambition I thought, but a bit over the top. Anyway, the idea was his, and though the term and its creator probably weren't even born then, copyleft didn't feel quite right. I muddled through the period and handed in my uninspired submission. I wasn't unhappy though that it fetched me a six upon ten against the Father Austin stuff which garnered the writer a mere four. I've been a voracious reader since young. Probably, having parents who loved to read and a couple of well-stocked bookcases provided the initial infrastructure. My dad's library had an eclectic mix. Along with several Penguin paperbacks, some hardbound classics, philosophy and history books which were too heavy for me, many Portuguese books and even a sprinkling of Swahili ones, there were several dictionaries -- English, Portuguese, French and Latin and an encyclopaedia. There was also, I remember, a well-thumbed *Imitation of Christ* and a book called *Goa's Freedom Struggle* by a Dr. Julião Menezes, which I got quite engrossed in. Once when my mother's friend came to visit us, she picked up the book which was lying on the sofa and asked if I was reading it. When I nodded, she smiled. Puzzled, I asked if she had read it. She smiled even more and said, "Julião is my brother." Wow! My respect for her went up several notches. Imagine, my mother's good friend being the sister of a writer! Basically though, I grew up on a staple of Enid Blyton and comics. The latter was contraband. I still remember that the school calendar of my alma mater St. Joseph's, Dar-es-Salaam, mentioned that any student caught with comics would be fined and have the offending material confiscated. The trauma of leaving East Africa was compensated by the laissez-faire school which I was admitted into -- no homework and a very lax regimen. My mother could not believe that we had no homework. She would grab my calendar and look for the homework in each subject, only to find that I was not lying -- there was no homework. As expected, it did nothing for my studies. My spoken Konkani, though, took a quantum upward leap. You see, the student body of Popular High School, Margao, was predominantly Hindu, as were the teachers, and after the obligatory introduction of the subject in English, the rest -- explanation, interaction and pretty much everything—was in the Konkani that is presently branded by its opponents as Antruzi. This was far different from the little ganvti, Shashti (or Saxtti) Konkani that I knew. I was completely at sea. Mercifully, I was bailed out by some good Samaritans who hurriedly translated some things for me. Within a year, few would accept that I was an Afric'kar (Goan returnee from Africa), and treated me like a Niz Goenkar (blue blooded Goan). I could shuffle without much ado from Concani to Konkni as spoken by Konknne. Overall, the two years I spent in that school were fun years for me. Soon after my SSC exams in Goa, a friend's elder brother, who was a renowned caçador (hunter), took me for a hunt with his uncle. As we were going towards Sancordem in Sanguem taluka, the uncle who was driving an Opel as ancient as himself, began talking to me. I was quite fascinated to learn that he was a retired merchant ship officer, who had served during World War II. When I asked him if he had ever come under fire, he said, "Of course, several times!" He told me that the worst was in Libya. When I asked if it was Tobruk, the port city on Libya's eastern Mediterranean coast, he said yes. We went on for some time, with me flaunting my knowledge of the North African theatre, Dunkirk and other places. The old man who was generally prone to complaining most of the time, was enjoying himself, and beaming as he relived the most exciting days of his life. Suddenly he turned to me and said, "For a young boy, you seem to have done a lot of reading on World War II." When I nodded, he asked me for the names of the books and the authors. When I honestly said Fleetway Comics, I could see his face falling. He seemed to retreat into himself and was cold to me for the rest of the journey. In college too, the chapter on the Westward Expansion in America in the Economic History class made more sense to me because of Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill, 'Wild Bill' Hickok and others that I'd read about in cowboy comics. For the life of me, I still cannot fathom out why comics were taboo in my school, and in most schools I guess. Two years ago, I attended a presentation on something called graphic art at the Xavier Centre, Alto Porvorim, by the famous artist Orijit Sen, brother of my friend, Aniruddha Sengupta or Annie as I know him. Only then did I realize that graphic art was a rarefied name for our humble comics, so frowned upon by doctrinaire educationists. When I was in college, we had a subject called Additional English in addition to Compulsory English. Prof. Rao, the HoD, was a good teacher but very stinted in his evaluation as I discovered. Once when I'd handed in what I thought was a masterpiece, he was like, "That's not bad," which pretty much dampened my enthusiasm. That may have been one of the subconscious reasons why I decided not to major in English. But I did submit an article or two for the college magazine and managed to win the top prize in an all-Goa essay competition. After college, when I started teaching, English was one of the subjects allotted to me. I discovered that while most of the good, industrious students wrote mundane, insipid compositions, a few of the so-called laggards, produced such imaginative, effervescent stuff that often sent me into gales of laughter. Mind you, this was a village school in Goa of the late 'sixties and early 'seventies. Frankly, the standard was so promising, that I was inspired to start a monthly school magazine with the blessings of the headmaster. This journal, though supervised by me, was edited and produced by students. It was typed and cyclostyled by the obliging school clerk and distributed at cost to the students. We even exchanged some copies with city schools. Sadly, *The Dawn* did not survive long after I left the school. My bank job in Vasco did not offer much scope for writing skills except for the annual 'Bankers' Nite' souvenir, the editing and proof-reading of which somehow landed with me. In those days too, Vasco hosted an excellent tournament called Johnny Memorial organized by the Patrong Sports Club. This tournament was unique in that top league-registered players could officially participate under their village club banner. It was well organized and drew large crowds. Unfortunately, the press coverage was measly and stale. Deciding