FROM SOUZA & PAUL TO ALBUMS EATEN BY TERMITES Stories that the photographs leave behind for Goa
By Savia Viegas saviavie...@hotmail.com The photographic image played a central role in the visual history of the changing world of the 1840s. It was a world that was colonially inscribed; its geographies redefined and culturally re-conglomerated. It was a world of centres and peripheries linked by power, trade and colonisation. These new political groups had intense activities that linked the axis to the margins and these fringes to each other wherein goods, flora and fauna were relocated. People too moved across immense distances either for work opportunities or propelled by destiny. The invention in 1839 of two methods of permanently-capturing images on metal or paper -- daguerreotype or producing an image on paper which was tonally and laterally reversed -- changed the way images were made and produced. The photograph was a response to a social and cultural hunger for accurate and real-looking images, whose origins Naomi Rosenblum, the photography historian, locates in the Renaissance. From then on, the processes, techniques and subjects of photography have changed and evolved. As Coco Fusco, director of Graduate Studies for the Visual Arts, Columbia University writes: "We are increasingly reliant on photographs for information about histories and realities that we do not experience directly. By looking at pictures we imagine that we can know who we are and who we were." This Exhibition seeks to offer a perspective of the history of Goa mirrored through a clutch of old photographs. As we view the images in this exhibition, questions will crop up in the minds of some of the viewers: * Why are the common people not in these photographs? * Why there are no photographs of Muslim families and those of minorities? Colonialism has left its tell-tale marks on our societies, creating different cultural metaphors for different cultural groups, changing and evolving with the passage of time. These photographs reflect these stark imprints of times gone by, exposing and delving into some common trends. In each Photograph, the identifiable and defined cues as the camera faced its subjects: the distance between the photographer and the posers in the foreground, the pose, clothes and other cultural artefacts coupled with the objects, human and inanimate, in the background, all reflect the unique aesthetics and conventions of the times. The Estado of the Portuguese empire was a tiny stretch of shoreline spread across three zones in western India namely Goa, Daman and Diu. These pockets situated away from each other on the rim of the Indian Ocean sustained on trading. Its gentrified populace, their short and long migrations to British India, parts of Africa Inglesa (British, East Africa) or the Portuguese colonies across the globe, coupled with the support of wealthy Hindu merchants afforded the Portuguese empire its holding power and Goa its singular importance in the network of the Portuguese colonial empire. Photography as an image-making tool travelled to the Indic colonies of Britain in 1840, as early on as just a year after its invention in England and France. But it came to be used in Goa, only some decades later. The chemical collodion, used for manufacturing blasting gelatin and imported under great surveillance, was a crucial ingredient in photograph processing. In the British colony, the technology was marshalled as a recording tool and used exclusively by the State and the elites, thereby putting photography off-limits for the common people for a long time. The first photographers to establish themselves in Goa were the Bombay-returned Souza & Paul duo who set up their photo studio shop in Nova Goa (Panjim) in 1884. This very successful team -- partners, according to some; brothers, according to others -- aided the elite gentry, created albums documenting the state and even served the colonial government in Goa in their capacity as police photographers. The photographs of Souza & Paul appropriated the imperial gaze, focusing more on locations than people, and undoubtedly were created for the consumption of viewers both, from Portugal and from the colonies. The central icons of their work are: the celebrated Panjim jetty with docked boats and gentrified people wearing urbane European clothing, showing an ordered populace without any hint of compulsory dress codes; wide avenues suggestive of well-laid-out inhabited city; and the belfries of cathedrals and church towers illustrating a visual hierarchy of indexical signs for the rationale of colonialism. But, even before the arrival of Souza & Paul, there is evidence to suggest that the Estado was served much prior to 1884 by travelling photographers who visited areas and produced photographs in villages. Later, more studios were set up, first in Mapuça and