Understanding Portuguese writing from the Goa of another century
Priest-scholar Dr Eufemiano
Miranda, from Cortalim and now
in the parish at Chicalim,
explains how his recently-
published book in Portuguese
charts out the contours of Goan
writing in that language.
BOOK EXTRACT: By Eufemiano Miranda
----------------------------------------------------
eufemianodejesusmira...@gmail.com or +91-832-2714005
This study attempts to be a humble step to take further prior
surveys of Indo-Portuguese literature, namely the monographs
by Vicente de Braganza Cunha (Bombay, 1926), Filinto Cristo
Dias (Goa, 1963), Vimala Devi and Manuel de Seabra (Lisbon,
1971). It tries to analyse the content or themes of the
literary works dealt with by Indo-Portuguese writers. The
word literature is taken to mean literary productions of a
creative nature or of fiction.
Indo-Portuguese refers here to ethnically Indian
writers in whom there is a harmonious confluence of
European standards and motifs of local inspiration.
Five themes are identified: (i) Brahmanism in
conflict with Liberalism as embodied in Francisco
Luis Gomes’ writings, principally his novel Os
Brahamanes (ii) The world of landlords (batcaras)
and tenants (mundkars) as reflected principally in
Orlando Costa's O Signo da Ira (iii) The
fascination with the mystery of Bharat-Mata (Mother
India) (iv) The temple dancer of India (v) The land
and her people as depicted in Gip's Jacob e Dulce
and Agostinho Fernandes’ Bodki, themes that reflect
the social history of Goa.
The chapter Panorama da Vida Social de Goa nos Séculos XIX e
XX aims at getting a bird's eye view of the socio-historical
background of the 19th and 20th centuries and understanding
the influence of the Portuguese presence in Goa on the
formation of the homo goanensis.
The scenario of education and learning, the establishment of
the printing press and, as a result, the evolution of
journalism and social life, are briefly examined.
The Christian segment of the society, principally, as
compared to the Hindu sector, went through a cultural
separation.
As a consequence of it, social customs and ideas of the
converted were changed. The acculturation that took place in
Goa could rightly be called a Luso-tropical civilization, to
use the expression coined by Gilberto Freyre, the Brazilian
sociologist-writer who visited Goa in the 1950s.
Next comes 'Francisco Luís Gomes: O Bramanismo em Conflito
com o Liberalismo'. The Constitution of 1822, that the
Portuguese Parliament voted for after the Revolution of 1820,
and the Constitutional charter of 1826, given by King Pedro
IV to the nation and its overseas territories, were a
concrete fallout of the Liberal ideas proclaimed by the
American and French Revolutions.
Francisco Luis Gomes of Navelim, a doctor by training and a
member of Parliament, became the representative par
excellence of Liberalism in Goa. In Parliament, he fought
for freedom in his beloved Goa.
His novel Os Brahamanes was born of his Liberalism
coupled with his Romanticism, inspired by the
Gospel and a vision faithful to the Portuguese
nation. The novel portrays the dramatic conflict
between the White and the wheat-complexioned
Brahmanism superiority) or the two types of pride
rooted in race and culture. The resolution or the
moral of this conflict is found in the words that
Francisco Luis Gomes puts in the mouth of his
character Tomas: "My victory will be the reform of
all codes by the Gospel."
This is followed by the chapter 'O Signo da Ira e o Mundo dos
Batcarás e Manducares'. Goan society comprised of a class of
landowners (batcaras) and another of rural labourers. The
latter lived to serve the former. The small middle class
comprising just around ten per cent. This social reality
lends itself to fiction.
Vimala Devi, Laxmanrao SarDessai and R.V. Pandit portrayed
it in their short stories and poems. A work of high
aesthetic value was Orlando Costa's O Signo da Ira, a
masterpiece in Neo-Realism which earned its author the
Ricardo Malheiros Prize in Portugal.
Indian philosophy, religion and mythology are intertwined and
form a living tradition. They are still very much part of
the life, and society, where they were born and have
blossomed. India's mystery and fascination lies in them.
Our literature has been enriched with short stories and poems
that reflect the philosophical tenets or hymns of praise to
the gods, to their functions, or homage-portrayals of the
great personalities of Indian history.
In Indian society, particularly in Goa, there existed a woman
taken to symbolise a contradiction: the temple dancer
(kalavant). Over time, the devadasi, or servant of the gods,
became a woman who sold herself. Historians and sociologists
used varied pproaches to study this institution. The nautch
girls or devadasis underwent a metamorphosis in the romantic
imagination of the Indo-Portuguese poet to become a symbol of
beauty and feminine grace. The theme of the kalavant
exercised a strange fascination over the Goan poet.
In the chapter 'A Terra e a Grei', it is noted that Goan
society is portrayed principally in two Portuguese language
works of fiction. The Christian middle class of the end of
the 19th century and beginning of the 20th is depicted with
their idiosyncrasies and hidden weaknesses in the novelette
Jacob e Dulce by Gip, a pen-name of Francisco Joao da Costa.
In Agostinho Fernandes' novel Bodki one finds a picture of
the rural Hindu society with its beliefs, usages and customs.
The Indo-Portuguese writer is a "romantic", a man
under the spell of a "rupture" and a "longing for
totality". Ethnically Indian, he has on the one
side, imbibed traits of a Western, Christian, Latin
culture and, on the other, lives under a strong
subconsciousness of the Vedic-Upanishadic Hindu
substratum. He turns to himself in a dramatic and
painful manner, like the Romantics, in his search
for self-identity and self-definition.
>From the perspective of literary aesthetics, Indo-Portuguese
literature can be considered as a corpus of works conceived
and brought forth in the agony and ecstasy of nostalgia. If
some works can be plainly classified as belonging to
Romanticism or Neo-Realism (Social Realism), others,
principally the poetic works, had influences of the Parnasian
or Symbolist schools, or are best interpreted in the light of
the Sanskrit theories of Alankara, Riti and Rasa.
Portuguese by expression and Indian by the aestheticism of
the writers, principally of the poets, as well as on account
of the themes and motifs underlying it, Indo-Portuguese
literature belongs to the Portuguese Literary Tradition.
Just as the Manueline style in architecture -- a happy
blending of the flowery Gothic with the plastic poetry of
elements of the Eastern flora and fauna and of the maritime
motifs of the Portuguese naus -- is a characteristically
Portuguese style.
--
Oriente e Ocidente na Literatura Goesa: Realidade, ficção,
história e imaginação
Eufemiano de Jesus Miranda
May 2012
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