'THE FORCES DESTROYING GOA ARE MUCH STRONGER THAN I AM'
One of Goa's foremost intellectuals, Dr Jose Pereira, also known as Goa's Da Vinci, inaugurated
his painting exhibition at Porvorim last week. In an exclusive interview, this polymath (who has published 24 books on theology, history of art, architecture, Goan culture, language, literature and music) speaks to GERARD D'SOUZA about his varied interests.
Q: Your interests span a wide range of issues from Islamic
architecture in India to teaching Theology of World Religions
at the Fordham University, to the Goan mando. How did you
come to span such a wide range of interests and
specialisations?
I see myself as a product of two traditions: one is the
Latin-Christian tradition and the other is the Indian Hindu
tradition. So, in order to bring to expression these
traditions, I had to do extensive research.
Q: You spent a majority of your life outside Goa. How did it
feel to be separated from your motherland?
Like a rat, I have run away from the sinking ship, which is
Goa.
Q: How did you manage to keep in touch with Goa despite
being based in far off places, even before the internet came
into the picture?
When I was in London, I used to travel by land to Goa. That
meant travelling across Europe and then to the border of
Iran. From there, I would hitchhike by truck on the border of
Pakistan and then make my way into India. Nobody does that
anymore.
Q: You have done extensive work on the mando. How do you look
at the mando today?
As I said, I am a product of two cultures. In the
mando, I find a concrete symbol of the synthesis of
two cultures. I needed a concrete argument to bring
out the synthesis of the Latin Christian and the
Indian Hindu and I find this in the mando.
The mando is beloved but betrayed. It was the work of the
aristocratic minority to create a fragment of Europe
surrounded by the waters of the Arabian sea and the hills of
the Sahyadris... an attempt to create a little Vienna with
a fantastic spirit and dance.
It is amazing to see a file of men dressed in purely Western
outfits and a file of women in Indian costumes holding
ostrich fans gently swaying back and forth to a melancholic
tune. It was a fantasy world. It couldn't have lasted very
long. It lasted about a hundred and fifty years. I like the
fantasy world of the mando.
Q: What about the tiatrs?
In my time, there were folk plays, beautiful plays. But they
published nothing. It was only when Joao Agostinho arrived on
the scene that he began publishing. They were lucky I arrived
on the scene and took notes of what was happening.
These folk playwrights were ahead of their time. They were
already attacking social evils like landlords sexually
exploiting their tenants and drunken behaviour and all this
pushed them much ahead of their contemporaries.
Q: Even today, the tiatr is a very vibrant industry, don't
you think?
Yes, that is because the Catholics are afraid that their
entity is being dissolved and this is their way of asserting
their identity.
Q: What do you feel about the future of Konkani?
I'm no longer optimistic about the future of Konkani. It
has to fight too many forces that are too great for it to
take on. What will we do?
Look at Marathi. It is spoken over such a wide territory,
almost 80 times the size of Goa, and they all have one
standard that they can look up to.
How can Konkani survive? They claim there is a standard: the
Devanagari Konkani, but does it inspire loyalty among a
Bardezkar or Saxttikar? Take for example the mando 'Adeu
Korcho Vellu Paulo'. Tem Ponddekar-ak poddlam? Amchem nu
mhonntelem te.
If we have the zeal of the Jews, then maybe. They have
revived the buried Hebrew language. It's plastered
everywhere, on their walls, they speak it to their children
and they speak it on the radio. Do you think we are capable
of this?
Q: You are primarily known as a scholar and intellectual.
Where does painting come into the picture?
I look at myself as a painter. It's just that my primary
source of income was not from paintings. Besides, nobody
noticed my work so I went into scholarly studies. People were
perhaps... equally confused as I was about myself. My
painting was otherwise sporadic.
Q: You were based in Benares for awhile. Tell us what you did
there?
I was centered in Benares as I had a project to research the
history of Indian art with the American Academy of Benares. I
was working on producing photographs of Indian monuments
across India.
We were supposed to take pictures and store them there and
then study them. That was our plan. I was doing Indian
Baroque art. I travelled a lot in India then, especially
visiting Daman and Diu, Bombay and Kerala, not to mention Goa
where Baroque art is popular.
Q: Tell us about your encounters with D.D. Kosambi?
My encounters with him were very brief. He was being driven
somewhere and he allowed us to enter his car. But I was
friends with Manoharrai Sardessai and still remember his
poems.
Q: How did you end up lecturing Theology?
I'm a self-taught theologian. It is one of my greatest
fascinations, especially Latin scholastic theologies. I've
written articles on theology. But then, how does one expect
people who are into theology to be interested in a painter?
Q: If you were to get a chance to live again, what would you
like to come back as?
I supposed I could be a computer graphics expert. But then, a
meditative existence would not be possible. I would not be
able to have the vivid experiences that I have had. I am
happy to have lived in the time I have lived and have been
living.
Q: What are your views on today's young generation?
I know nothing of the young of today. I am nearly eighty
years old. The world that I knew is very different from the
world of today.
We used to read books and classics. I read all of
Shakespeare, Dickens... but today's youth know computers. We
had an opening to Portuguese culture which today's youth
don't have. The Portuguese have died out and with that the
Goa I knew has also died out. We no longer create new songs.
In our time, the songs were being composed by the dozen.
Q: Do you think Goa is a good place to nurture scholars of
your caliber?
We don't have the institutions. It will take time. Where can
one do meditative research? Definitely not at Goa University!
In any case I don't live here so I don't know the scene.
Q: Do you ever regret leaving your home behind?
What they cannot control, the wise do not grieve. The forces
that are destroying Goa are much stronger than I am, why
should I grieve?
SOURCE: Gomantak Times.
hi
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