Cecil Pinto's interesting observation on stereotyping ourselves as Goans that appeared in the Gomantak Times.
A couple of years ago, NDTV featured an interesting documentary “Where’s Sandra?” (Watch movie here)
This 18 minute film, I quote, ‘takes a playful look at the figure of Sandra from Bandra – part covetous fantasy of the racy Christian girl from Bombay who works as a secretary, wears a dress and likes to dance; part condescending stereotype of a dowdy, religious girl from a minority community.’
One of Mario Miranda’s endearing cartoon characters is the sexy secretary Miss Fonseca.
Mario has also caricatured so many Goan archetypes – the bhatkar (landlord), the gossipy elderly spinster, the priest, the fisherwoman, the Hindu gentleman, the drunk etc etc.
Alex Fernandes, Goa’s specialist portrait photographer, has taken a superb series of photographs of Tiatristes. Many tiatristes have taken archetypical characters and fleshed them out. Some of these existed, some are creations – all are caricatures.
Succorine’s colourfully clothed buxom fisherwoman, with flowers in her hair and a lot of gold chains and bangles, is very real.
But how real is Cyriaco Dias’ bhatkar? When did you last see a Goan landlord smoking a pipe, wearing suspenders, and wearing a silk house coat at home?
The comedian cook (cuzinher), the evil step-mother, the witty village belle… Do such people exist or are they creations of the tiatr genre?
When this writer (always wanted to say that – ‘this writer’ has such a formal pompous feel to it!) pokes fun at the Gulfee wife, the Moidekar, the Toronto Goan on holiday, or the belligerent and greedy South Goan taxi driver, we don’t take it to heart but accept it in the spirit of entertainment.
We are even willing to suspend disbelief despite gross exaggeration. Similarly we are ever forgiving of Mario Miranda and the tiatristes. Caricatures are never taken at face value – when the caricaturist is one of us.
But if, God forbid, an ‘outsider’ pokes fun at our foibles we are immediately up in arms.
In a Bollywood movie should a Goan character be portrayed as a drunk, or a Catholic girl be shown as being promiscuous, the entire moral brigade is up in arms. Mona, Robert, Julie, Lily, Anthony, Rosy, Peter, Maria, Michael… the daru drinkers, vamps, barmaids, cabaret dancers, bandleaders, henchmen are the characters that get attention and cause offense.
Nobody mentions the hundreds of times Goans and Christians are portrayed in a non-stereotypical manner. Go watch ‘Kal Ho Na Ho’ or ‘Black’ for example.
Mario Cabral e Sa often writes about the shenanigans of the Goan mistresses during the Portuguese era. Historian Fatima Gracias’s book on ‘Women in Goa’ has reams of interesting stuff.
For example at the end of the sixteenth century, (Page 4) “Life in the city of Goa was ceaseless rounds of amorous assignments and sexual delights…”. “Albuquerque also complained that Portuguese men carried women along with them out of Goa or to the ships for casual sex…”
As recent as 1931 the break up of registered prostitutes in Goa was about 1000 (with Ponda topping the list at 277, Bardez-186, Salcete-172, Ilhas-119). In 1936 the figures rose considerably (Hindu-1784, Christian-141, Muslims-9).
Fatima’s fascinating book goes on to examine the different categories of dancing girls (kalavantam / bailaderias) from pre-pubescent girls to widows, but I am getting distracted.
We can accept all this from Fatima or Mario because they are our fellow Goans. As also the statistic from me that there are more bars per capita in Goa than in any state/country in the whole of Asia, Africa or South America.
But when the 16th century Dutch traveller John Huyghen Van Linschoten writes that “married ladies drugged their husband with datura so they could have freedom with their lovers”, we find this unbelievable.
Or take the 19th century explorer and adventurer Richard Burton who claims that there were 20 establishments in Shiroda each having 50-60 dancing girls. We can’t take this from an outsider.
