State Control of Church Property: Unwarranted, Perilous and Counter-Productive
The proposal for State control of Church property has been under discussion, for the last month or so, alas, without any well-defined parameters. The saving grace is that this is a ‘private member’s bill’, so to say, thrown into the public space, and not a State-sponsored debate. Nonetheless, it would be worthwhile to examine some of the disquieting aspects of the subject per se, with particular reference to the proceedings of the seminar on the topic “Should there be a law to protect the properties of the Church?” which was held at the Goa International Centre on 28th July 2009.
Why now? – Precisely what has prompted this debate on State control of Church property in Goa is a mystery. At the said seminar, broad remarks and vague allegations were made about the functioning of the Church; there were some sweeping generalizations, too, mainly because the speakers failed to distinguish between the situation of the Church in Goa and the rest of India. As a result, none of them were able to convincingly state what is wrong with the status quo. If at all the present law regulating relations between the Church in Goa and the State is violative of the law of the land, as it was made out to be, how has the law been in operation for almost five decades? The fact of the matter is that the impugned law is not violative, because Ordinance No. 2 of 1962, promulgated by the President of India, provided for the continuance of that law and many others.
The theme of the seminar was artfully worded. It gave one the impression that the Church had solicited help and so the State was going to privilege her with a law protecting her properties from whosoever. While this was only too good to be true, it was also unnecessary, because the Church today is not seeking privileges any more than she rightfully has; what she eagerly desires, however, is conditions conducive to working peacefully within a secular framework.
Is ‘Secularism’ pliable? – Secularism would ideally mean total separation of Religion and the State, leaving no room for the latter’s intervention in the affairs of religious bodies. In a free society the State has to refrain from interfering with matters of a religious nature; its duty is to ensure that individuals can freely profess, practise and propagate their religion. In India, these rights can theoretically be abridged on grounds of public order, morality or health; the State can even make a law regulating or restricting any economic, financial, political or other secular activity associated with religious practice. But all this has to stand the test of “reasonable restrictions”, and it is incumbent upon the State to prove the need for change, lest the idea of secularism should turn pliable to the State’s whims and fancies.
Perils of State Intervention – One may tend to believe that State intervention is ‘safe’, considering that the rights of the minorities and the freedom of religion stand guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. One may not even feel threatened by some initial State involvement strictly limited to the secular part of a religious matter (say, the scale of expenses to be incurred by a religious institution in connection with rites and observances). In practice, however, such intervention can be an irritant or worse, an intrusion in the religious affairs of a body. Hence it must be ensured that the State intervenes only in extremis.
At any rate, is the Church in Goa a fit case for State intervention? And whatever the modalities of control sought to be exercised on the Church in Goa, citizens would, in the first place, doubt the State’s credentials for such a task! This is not to question the sovereignty of the State but only to emphasize that the State has almost always been a poor manager. For instance, by its intervention, a centuries-old, home-grown and much loved institution like the Ganvkari or Comunidades is in a shambles today. Such is the track record of the State that one can foresee that its control on Church property could result in gross mismanagement, appropriation of funds, encroachments, sale and alienation of lands, and the dismantling of the Church infrastructure, leading to a gradual demolition of the religion.
Political and administrative interference from the State is something that Boards and Trusts of some religious communities outside Goa have often complained about. Some faith communities were compelled by the civil law to have State-managed bodies appointed to run their affairs, because of certain circumstances related to the pre- and post-Independence history of their respective faiths. For them, State intervention became a necessary evil, whereas in Goa history took a different course. Therefore the argument that all religions, everywhere in India, must be on the same footing – or, in other words, suffer from the same malaise – is simply not tenable!
State within a State? – It was pointed out with gusto at the seminar that there cannot be a State within a State. Fair enough. But why cast a slur on the Church in Goa? Has the Church thrown a challenge or posed a threat to the secular State?
The ‘State within the State’ syndrome is perhaps true of some of our business houses. How else does one explain the lingering case of the decrepit River Princess? The concerned business house rules the waves, suggesting that they never will be slaves (with due apologies to ‘Rule Britannia!’). Indeed, they are a State within the State!
Or is it simply the magnitude of the Church’s holdings that makes her look like a State within a State? If yes, let this yardstick apply to our mineral ore exporters; they have to be held accountable for creating environmental problems – and what is more – while making profits on what is essentially State property! Will there ever be the political will to intervene in the internal affairs of these erring business houses?
In contrast, Church assets, mainly comprising donations and gifts from members of the community, have several onuses to be fulfilled. They are held by specific Trusts and their proceeds employed for charitable purposes, particularly education and health among the poorest sections and across faith communities.
Finally, is it the influence that the Church wields in public life that makes her look like a State within a State? Then the same objection should logically extend to the whole of the Fourth Estate!
And at this rate, we shall soon cease to be a democratic State!
Has the Church been above the law? – The world over, the internal affairs of the Catholic Church are governed by the Canon Law. Thanks to her international juridical personality, the said law is admissible in the court of law, since it is not at variance with the civil law. Hence the question “Can you allow any religious head to exercise his power without any regulation?” is malicious, and offensive to the head of the Church in Goa. While observing that “any activity ungoverned by law is lawlessness and would lead to arbitrariness” the speaker failed to recognize that India suffers miserably from lawlessness and arbitrariness despite a proliferation of civil and criminal laws (or sometimes because of it)!
