Ferry Crossing

Manohar Shetty

Description

Twenty-seven engaging stories from the heart of one of India's youngest states. The great holiday destination of India, Goa has been reduced to an easy caricature by the demands of tourism and advertising: a beautiful land by the sea peopled by a feckless, bohemian race. This anthology introduces us to the true Goa, a place rich in history and tradition where the business of living is as serious and humdrum as it is anywhere else. Included here are the finest short stories from Goa written in Konkani, Marathi, Portuguese and English, all remarkable for their rare freshness, and many marked by sparkling humour and a contagious lightheartedness. The themes vary from the touching naivete of first love, as in Chandrakant Keni's 'Innocence', to the humiliation of poverty, movingly described in stories like Pundalik Naik's 'The Turtle'; from the amusing clash of egos among rural elite, brilliantly narrated in Victor Rangel-Ribeiro's 'Senhor Eusebio Builds His Dream House', to the startling brutality inherent in everyday lives, as seen in Pundalik Naik's 'When an Ass Mounts a Cow' and Damodar Mauzo's 'Theresa's Man'. Simply and lucidly told, the stories in Ferry Crossing reveal a Goa infinitely more human and complex than the stereotypical image of an enormous beach resort.

Sujets

• Short story

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 14 octobre 2000
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789351181156
• Langue: English