It is documented also how Goan dancing girls migrated to Bombay and were highly desired there as prostitutes and mistresses. Depending on who is doing the documentation, and the narration, we will either believe or rubbish this.
This acceptance of stereotyping or observations by insiders is true of every community.
On once social occasion I happened to be in the company of gay friends who were relating the most disgustingly delicious gay jokes. In a spirited fashion I cracked a vulgar gay joke myself. Conversation stopped and I was quite the social outcast till
lots more alcohol had been imbibed.
The point being it is ok for us to make fun of ourselves, but if you are an outsider you don’t have that privilege.
The token Muslim in many Hindi movies always wears a sherwani, sports a long beard and is a poet of sorts – or in recent times is a Pakistan trained militant. The Tamilian keeps repeating a thickly accented “ayyo amma”, and the Parsi gentleman is eccentric with an old world charm. Not vastly different from our tiatr stereotypes.
We Goans forward Sardaji jokes by the dozen. We stereotype them as dim witted and loud mouthed. Does that make our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh any less respected an economist and statesman? Do you think Sardajis care a whit? They know who they are. Why then do we get our collective imported panties in a knot when a Goan is stereotyped?
Bollywood is about formulae and what works is repeated endlessly. Brothers separated at birth, romance between people of incompatible religion/society, revenge for honour, unrealistic song and dance routines and yes, stereotyped communities. Tiatrs too have their formulae. Reality is suspended in both.
Let’s not shout “Objection mi Lord!” every time a Goan stereotype is caricatured by outsiders.
Let’s revel in the thought that we as a people live life abundantly and that’s something the outsiders can never fathom.
Our men are not drunks, our women are not easy. It’s just that we Goans, wherever we live, cultivate a certain lifestyle that others aspire for but can never quite acquire. Let them call us ‘sussegad’ without quite understanding the nuances of the word.
We will just wink at each other in our laidback way and understand why they are envious – of something they can never quite comprehend, imbibe or achieve.
This article first appeared in Gomantak Times.
also see
http://www.tambdimati.com/stereotyping-the-goan-they-never-get-it-they-never-will/
A couple of years ago, NDTV featured an interesting documentary “Where’s Sandra?” (Watch movie here)
This 18 minute film, I quote, ‘takes a playful look at the figure of Sandra from Bandra – part covetous fantasy of the racy Christian girl from Bombay who works as a secretary, wears a dress and likes to dance; part condescending stereotype of a dowdy, religious girl from a minority community.’
One of Mario Miranda’s endearing cartoon characters is the sexy secretary Miss Fonseca.
Mario has also caricatured so many Goan archetypes – the bhatkar (landlord), the gossipy elderly spinster, the priest, the fisherwoman, the Hindu gentleman, the drunk etc etc.
Alex Fernandes, Goa’s specialist portrait photographer, has taken a superb series of photographs of Tiatristes. Many tiatristes have taken archetypical characters and fleshed them out. Some of these existed, some are creations – all are caricatures.
Succorine’s colourfully clothed buxom fisherwoman, with flowers in her hair and a lot of gold chains and bangles, is very real.
But how real is Cyriaco Dias’ bhatkar? When did you last see a Goan landlord smoking a pipe, wearing suspenders, and wearing a silk house coat at home?
The comedian cook (cuzinher), the evil step-mother, the witty village belle… Do such people exist or are they creations of the tiatr genre?
When this writer (always wanted to say that – ‘this writer’ has such a formal pompous feel to it!) pokes fun at the Gulfee wife, the Moidekar, the Toronto Goan on holiday, or the belligerent and greedy South Goan taxi driver, we don’t take it to heart but accept it in the spirit of entertainment.
We are even willing to suspend disbelief despite gross exaggeration. Similarly we are ever forgiving of Mario Miranda and the tiatristes. Caricatures are never taken at face value – when the caricaturist is one of us.
But if, God forbid, an ‘outsider’ pokes fun at our foibles we are immediately up in arms.
