DO WE LAUGH AT OURSELVES? OR, DOES GOAN HUMOUR HAVE A GLOOMY SIDE TOO? Journalist, editor and poet Manohar Shetty edited 'Goa Today' between 1987-93. He has published three books of poems, the last 'Domestic Creatures' from Oxford University Press (New Delhi), and has edited 'Ferry Crossing -- Short Stories from Goa' (Penguin India).
Shetty read his poems at Lahti, Finland last year at a literary festival and has been invited later this year to the Vilinica Arts Festival in Slovenia. He also did a special India number for 'Poetry Wales' due out next month. He has ideas to edit a big book on Goa "but no arts foundation or grants commissions seem interested," he complains. After all this serious work, Shetty took time to recently look at Goan humour. FREDERICK NORONHA uses the peg offered by Shetty's recently-edited 'humour special' (published by the now government-run Institute Menezes Braganza's journal 'Govapuri', available at its first floor office above Panjim's Central Library at Rs 20.) to discuss the state of Goan writing. This volume contains the "first ever English translation of an almost forgotten book" -- Jacob e Dulce, set in the 1890s Margao colloquialisms and thought untranslatable; news-reports like "100 sausages stolen from Chandor shop"; and Mario Miranda's early illustrations published over five decades ago in a 'Loutulensis League' souvenir! Excerpts: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- After having done the work, what's your view of Goan humour? Does it exist? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, of course it exists and some of it more sophisticated than the rumbustious 'tiatr'. But there's also a gloomy side, a morbid interest in obituaries, funerals, ghosts and other people's misfortunes. (Note also the sepulchral air in the office of Institute Menezes Braganza and the torture chamber that is the Sub Registrar's office of Births and Deaths. You'd wish you'd never been born. They make Kafka sound like P G Wodehouse). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- What prompted you in choosing this subject? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The previous issues have all been on the serious side -- the Liberation Struggle, environment and heritage. I thought a humour special would balance that and garner two or three more readers. Incidentally, 'Govapuri' has a nonexistent readership. IMB's idea of distribution is storing all the copies in a godown and posting sentries around it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- How does the Goan sense of humour (if it exists) compare with other states? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- An awkward question. Can they be comparable? Isn't humour universal? But as in all small, provincial places there's a tendency to believe that they're the only ones with a vast fund of insider jokes. The happy-go-lucky image is media myth. Naivete can be charming, but also dangerous. (Note the distressing election results). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Has this subject been studied sufficiently? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why reduce humour to scholastic drudgery? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Was it difficult to locate resources? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. Even the request sent out (via the Internet for material related to Goa-humour) received virtually no response, except for the jokes I picked up from (one of the Goan online) newsletter. In the end I was compelled to use a story of my own, which had nothing to do with Goa (except that I'm quasi-Goan by now), just to make up the numbers. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- What struck you about cartoonist Mario Miranda's early work (which are included in this volume)? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- His eye for detail, his skills as a draughts-man, and the total absence of malice. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Have any earlier attempts been made of this kind, for instance Peter Nazareth's 'reader' which looks, inter alia, at some humour writing? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 'Ferry Crossing' does contain a few stories on the funny side, but the general tone is somber. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- What are the next themes for Govapuri? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- My contract with them has not been renewed. This is my sixth, and after my above comments, probably my last issue. Nice way to sign off. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's the state of literature and fiction in Goa today? Do we have enough journals to support it? Is the market simply too small? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm afraid the situation isn't very promising. Most of the older writers have virtually stopped writing serious fiction. Some poets, with inflated reputations, still use an archaic idiom and have no concept of modern poetry. What is not understood is simply condemned as obscure. There are enough journals, but what is important is the quality, even though the market is a limited one, unlike in some other regional languages. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name three urgent tasks needed to be completed to encourage creative writing in Goa today? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like in other fields, writers should keep in touch with modern trends But here people just don't read other writers with international reputations. Which is why so much of the work seems dated. The surprise ending, the twist in the tail, ended long ago with O Henry, but here it is still a fashion. As for poetry, the public choice is between Keats and Ogden Nash. The absence of a high standard bearer in one's internal lexicon means that mediocrity is recognised as excellence. The result is there are too many bromides around us -- and not just in the picture postcards. All the problems with Goan literature stems from this single factor: an unseeing eye on the books all around us. Add to that the uncritical glorifying of writers from a past era and the absence of an objective contemporary critical climate. It's Paradise Lost.(ENDS) FOOTNOTE: Manohar Shetty can be contacted at [EMAIL PROTECTED] ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ To unsubscribe from Goanews Send a mail message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: 'unsubscribe goanews'