Extrait

Edited by Manohar Shetty
Ferry Crossing

Short Stories from Goa

PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
Dedication
Introduction
Innocence Chandrakant Keni
That Blank Space Chandrakant Keni
When an Ass Mounts a Cow Pundalik Naik
The Turtle Pundalik Naik
Bhiku s Diary Meena Kakodkar
Transgression Mahableshwar Sail
Ekolyo Vasant Bhagwant Sawant
Theresa s Man Damodar Mauzo
These Are My Children Damodar Mauzo
What the Flower Foretold Uday Bhembre
Lord Vatobha and Aunt Radha Naresh Kavadi
Tatoba Vithal Thakur
The Legacy Subhash Bhende
The Hour s End Laxmanrao Sardessai
The Africa Boat Laxmanrao Sardessai
Salvation Raghunandan V. Kelkar
The Sign of Ire Orlando da Costa
Hope Vimala Devi
Shanti Epitacio Paes
Senhor Eusebio Builds His Dream House Victor Rangel-Ribeiro
Angel Wings Victor Rangel-Ribeiro
Moneyman Peter Nazareth
The Confessor Peter Nazareth
The Sacristan and the Miser Lambert Mascarenhas
At the Shrine of Mary of the Angels Hubert Ribeiro
Antonio s Homecoming E.R.A. da Cunha
Uncle Peregrine Leslie de Noronha
Footnotes
The Sign of Ire Orlando da Costa
Senhor Eusebio Builds His Dream House Victor Rangel-Ribeiro
Angel Wings Victor Rangel-Ribeiro
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Read More in Penguin
Copyright
PENGUIN BOOKS FERRY CROSSING
Manohar Shetty has published three books of poems. His work has appeared in important anthologies and in several literary journals in India and abroad. He edited a monthly magazine for eight years in Goa, where he lives with his wife and two children.
To Vicki
Introduction
O ne of the main aims of this anthology is to correct the distorted picture of Goa among most people outside the state. A Portuguese colony for well over four centuries, Goa was liberated in 1961 by a well-meaning but amorphous nation which had itself ceased to be a colony barely fourteen years earlier, and in less than a decade, it had become the focal point of a facile concept of Indian spiritualism and flower-power rebellion. This dramatic and swift transition only served to disfigure the realities of a people trying to find their feet. Added to this was the trivialization of Goa by the demands of tourism and the advertising industry, abetted by the popular media and cinema, which, over the years, created a caricatured perception of the state. It came to be seen as a place peopled by a feckless, bohemian race tippling away their lives in cosy tavernas, on balmy beaches and in the shadow of hoary mansions and whitewashed churches.
Such distortions, perhaps inevitable in any place which, quite literally, sells itself for mass tourism, have gone beyond popular stereotypes and can be found even in such publications as the Encyclopaedia Britannica , which says: The Christians generally speak Portuguese. . . Many Goanese are partly of Portuguese descent and bear Portuguese names as a result of intermarriages between early Portuguese settlers and local inhabitants. Most historians in fact agree that inter-racial marriages were rare and that miscegenation was looked down upon, by both sides. The Portuguese names came by during mass conversions when the presiding Portuguese civil or military officer left the legacy of his own name on those baptized. The word Goanese is seen as pejorative because of its association with jobs like those of valets, stewards, butlers and cooks which at one time many Goans undertook on foreign ships.
One can dismiss with an irritated shrug the frivolous thrillers set in Goa and the fits of nostalgia and precious recollection indulged in by absentee landlords in Bombay and elsewhere. And it would be a waste of space to recount the number of gaffes about Goa and the extravagant ornamentation of the place by gossip writers and other columnists. But when writers of the stature of Anita Desai and John Irving present readers with outright howlers, one is compelled into taking remedial action. Anita Desai in Baumgartner s Bombay writes of a poison called feni being brewed from cashewnuts, unwittingly turning this humble liquor into some exorbitantly expensive nectar. In the admirable A Son of the Circus , John Irving writes: In the village-or perhaps the source of the smell was as far away as Panjim-they were distilling coconuts for the local brew called feni. The heavy sickly fumes of the liquor drifted over the few tourists and families on holiday at Baga Beach. A whiff of feni travelling all the way from Panjim to Baga? An olfactory miracle, surely; even the perhaps is no defence. And coconut feni is not distilled from coconuts but from the sap of the coconut tree. The sickly-sweet fumes is more accurately descriptive of cashew feni made from cashew fruit pulp. living s engaging characters might also find it interesting to note that the imposing churches of Old Goa were built by the Portuguese with Italian architects during the artistically fruitful period when Spain ruled over Portugal, between 1580 and 1640.
These observations might on the surface seem like pettifogging, but this kind of carelessness by such eminent writers underlines how deeply ingrained the flippant attitude towards Goa is. A recent Governor of Goa, sunning himself silly at the private beach of the Cabo Raj Bhavan, reflected on his tenure in Goa as a thirteen-month-long super-deluxe holiday at the cost of the President of India . Such facetious and supercilious comments are proof not only of the sheer laziness of the particular Governor but also of the sense of forbearance and tolerance of the local community.
Such has been the gilded smokescreen created by tourism and its avaricious auxiliary industries. It becomes necessary, therefore, to clear the air and place the facts as they are. Few in the rest of the country even realize that the Catholic community in Goa is very much a minority; that the most widely spoken language in Goa, Konkani, is an official language under the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution; that the caste system (the word is derived from the Portuguese casta ) remains deeply rooted in the Catholic community too; or that the tiresome eulogizing of vapid, risibly moralistic pop stars has been at the expense of some of the finest Goan exponents of Indian classical music. The fact of the matter is that the business of living is as serious and humdrum in Goa as it is anywhere else in the country, and literary and other artistic endeavours are pursued in a most unholiday-hike manner. The stories presented here will, hopefully, alter a few ingrained perceptions about Goa, not the least by showing that a rural Goa with strong traditions does exist alongside the five-star ersatz of the coastline.
The credible fictional literature of the region is very young and has only recently begun to grow. The stories have a freshness and are lucidly and simply told. While they may not teem with complexity and hidden meanings, they are also not coyly ambiguous or clouded by wilful obscurity. Many of the stories in the four main languages-Konkani, Marathi, Portuguese and English-used in the region are also marked by a sense of humour, a contagious light-heartedness. Serious avant-gardism and credible experimentation have still not entered the making of fiction in Goa. There are reasons for this nascent state. Konkani, now spoken by five million people, has had a troubled past. Historically both Konkani and Marathi were studied and the grammar well documented by the Portuguese, but only as a tool towards proselytism. The advent of the Order of the Inquisition (1560-1812) ripped the heart out of Konkani. The Inquisition, more severe and repressive in Goa than anywhere in Europe, banned the use of the language and the local community was compelled to study Portuguese. Fleeing from their razed temples and the excesses of the Inquisition, many Hindu families settled in neighbouring areas, taking with them their family deities and their native language. Konkani was thus fragmented into four scripts: Devnagiri, Kannada, Malayalam and Roman.
The stories in Konkani in this collection have all been translated from the Devnagiri. Stories from the Kannada and Malayalam scripts have little or no affinity with Goa. Roman script Konkani is, however, a different kettle of fish. It is widely used by the Catholic community both in its prayer books and in the manifestation of popular culture such as the tiatr and in titillating novels and novellas. One exponent of this genre of pulp fiction has alone written over fifty novels and novellas. However, despite repeated forays into this branch of Konkani, not a single noteworthy piece could be salvaged for this anthology.
While Konkani was laid low for centuries by the Inquisition, Marathi was kept alive as the language of the princely courts. It was also the language in which the Hindu scriptures were preserved during the height of Portuguese religious repression. Some northern parts of Goa, with their close proximity to Maharashtra, were only annexed by the Portuguese almost 300 years after the subjugation of the south. By that time, evangelical fervour had subsided, and the compulsions of commerce led the Portuguese to soften their stand on the regional languages. Marathi thrived especially in these New Conquest areas. From the latter half of the last century, the Portuguese rulers regularly printed bilingual editions of newspapers, in Marathi and Portuguese. Marathi was also widely used in the official administration of Goa.
For several years the politics of language further divided and sidetracked many Konkani and Marathi writers of the region, and whatever the tall claims about the quality of the fiction (almost all of it dreary, prolix and preachy) produced by the old and blindly venerated stalwarts, both the literatures can be said to have progressed only during the past few decades. The fictional literature of the area is thus written on a virtual tabula rasa; the responsibility of creat