Vasco-de-Gama, and later on in Margão. Ganesh in Panjim, Reis da Costa in Mapuça, followed by Lords in Margão, were some of the more well-known local studios. Photographers of Goan origin worked across the Indian Sub-continent, such as for the Maharaja of Travancore, among others and followed their compatriots across the Indian Ocean to set up photo-studios from Aden to Zanzibar. The British colonies that Goans emigrated to, in large numbers, were, among others, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika and Zanzibar, while the Portuguese satellites of Angola, Brazil, East Timor, Macao and Mozambique also offered opportunities for economic advancement. The physical presence of the Portuguese in the Estado da India was very limited, necessitating the dependence on gentrified and educated native-Goans for filling administrative, ecclesiastical and military positions. The Portuguese established a vast network of Escola Primárias catering to the basic level of education. Higher education was provided for boys in the seminary, or in the Lyceums and the Escola Médica de Goa, or by colleges in the border towns of British India in Belgaum, Dharwar, Poona and Bombay, creating a pool of educated intelligentsia from amongst the elite. But the number of local jobs created by a sluggish economy was not commensurate with that of the educated people. Goa’s inability to absorb the educated colonial subjects was majorly responsible for their mass exodus to other parts of the sub-continent ruled by the British and subsequently, with the founding of the railways there, to Africa Inglesa. Importantly, the converts to Catholicism and their descendents created a keen traveller, eager to strike it rich, unhindered by the cultural baggage of his Hindu counterpart. The Goan identity with its quintessential mixes lent itself to quaint interpretations of colour, race and power creating a feudal comprador class. The photograph entered the lives of the landed elite, recording them in the family portraits set against their mansions or highlighting their property. Many of the photographs on view portray natives in distant colonies of Africa Inglesa -- adopting stances as they face the camera that make it difficult to split the two, the colonizer and the colonized. Part of this posing may have been as per the aesthetics of early photography, which the photographer ‘assembled’ as subjects posed for a photograph. But photography of this period certainly fore grounded a class homogeneity that cut across frontiers and continents. In the Goan diasporas mentioned earlier, it is not identity of the race and skin, (native or Asiatic) but religion, dress and food that become the essential human codifiers. In Goa, as in the other feudal and tribal economies at the periphery of the colonial system were impacted by the activities of centres of finance and trade. The Portuguese were the first of the great European Powers to reach India originally in a race for spices from the Orient, which would eventually change to the objective of acquiring political power, evangelising and gentrifying the people of the colonies. Centuries later, the invention of photography came at a time when a new wave of European expansionism as well as industrialisation had opened up opportunities, and large number of Goans sought better futures in Portuguese colonies. The three Napoleonic wars (1803 -1815) brought British residents to Goa thus exposing them to its people – lusitanised, gentrified and at ease with European manners and table etiquette. This straightforward attitude was diametrically opposed to the cultural baggage and food taboos that prevailed in the British colony. So when job opportunities opened up in Africa Inglesa, Goans were employed in large numbers as doctors, engineers, railway clerks, musicians, teachers, cooks, barmen, carpenters and waiters. Such lucrative opportunities came about, but also took their toll. Many raked in better futures for self and family in the belly of an unknown continent, acclimatising to its culture and sometimes hostile conditions. They embraced these twin packages willingly but often succumbed to yellow fever in the colonies. Photographs were all that came back as memory of a life snuffed out all too quickly, without warning. Mourning families coped with the loss, often compensating the loss through photographic memories. Dr. Martinho Pereira-Carvalho, a young medic, working in Vasco-da-Gama was able to change the fortunes of his family before the scourge snatched him away. His family in Betalbatim was inconsolable for he had shined up their hitherto lustreless fortunes. His young childless widow married just a few moons ago was inconsolable and returned to her natal home in Colva. So when her sisters and brothers-in law summoned the travelling photographer to shoot a family photograph, a courier was