In a Bollywood movie should a Goan character be portrayed as a drunk, or a Catholic girl be shown as being promiscuous, the entire moral brigade is up in arms. Mona, Robert, Julie, Lily, Anthony, Rosy, Peter, Maria, Michael… the daru drinkers, vamps, barmaids, cabaret dancers, bandleaders, henchmen are the characters that get attention and cause offense.
Nobody mentions the hundreds of times Goans and Christians are portrayed in a non-stereotypical manner. Go watch ‘Kal Ho Na Ho’ or ‘Black’ for example.
Mario Cabral e Sa often writes about the shenanigans of the Goan mistresses during the Portuguese era. Historian Fatima Gracias’s book on ‘Women in Goa’ has reams of interesting stuff.
For example at the end of the sixteenth century, (Page 4) “Life in the city of Goa was ceaseless rounds of amorous assignments and sexual delights…”. “Albuquerque also complained that Portuguese men carried women along with them out of Goa or to the ships for casual sex…”
As recent as 1931 the break up of registered prostitutes in Goa was about 1000 (with Ponda topping the list at 277, Bardez-186, Salcete-172, Ilhas-119). In 1936 the figures rose considerably (Hindu-1784, Christian-141, Muslims-9).
Fatima’s fascinating book goes on to examine the different categories of dancing girls (kalavantam / bailaderias) from pre-pubescent girls to widows, but I am getting distracted.
We can accept all this from Fatima or Mario because they are our fellow Goans. As also the statistic from me that there are more bars per capita in Goa than in any state/country in the whole of Asia, Africa or South America.
But when the 16th century Dutch traveller John Huyghen Van Linschoten writes that “married ladies drugged their husband with datura so they could have freedom with their lovers”, we find this unbelievable.
Or take the 19th century explorer and adventurer Richard Burton who claims that there were 20 establishments in Shiroda each having 50-60 dancing girls. We can’t take this from an outsider.
It is documented also how Goan dancing girls migrated to Bombay and were highly desired there as prostitutes and mistresses. Depending on who is doing the documentation, and the narration, we will either believe or rubbish this.
This acceptance of stereotyping or observations by insiders is true of every community.
On once social occasion I happened to be in the company of gay friends who were relating the most disgustingly delicious gay jokes. In a spirited fashion I cracked a vulgar gay joke myself. Conversation stopped and I was quite the social outcast till
lots more alcohol had been imbibed.
The point being it is ok for us to make fun of ourselves, but if you are an outsider you don’t have that privilege.
The token Muslim in many Hindi movies always wears a sherwani, sports a long beard and is a poet of sorts – or in recent times is a Pakistan trained militant. The Tamilian keeps repeating a thickly accented “ayyo amma”, and the Parsi gentleman is eccentric with an old world charm. Not vastly different from our tiatr stereotypes.
We Goans forward Sardaji jokes by the dozen. We stereotype them as dim witted and loud mouthed. Does that make our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh any less respected an economist and statesman? Do you think Sardajis care a whit? They know who they are. Why then do we get our collective imported panties in a knot when a Goan is stereotyped?
Bollywood is about formulae and what works is repeated endlessly. Brothers separated at birth, romance between people of incompatible religion/society, revenge for honour, unrealistic song and dance routines and yes, stereotyped communities. Tiatrs too have their formulae. Reality is suspended in both.
Let’s not shout “Objection mi Lord!” every time a Goan stereotype is caricatured by outsiders.
Let’s revel in the thought that we as a people live life abundantly and that’s something the outsiders can never fathom.
Our men are not drunks, our women are not easy. It’s just that we Goans, wherever we live, cultivate a certain lifestyle that others aspire for but can never quite acquire. Let them call us ‘sussegad’ without quite understanding the nuances of the word.
We will just wink at each other in our laidback way and understand why they are envious – of something they can never quite comprehend, imbibe or achieve.
This article first appeared in Gomantak Times.
also see
http://www.tambdimati.com/stereotyping-the-goan-they-never-get-it-they-never-will/
