My mother was possibly the only parent amongst our friends in Dubai, who decided Konkani would be the language spoken in our home. This fervent act of patriotism on my mother’s part, left my ability to speak in English greatly impaired. Susan Lobo, a precocious child by any standards, took it upon herself to rectify this minor defect and become my childhood friend. She was the eldest daughter of Patsy and Jerome Lobo belonging to a growing group of “Goan Afrikars” who had made their way to Dubai. Many of them fleeing Idi Ami’s Indophobic excesses in 1970. Wittingly or unwittingly this group of people would form my early childhood consciousness.
They were a vibrant lot who spoke of Africa frequently, of bungalows and country-clubs, of safaris and Swahili. They introduced my parent’s camp, who came from the more provincial confines of Goan villages, to esoteric cards games like Bridge and Flush, drank copious amounts of whiskey and beer and sang Malaika loudly, longingly and late into the night. In the 1970s these Afrikars would set the tenor for how the Arabs would come to view Goans. They were always imaculately dressed and spoke English with all the affectations of a having spent a life-time in a British colony. More importantly, they quickly garnered the creamy layer of Banking and Administrative jobs, thus setting Goans apart from the mostly unskilled manual labour that came in from the Indian sub-continent. For the most part they were Goa-centric, either indifferent to the fact or in denial of it, that in their absence Goa had become part of the Indian Union. Those were heady days in the Gulf, we led culturally insular lives severed from all things Indian. It would be years before I discovered that Malaika was not a Goan song at all but an outpouring of love for Africa. By then, it was too late. It was indelibly etched on my consciousness as being part of Goa’s cultural ethos. It is important to mention on the footnotes of our history, that Goan culture is shaped not only by successive waves of alien invasions and occupations, but also by a collective consciousness formed in the diaspora. A consciousness that invariably traveled back and forth from Goa and left its mark on Goa. -------------------------------------------- Feedback, inputs, inconsistencies, by way of private mail appreciated. Please don't write back about my mother or to say that Susan Lobo was never my friend. If anyone has information about Susan Lobo I would love to get in touch with her. I last heard she was in Canada. selma
