Unravelling Human
Trajectories
“There is no greater agony than bearing an
untold story inside you.” Maya Angelou
Maria Aurora Couto, Goa’s daughter and Padma
Shri awardee whose latest book Filomena’s Journeys has been shortlisted for the
Crossword Book Award, is a pristine presence in Goa. Her quest, propelled by
incessant coaxing by friends and a deep yearning to unearth answers for herself,
led her to analyse personal trajectories of her family through the prism of
social and cultural context of Goa’s milieu. Writing a ‘no holds barred’ memoir of her
parents, family and culture, searing through the veneer of a culture and lives lived
(intimate and personal) must have taken immense courage, reflection, research
and analysis. The writing evolved through a process of sifting, rummaging, rejecting
and illuminating findings (at times, shocking) of the newspapers of the first
half of 20th century Goa, the Annuario and numerous conversations with
family and friends. A mammoth journey undertaken by the writer
with great sensitivity and empathy to
unravel eponymous journeys, symbolic of every girl growing up in Portuguese Goa.
A catharsis, cleansing by itself, deliverance, is anybody’s guess.
Couto’s mother
Filomena Borges, reminiscent of the character of Heidi (a book by Johanna
Spyri) in her childhood was a woman grounded by the harmony and camaraderie of
an extended agricultural community. Life lessons assimilated from the vastness
of nature, its vagaries and rootedness, timeless qualities; which seemed to
have seeped into her persona, making her a woman of substance. Faced by
adversity, she sought faith (nurtured on Saibin Mae church feasts, worship of
St Filomena, obeisance to Goddess Kamakshi), family, neighbours and mundkars to
bring up her seven children as a single mother in Goa and Karnataka. The
expository writing on Filomena’s growing-up years and thereafter till she
reached the ripe age of ninety transcending culture, language and geography is
an engaging poetic rendition of love, homage and admiration, by Maria Couto.
Her father’s
trajectory is another story. ‘Death changes the living forever’, says Coutu. Plagued
by dogged memories of a ‘mercurial, conflicted father,’ Couto sought answers
from the social, political, cultural mores of Goan society. The ubiquitous
practice of keeping dark family secrets under wraps (a famous example which
comes to mind is Bertrand Russell and his family history of madness) has been
completely subverted by the writer. The closet is open and readers feel
validated and inspired by what surfaces, because human stories remain the same
across ages and boundaries.
Antonio Caetano Francisco
(Chico) a lusophone, led a pampered, leisured and pageantry lifestyle of the
landed elite. He passionately sought fulfilment of an all-consuming desire to
be an illustrious musician and master of ceremonies. His passion was cruelly thwarted
when not recognized and legitimatized in his strata of society (the then page
3), which supported music as a coveted asset for the elite but not as a
profession. Couto elucidates: “Society has unwritten codes, which in a sense
diminish and potentially destroy the personality of individuals with
originality, those who experience a sense of self that does not fit any
conventional slot. Chico’s predicament led to isolation, perhaps a feeling of
being trapped. Unable to break away from
this milieu, a half rebel, too sensitive, Chico found solace in ways that led
him on a downward spiral.”
A comparison to Catherine’s predicament in Wuthering
Heights would be most appropriate. Her wildness, too, was an outcome of the
rejection of gender identity as defined by a bourgeois society of the 18th
century. Catherine’s was a women’s anguished voice which revolts; a
haunting presence, always to remind of that which is denied to her and of what
she actually wanted to be. Couto’ s
technique of a third person narrative seems to be a conscious decision,
to distance herself and be more objective in her appraisal of the state of
affairs.
‘An apparition in
pink tulle’ (Filomena) and Impagavel (an endearing epithet given by Filomena to
the irrepressible, irresistible, incorrigible Chico), a striking couple; the
twain could have met at intersections of kitchens (here was life they felt,
throbbing, living, exciting), in their children’s future or the flame that they
had lit between them when they met, but it was not to be. Couto says that the
web of societal pressures, norms and expectations with a tumult of failures and
success created a wave, wherein her mother strengthened by centuries of rural
tradition rode the crests and troughs to triumph, but her father caught in a
whirlpool of conventions drowned in a trough of passions and vanquished
desires, never to surface again. As Thoreau said ‘Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them’.
The poignant
rendering of this story of her parents is interspersed with delineations of
Portuguese Goa; haunting lament of a Mando juxtaposed with the sonorous revelry
of a choral composition. A mores so strong as to cast a lasting shadow on
everything it perpetuated or extolled. She details the feudal lifestyle with
sprinklings of warmth and prosperity (the passages on landscapes, harvests,
church feasts, weddings and explorations of countryside are indeed pleasurable)
with undercurrents of exploitation of mundkars by the bhatkaar class, the caste
politics (Brahmins and Chardos and their power wars) with malignant agendas,
the extravagant and flamboyant standards of living and the blind aping of
western lifestyles. Maybe Couto is being prescriptive in her illuminations of
society (as suggested by other critics) to unveil a leisured class and its
underbelly of alcoholism and politics. She advocates an alternative life of
mind to better the parameters of living in her society.
The interwoven wefts
and warps of Hindu-Catholic faith is another engrossing ingredient of her rich
tapestry. The demolition of the temples e.g. the temple of mother goddess
Kamakshi in Raia and the process by which the converts invested the power of
the goddess myth in the Virgin Mary- Nossa Senhora, Saibin Mae explains
multiple church feasts in which people of both faiths pray at the same shrine (e.g.
the recently concluded feast of the Church of The Lady of Milagres, Mapusa). The
gay abandon of singing, dancing, sartorial indulgences is a feast to the
senses, helping conjure an era of celebration and opulence.
Portuguese
Catholicism is aptly contrasted with puritanical Protestant British Indian
faith. The former revelled in lavish feasts resonating with a sensuousness of
sound, light, colour, incense, whereas the latter marked austerity as the
hallmark of all faith. She quotes Alito
Sequeira, the sociologist: ‘The Portuguese doctrine of the assimilados, the
emphasis on the absorption of Goa and Goans into Portuguese culture and
identity, and with the granting of Portuguese citizenship, the Goans began to
think of themselves as Portuguese without relinquishing their Goan identity;
ambivalent and highly complex state of affairs where they gave up the native traditions
but clung to caste identities.’ The dichotomy of the process of Lusitanisation
and preference for English language and education, too, is an intriguing
revelation in the book.
The focus shifts to
the next generation (she and her siblings) in the last section, and the story
comes full circle when Maria Aurora Couto relocates to Goa with her husband’s
appointment as Planning Commissioner of liberated Goa to great fanfare and
honour. A metaphysical connect here imbues the story with an epiphany, worth a
read and Couto’s foray with civil protocol too strikes a sweet note.
Filomena’s refrain
through troubled times ’Vamos a ver; deixe estar; esquec bai, tudo isto ha-de
passer’ (let us see; let it be; forget it; all this will pass) providentially
prevails. Peace and happiness reigns through the family and a liberated land and
culture, a fairy tale with a happy ending. But then, aren’t we all living one?
The human predicament, embodiment of a tale, full of sound and fury, wherein we
strut and fret our lives on stage, which could change if we saw the bright light
at the end of the dark tunnel which signifies everything!
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