despatched to the home of her in-laws. The portrait of her husband arrived before the tableau was assembled, in the fashion of the time, when enfant and adult mortality changed the composition of the kin without warning. The brothers-in-law with their centre-parted hair, natty three-piece suits and slickly oiled handlebar moustaches held up the portrait of the doctor above the head of his disconsolate widow. Today, both these portraits are housed in different homes and preserved carefully despite the hostile tropical climate, silverfish and white-ants -- the age-old enemies of photo-prints. The portrait, on the wall of the sala in his natal home in Betalbatim, fell victim to one such insidious attack, which left the picture crumbling on all the four outer flanks. Alarmed at the loss of this fragile memory of an eponymous ancestor, the occupants of the family house snipped off the four sides and saved what was left, the rectangular image thus turning oval due to the tyranny of white ants. The other rich sepia memory of him is in the home of Dr. Assis Fernandes in Colva. In the early days of photography, non-white people reinvented themselves in commissioned studio portraits, just as whites did. A photograph clicked by a travelling photographer drives home the point that early photography was a field where the psychic power of fantasy met the power of the marketplace. A second wave of studios in came to be set up in Goa between the late 1950s and early 1960s primarily by the photographers who had apprenticed and had formal exposure to the bromide technique in the film industry in Bombay. Studio names like Hollywood, Raj Kamal, Mauzo and Famous were part of this second flourish, reflecting the flavour of Bombay's celluloid world. The setting is Carmona and the dateline is 1920: A photo session takes place in front of the modest house of the Viegas family. The house, then, was partially completed, going by how it stands today. The frontage of the sala, entrada and the saleta were not yet constructed. The embellishments would have come later. A zooming into the background allows you to view the agricultural implements: a ladder, bamboo baskets and a wooded bamboo patch. The gentleman in the photograph is the first educated man in his family and is a school teacher. The family is not wealthy and some members engaged in agricultural activities along with labourers in their own fields. But the posers in the photograph appear coiffed, stern and Victorian. They are Belarmino, Ubaldina, Natividade and Bernadette, the newlywed wife of Belarmino. The women in the frame wear hooped skirts, hairpieces and elbow length gloves as they stare into the camera with ‘stranger’ eyes. The girl in the photograph with her gingham frock, wiry hair and scowl exists in the lower register more by design. Iconic in representation, even though reified, her very presence strengthens the 'power-image' of the family portrait. Its value lay in the fact that it was to be put into circulation in the local community providing the family social power. They look on with hauteur as they freeze for the camera. The photograph works on fantasy and reality as well. The presence of the girl in the bottom register adds symbolic value to the family. Delving into the family archive revealed that the girl was tonsured and branded on account of a theft in which she was an alleged accomplice. Roland Barthes, a French cultural theorist, points out that we look straight through the photograph, ignoring its status as a signifier and seeing only the signified—the image itself. Factors that encouraged their training and hence skill and apprenticeship earned elsewhere in the British and Portuguese colonies augured well for the setting up studios in various suburban areas of Goa. Portuguese and Europeans resident in the colony would come in droves to be photographed and usually the order was for one postcard size and three passport photographs commonly called one PS and three PP. The photographers kept handy cut-outs of Jesus Christ giving the first Holy Communion. This would be superimposed on the negative along with the child wearing the vestments of first Holy Communion. The act was often recreated in the studio much after the sacrament was received. Jyoti Studios in Mapuça had a cut-out on cement board painted by an Africaner. Such studio aesthetic of posing for 'first holy communion photographs', was popular till the point before which the camera became a widely used contraption. This changed the conceptualisation of the receiving of sacraments; the partaking of communion itself had become more of a community based celebration rather than an encounter between god and human. The concept of first-communion-photography also changed as the inclusion of family and community became integral to the celebration. Marriage photographs were generally shot in the