GOAN MUSIC (4) - by Valmiki Faleiro

GOAN MUSIC (4)

- By Valmiki Faleiro


The British occupied Goa 20-odd years. From 1799. This led to their discovery
of the virtues of Mormugao harbour. Which, in turn, led to the Luso-British project to modernize the port and link it to mainland India by the Western India Portuguese Railway, the rail girdling Goa from Mormugao to Castlerock. Locals resented the British presence.
A mando on this tails an interesting dulpod:

Kira bhaxen pinzreantu ga (Like caged parrots)
Inglez ailo Goantu (The English have arrived in Goa)
Boson ujea’ gaddiantu ga (Sitting in steam-engine trains)
Ankvar cheddvam hankeantum (Unmarried girls in their laps)

Margao’s rail station opened Jan 17, 1887. It was a mile away from the town
centre (‘Mercado de Vasco da Gama,’ now Old Market.) The administration decided to
shift it closer to the new hub. The new market, ‘Mercado Novo de Afonso de Albuquerque’ was inaugurated Dec 5, 1889. The taluka’s main offices – the ‘Camara’
(municipality) and ‘Fazenda’ (revenue office) – were also slated for relocation.

The story is told of the ceremony to lay the foundation stone of that most
grandiose municipal edifice in Goa: of Salcete (by now substantially shrunk in area and population, after Mormugao was carved out for better administration of the port.)

Officials were upbeat about the function. With reason: a grand cash prize was
announced to any woman who would carry the foundation stone to the laying spot –
without a stitch on her body.

The year: 1901. A Medeira damsel from Comba-Margao, driven by either a sense of
wild adventure or a mundane need of the prize money, stepped in to the challenge. At
the appointed morning hour, before the assembled dignitaries and a huge crowd, she
stripped, heaved the stone to the ‘chumboll’ on her head, and delivered it some
distance away at the pit. The audience, initially dumbstruck, went into appreciative
peals of applause.

The Medeira maiden earned not only the prize, but also much approbation for her
natural assets from the assemblage of ‘Pakles’ and local men. Rumour was that
she ended up working at the construction site, hand-pounding limestone for the
mortar of the building. At that desolate site, her fate and that of other female labourers will be better imagined than expressed.

To fund this edifice, Governor Eduardo Augusto Rodrigues Galhardo imposed steep
taxes. (Check coincidences: last Sunday, we saw how a Guv. called ‘Camara’
killed Goa’s Camaras, an Administrator called ‘Faro’ had 23 innocents shot dead, and
now, ‘Galhardo’ meant a spendthrift!)

Public resentment reflected in a mando composed by Arnaldo de Menezes of Raia
(1863-1917), “Kitlem odruxtt amchem vorho.” Its lyrics tell the story better
than any description (translation mine):

Great is our adversity, Goa is finished
Pakles are harassing people because they want to build a municipal house
Inventing all sorts of taxes, they extract them from impoverished people.

Municipal councillors are a gang of thieves
Brains dense as stone, they look like the baker’s pigs
Squeezing taxes, they drink at Cruz’s tavern.

Governor Galhardo skinned people
He came with a gang of white soldiers and emptied the treasury
Galhardo is a genuine buffalo, people’s curses will affect him.

Tragedy has befallen us, we are quite undone
Even Goa’s medical profession turns whites blind with envy
They banned our doctors’ ambulances!

Like the 1890 Margao elections, those of 1854 in Tiswadi had produced another
great mando, ‘Luisinha, mojea Luisinha.’ Intense rivalry between whites and natives
led to the killing of a Mestiço (mixed-blooded) Portuguese army captain, Joaquim Garcez Palha, a contestant who went to Divar to rig the polls. It describes how he was soundly spanked and his body quartered (in the compound of a local church.)

The dekni, “Custoba, miraxi Indiecho" is about legendary Kustoba Rane and the
dulpod, "Farar far" on the confrontation between the Portuguese and the feudals of
Sattari.

There are hundreds of mandos, dulpods and deknis – most are pages from Goa’s
past. Let’s end on a lighter note.

Salcete’s traditional Brahmin-Kshatriya superiority syndrome manifested itself
in strange ways. Benaulim, the only Brahmin village in a Kshatriya-dominated Salcete
coast, had a running feud with adjoining Colva over the “Benaulim Monte.” Old texts
indicated it belonged to Colva. The Banalcares were not impressed. Both sides petitioned everyone from Governor in Panjim to King in Lisbon. They finally agreed to have the matter resolved at the Salcete Court.

Despite overwhelming evidence produced by Colva, Benaulim won the case.
Banalcares produced just one piece of clinching evidence: the old dulpod, “Bannaleche monti socolorodtai kole!”

(To conclude.)


HERALD / August 31, 2008