Regional to Universal:
Teresa’s Man and Other Stories from Goa or
Local Flavour Triumphs
or
Damodar Mauzo’s Hour of Triumph
Or
Konkani Flavour goes
Global
"When
you want something the whole universe will
conspire together to help you get it,” said Paulo Coelo.
Damodar Mauzo joins the league of great writers like RabindranathTagore (who was unknown outside
his home till he was translated), Ananthamurthy, Orhan Pamuk, Haruki Murakami
..........in making local flavour a universal song of humanness. His book of
short stories Teresa’s Man and Other Stories from Goa has been long listed for
the prestigious international Frank O’Connor’s Short Story Award. ‘Translation’ (a target of dialectics at
literary festivals) has yet again served the purpose of taking regional writings
(Konkani in this case) to a wide readership on a global platform.
Goa’s most-loved man of letters, true to his repute, has brought together a gamut of Konkani
& English writers and readers under one platform - a feat in itself. Great credit goes to Xavier Cota the
translator, instrumental in this phenomenal story of triumph.
Teresa’s Man and other stories is a potpourri of
realism, poetic myth, sadness, perception and gaiety. Bhai’s art is kind but unsentimental, mocking
but uncynical, profoundly Goan but distinctively individual. An innate sense of irony coupled with a
complete absence of pomposity and pretence is what makes Bhai a wonderful
writer. He creates thoughtful fiction centred on serious moral concerns rooted
in the Goan experience, but a universal human dimension makes it encompass the
entire human condition (reminiscent of Malgudi Days by RK Narayan).
A dichotomy of human emotion underlies the pieces
Happy Birthday and Coinstav’s Cattle.
The former is an ironical portrayal of a range of emotions between
parents and children. A feeling of pure unconditional love is hence mixed with
shame, lack, self consciousness and defeat; a dark and true element of human
shallowness in relationships.
Bhai understands that the highest satisfaction may
come from the reader’s growing recognition and understanding of the characters
and their situations. The presentation of human beings or of human situations
and the revelation of truth inherent in that human situation leads to a
“gradual and slow illumination” of facts which is more satisfying than a
manipulated perfectly worked out plot.
His stories in the book like The Cynic, She’s Dead, From the Mouth of
Babes and Sand Castles largely embody
this aesthetics.
So important is
a character to fiction that one may
approach the story by asking “Whose story is this ?” Bhai’s domain of fiction is the world of
credible human beings, amazingly diverse and varied. Bhai essentially tends to reveal his
characters indirectly through thought, dialogue and action folded into the
drama itself. He very convincingly makes
his characters speak “in character”
Bhai’s lifelikeness in his writings is credible and
original. He uses symbols and imagery to add atmospheric verisimilitude to
situations.
“It is high
noon. The sun, like a ruthless foe, is literally branding her body. Below, the baked earth and above, the unrelenting
orb of fire. The whole earth is engulfed in heat like a pie being baked in the
oven.”
“The idol , the chovoth, the basket of sweets,
firecrackers- all started fleeing away one by one!”
There are stories here in the book which may be termed
as comedies of manner. Bhai shows us
what the characters are doing in such a way that we can understand why they are
doing it. Out of the details of what they do and say, Bhai builds up the
conflict and tensions. Shanker in Vighnaharta
finds an escape in a ritual thus
bringing the comedy of manners to
an ironical denouement.
The literary constructions have brevity and tautness,
which lend unity and power to the writing. Dattaram, a bullet bike driver,
gives vent to his feelings of anger and frustration. Three powerful lines at the end of the story
encompass the whole experience dramatically - “Dattaram’s eyes were bulging, he
was speechless. Getting back on the bike, he started it. Finally finding his
voice, he spat out: ‘This is our language! This is our culture!’ ”
A short story is, after all, not a transcription of
life but a dramatization of it. In the
familiar and the real, a skilful writer weaves vivid and dramatic threads to
transform the banal, clichéd and formulaic reality into a potent story. Teresa’s Man then becomes a meaningful read,
a ride through the unknown, yet known realms of human lives.
Book born from
the heartbelt of Konkani culture rides the wave to star power. Kudos!
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