studio, much after the nuptials were over. Octogenarian Martha Rodrigues remembers that her photograph was taken months later, for it took some convincing of her husband to have a studio wedding photograph. He was a doctor in the mines at Kalay, Goa, drawing a salary of Rs.200 in 1952. Three copies of the photograph cost an eighth of his salary. The enchanting image of the coy bride fractures somewhat when Martha, gazing at her own image six and a half decades later, recollects that she was pregnant with her first child. Her body contours had expanded and she could no longer button up the back of her bridal dress, which remained open all the way down to her waist! But wealthy families took wedding photographs with the bridal entourage posing against the backdrop of their house, or property, or in the sala. Handheld cameras were already being used by the elite to record family celebrations. In the photograph titled 'Casamento de Nina' of the early nineteenth century, the photograph reveals one of the guests carrying a handheld camera. These needs were fulfilled by the studios which took on assignments to create individual moments or wedding albums. The wedding albums of the next seven or eight decades till the 1960s and 1970s had a marked trajectory of important steps of the marriage ritual: the blessing of the bride at the family altar, the bride walking the aisle with her father, brother and mother, the celebrant blessing the couple and the post-wedding photographs of the lunch or dinner and dancing. It was mandatory to click a photograph against the backdrop of the house or the property, highlighting elitism identified very well by local terminology such as 'decentponn' and 'nobreza', Konkani and Portuguese words that highlighted the very foundations of elitism. Photography created a homogeneous identity for the elites, read through indexical markers of wealth and power. This was in some ways, similar to what painting had done earlier, but its use was far more widespread. Photographic portraits were created in greater profusion by Catholic families. A factor that contributed to this was that they had adapted to western culture and travelled more. On the other hand, some of the pictures we sourced from Hindu families reveal refreshingly different aesthetics. The photographic stances are different, and so are the cultural aesthetics. Portraits of heads of family, group photographs, family outings and business associates posing for the camera on occasions become the themes and subject matter of photography. A set of photographs that we obtained from the Caculo family in Pangim, show a member of the family meeting Bernard Guedes. Another shows founders and staff of Goa's first private initiative -- the Companhia Electrica de Salcete, posing on the occasion of retirement of the chief engineer. This company was set up in 1935 by prominent Goans such as Pandurang Virgincar, Atmarama X. Poi Palondicar and Balthazar Rodrigues. The Company had to pay a fine to the Portuguese government for every power-cut. It stood dissolved with the liberation of Goa. Upanayana was an important ritual that was well photographed and documented. The uniqueness of this segment of Goan photography, calls for such photographs to be displayed and studied as a category in themselves. Frankly, we wanted to work with more but got less. We hope that in the coming years we can make public the pearls trapped in the sediments of time so that we can decipher their histories. --------------------------------------------------------- Semana Da Cultura Indo Portuguesa recently presented an exhibition of old Goan photographs, collated and curated by Savia Viegas. The above text is from the booklet released on the occasion. --------------------------------------------------------- Savia Viegas is a writer, artist and academic living in Carmona, Goa. Her novels and exhibitions include "Museum thru Indian eyes" -- a photographic exhibition at NCPA sponsored by USEFI held in March 2005. Her debut novel "Tales from the Attic" was published in March 2007. In December 2009 "Picturing Us" her solo exhibition of paintings was held. Her second novel, "Let me tell you about Quinta" was published by Penguin India in 2011. Her illustrated fiction work "Abha Nama" and "Eddi and Diddi" was published in November 2012. Her second solo show entitled 'Mementos' was exhibited at Sunaparanta in 2014. --------------------------------------------------------- Moments, Memory, Memorabilia, an exhibition of old Goan photographs curated by Savia Viegas will open on Saturday, 12 December 2015 at 5 pm at Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Alto-Porvorim, Goa. Architect Gerard da Cunha will inaugurate the exhibition. The exhibition will remain open from 14 to 21 December 2015 (Monday-Friday, 10 am-5 pm) See also some images at http://bit.ly/SaviaPhotos