that it deserved better, I offered to cover the tournament for a newly-launched Panjim tabloid called the *Goa Monitor*. They agreed to pay the phone charges. After each match, I used to write out the report in longhand and phone it in. Possibly in need of copy, the paper used to publish the reports almost verbatim, the next morning. The prompt and generous coverage created a sensation among football fans especially in the port town. In those days the Internet wasn't even a gleam in anyone's eye. The organizers, too, were happy and gave me a small memento at the prize distribution, as a token of their appreciation. Later, when another English-language daily called *The West Coast Times* came up in Margao, I used the experience to hurriedly write out reports after the matches in an all-Goa table tennis tournament and other competitions organized by our club, and deliver them on my Jawa mobike in time for the next day's edition. Though all this yielded no income and caused me inconvenience and delays in reaching home, it certainly gave me satisfaction. So when I chanced upon an advertisement asking for trainee journalists, I took a day's leave and went for the interview in Panjim. The veteran journalist asked if I was working anywhere. When I told him I worked for a bank he point blank told me that I would be stupid to give that up for a journalist's job. He sounded bitter as he said that journalism was a lousy profession which paid very little. Though I wasn't quite convinced, I didn't actively try to get in again. I satisfied my craving by shooting off letters to the editor when any issue struck me strongly enough. Opposing Vishal Gomantak and fighting for Konkani and Statehood were favourites of course. But one that I recalled in the recent wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was a letter I'd written opposing tooth and nail a proposed nuclear power plant in Betul. My engineer cousin down from the US remarked that he'd read my letter but did not agree at all. He said, "Goa has no coal, gas or hydro potential—don't even mention Dudhsagar which is piddling! So instead of always being at the mercy of other states, a nuclear plant here makes eminent sense." We agreed to disagree as I felt that the cost of disposing of the waste and the high risk of accidents was too high a price to pay. Many other letter writers too opposed the plan. I like to think that those letters did their bit towards the idea being shelved. I hope the present online petition from Greenpeace against Jaitapur and other nuclear power plants that I've signed will also make a difference. I did oppose Kaiga too as it was at our doorstep, but embroiled as I was in grihastha ashrama, the duties of home and family that included juggling my job and shuttling the kids to school and co- and extra-curricular activities, I wasn't too vehement about it and equivocated—better there than here and since the juggernaut of the armed forces was involved, there was an inevitability about it. Cut to my friendship with Damodar Mauzo or Bhai as most call him. Mauzo invited me for the release of *Ganthan*, his first collection of Konkani short stories. I still remember Manoharrai Sardessai, poet extraordinary and my French teacher in college, launching the book with his mellifluous verse and the characteristic twinkle in his eyes. Bhai kept persuading me to try my hand at translating some of his stories. The major obstacle for me was the Devanagari script in which he wrote. Having done most of my schooling outside India, I hadn't studied the script since I was exempted from Hindi. Besides, literary Konkani was certainly a richer cup of tea compared to my colloquial Cristão Saxtti dialect. Sure Bhai could hand-hold me for the language part initially, but the script battle was my own to fight. I did try out my hand desultorily at a couple of stories, but I myself wasn't too convinced with the results. One day, he excitedly told me that he had an offer from a producer of serials for Doordarshan, the sole national TV channel then. They wanted his permission to use his story, 'Angvonn'. It was an offer he didn't want to refuse as it would catapult both him and the Konkani language onto the national stage. 'Manauvti', as it was christened in the Ek Kahani series, made history as the first ever Konkani story dramatized and telecast nationally and enough of an impact to warrant several repeat telecasts over several years. Of course, the screen version, as generally happens, took a lot of liberties with the original text. The editor of *O Heraldo* asked for the text of the English translation and permission to print it. Bhai readily gave it, and sent 'The Vow', my English translation of 'Angvonn', but was flabbergasted at the outrageous caption that the irrepressible editor Rajan Narayan had stuck on it, 'angvonn—the Play that Doordarshan Butchered'. The gratuitous swipe must have not reached the ears of the producers, because some time later they picked 'Chastity Belt', my translation of Mauzo's 'Khilli', from *Indian Love Stories* edited by Sudhir Kakar, in their sequel series Ek Aur Kahani. Over the years, I've translated many stories from Konkani -- mainly from Mauzo but also from others like Teja Kamat, Olivinho Gomes and Mahabaleshwar Sail. 'Humanity Drowned' translated from Sail's 'Monisbuddi' won me the Katha Award for translation. My translations of Konkani stories have appeared in several national and travel magazines as also in anthologies and collections. A couple of compilations that come to mind were Penguin's *Ferry Crossing* edited by Manohar Shetty and Roli Books' *Indian Love Stories* by Sudhir Kakar, mentioned earlier. They have also appeared in Katha Prize Stories and *Indian Literature* published by the Sahitya Akademy. With the publication by Katha, New Delhi, of *These Are My Children and Other Stories*, the first solo collection of short stories in English translation, Mauzo (and I) have scored another first for Konkani. The novella *Tsunami Simon* was also well received. In the can, there already are enough translated stories to warrant at least two more collections. Konkani certainly marches from strength to strength via English. As for me, Bhai and Fatima (my better half) have been urging me to tell my own story which, spanning two continents and a couple of generations, should be interesting -- certainly to me in the telling and hopefully to the reader, too. I am ready to break out of the groove of translator! ------ Translator, writer, lover of literature.His email: xavierc...@gmail.com This is an excerpt from the Sheela Jaywant-edited book *From Mind to Keyboard*.