Just to take up issue with Dr Jose Pereira on a few points...
Though I've been associated with working on his book, and greatly
admire his intellect and breath of vision, I don't agree with some of
the issues raised below.
On 27 July 2010 15:25, Frederick Noronha fredericknoro...@gmail.com wrote:
'THE FORCES DESTROYING GOA ARE MUCH STRONGER THAN I AM'
Overall, the piece raises good issues. But am I alone in recognising
the old journalist strategy of picking the most attention-catching
statement and placing it in the headline?
If so, a pity. It creates an unduly pessimistic tone over a subject
full of colour, history and delightful sound.
Q: You spent a majority of your life outside Goa. How did it
feel to be separated from your motherland?
Like a rat, I have run away from the sinking ship, which is
Goa.
If you know Dr Pereira, you would also know that he has a mischevious,
puckish sense of humour. I would see his above self-depreciating
statement in the above context.
Some (many?) Goans need more space to grow, compared to what Goa
provides them. At the same time, they are strongly tugged back home,
and to the memories of home, via what I call 'the Goan male homing
instinct'. (It seems less strong among female Goans, but this is going
by episodic evidence.)
When a journalist-friend and his TV crew (I think it was the then
Dilip Padgaonkar-led APCA, Asia-Pacific Communication Associates, if I
recall right) visited Damodar Kossambi's traditional home at Sancoale,
they asked some male relative if he would have achieved as much had he
stayed at home.
The relative was unequivocal: Most definitely not.
The mando is beloved but betrayed. It was the work of the
aristocratic minority to create a fragment of Europe
surrounded by the waters of the Arabian sea and the hills of
the Sahyadris... an attempt to create a little Vienna with
a fantastic spirit and dance.
The mando has gone far beyond its original roots in today's Goa.
Without claiming any expert, insider knowledge, I can say I've
photographed this colourful song-dance form for the better part of a
decade. It has grown in recent years, it is morphing and changing.
From the time when I wrote pessimistic reports about the mando dying
out, it seems to have come back with a bang, attracted far wider
numbers of performers and musicians, and from far wider groups than
the traditional Catholic elite which earlier patronised it.
tune. It was a fantasy world. It couldn't have lasted very
long. It lasted about a hundred and fifty years. I like the
fantasy world of the mando.
Strange though it may seem, the tiatr is only around 118 years old.
But it too has survived, is thriving and growing in new ways...
Q: Even today, the tiatr is a very vibrant industry, don't
you think?
Yes, that is because the Catholics are afraid that their
entity is being dissolved and this is their way of asserting
their identity.
Seems like a bit of an unfair statement. Even assuming the above is
right, why would the Catholics choose only the tiatr, and not
something else?
I would suspect that the spurt in tiatr activity has more to do with
(i) the tiatr shifting its epicentre from Bombay to Goa, after the end
of Portuguese rule and censorship here (ii) the fact that the tiatr
echoes the heartbeats of the commonman (particularly among the
Catholics) as Dr Pramod Kale pointed out in his seminal essay, and
even 'editorialises' on local issues within a few weeks of an event
happening, as seen in the Mickky-Ratol case -- there is a worry trend,
as a friend pointed out though, with politicians using some tiatrs to
push their own political goals by 'sponsoring' some directors to
ensure they take a favourable line (iii) tiatr remains one of the few
viable drama forms in and around the region (iv) most other media tend
to take the side of the status quo, often supporting whichever party
is in power, and thus leaving the commonman feeling marooned.
There are probably other factors too, with experts like Tomazinho
Cardozo and Dr Rafael Fernandes could elaborate on.
Q: What do you feel about the future of Konkani?
I'm no longer optimistic about the future of Konkani. It
has to fight too many forces that are too great for it to
take on. What will we do?
While Dr Pereira does have a point, isn't this being too pessimistic?
When things look bleak, one never knows where new support and
initiatives will come from.
For instance, if Konkani was made easier to learn globally, that would
have been one huge step forward.
Q: If you were to get a chance to live again, what would you
like to come back as?
I suppose I could be a computer graphics expert. But then, a
meditative existence would not be possible.
This is very funny! I can almost picture Dr Pereira's almost-hidden
mischevious smile, as he makes an outrageous if playful comment! A
computer graphics expert!
We used to read books and classics. I read all of
Shakespeare, Dickens... but today's youth know