So was it right to peremptorily accuse the Church of ‘lawlessness’? As an institution she enjoys a centuries-old tradition of respecting the canon, civil and criminal laws, and this has naturally made her members law-abiding citizens of the country and the world.
Unique Goan Situation – A look at the situation in Goa as a former Portuguese colony should provide answers to many a nagging question. It is well known that in 1961, in support of the many solemn promises that had been made earlier with regard to preserving Goa’s identity, many Portuguese laws were accepted by the Republic of India – for instance, the Portuguese Civil Code, now hailed by all communities in Goa as being fair and progressive and by the Union of India as a model for the country.
Now this has privileged the Hindu, Catholic and Muslim communities in Goa vis-à-vis their pan-Indian counterparts. And it is within this historical framework that their institutions have been functioning, be it the Confrarias, Fábricas and Cofres of the Catholics or the Mazanias of the Hindus. Now, should all these institutions that are unique to Goa change only because they do not conform to a pan-Indian model? If so, where is the principle of Unity in Diversity?
Therefore, the contention that the existing law in Goa regulating the relations between the Church and the State should be modified for the same reasons and to the same extent as it was modified in Portugal, as authoritatively stated at the said seminar, is unacceptable. Are we still tied to the apron strings of Portugal (the proverbial ‘colonial hang-over’) or conveniently blind to the fact that the Goan/Indian Christian situation is different from the Portuguese?
Transparency and Accountability – This is of the essence. The Catholic Church in Goa is equipped from within to ensure the same in temporal matters, the General Statutes of Confraternities and Rules and Regulations of Fábricas & Cofres being two main examples. There is an ever-increasing participation of both the clergy and the laity in all her institutions, which amounts to an internal system of checks and balances. There is a well-established hierarchy to oversee the same. Besides, the Church is subject to all the laws of the land, including the agrarian reform; her accounts are audited, like those of any other civil body, and she pays taxes to the State without any special exemptions. This time-tested organization has found acceptance the world over; so why all this nitpicking here?
Therefore, to allege (on behalf of the State) that the assets of the Church are being mishandled is a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black! Can the State legitimately claim that it utilizes public assets in a responsible manner? Isn’t mismanagement or embezzlement of funds the order of the day in the State? If stray occurrences of this nature inside the Church can justify State intervention, then the reports of chaotic happenings in the country surely call for declaration of a state of emergency!
The Church fulfils her legal duty of rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s; she renders what is due, nothing less – so why should the State demand anything more?
First published in Renovação (Vol. XXXVIII, No. 17, 1-15 Sept 2009, pp 7-8) under the title 'State Control on Church Property: Unwarranted, Perilous and Counter-Productive'. Reprinted with permission by The Navhind Times (20 Sept 2009) as 'Church Knows Best', in 'Panorama', Sunday magazine, p. 1.
Remembering Leonor
Paying homage to the dead is a cardinal civic virtue, an expression of gratitude that also helps to imbibe sterling values perhaps scarce in a new day and age. And this is what links us to Leonor de Loyola Furtado e Fernandes, who was born on 24th May 1909 to Miguel de Loyola Furtado and Maria Julieta de Loyola. Married to Martinho António Fernandes, she was essentially a matriarch and a grand lady of the Fourth Estate.
Leonor was a career woman with a difference. A mother at 16, it was after this that she began writing in earnest, without letting this disturb her duties as a housewife. Her husband encouraged her to fight for her ideals through the weekly A Índia Portuguesa, and bore the brunt as Administrator of the Comunidades of Salcete, dogged as he was by controversy fuelled by a mix of personal vengeance and political vendetta.
Although Martinho eventually emerged unscathed, it was not easy for Leonor to weather those storms while she raised four daughters. A grandmother at 39, two years later she took over the said weekly, a family heirloom and historic mouthpiece of the political party called Partido Indiano, becoming the first lady editor in the whole of the Portuguese speaking world and in the Indian sub-continent too.
In 1951, she travelled to Portugal, the sole lady in a five-member media delegation from Goa invited to see the ‘mother country’. Portugal had then renamed its colonies ‘Overseas Provinces’, considering them an integral part of a far-flung Portuguese State. Leonor wrote about what had impressed her, not forgetting the meeting with Premier Oliveira Salazar, the Minister for Overseas Territories, Sarmento Rodrigues, and the pressmen with whom she spoke on different aspects of life in Goa.
Her trip of 1956 was marked by the publication of her first book, Salteadores da Honra Alheia na Índia Portuguesa (‘Assailants of People’s Honour in Portuguese India’), whose arresting title and explosive content led to its confiscation in Goa. While she wished to publicize the truth about her husband’s professional troubles, evil doings of prominent individuals and shady workings of many a public institution got exposed too.
Leonor was a champion of civil liberties by virtue of her journalism. As a proud descendant of one of Goa’s best known families involved in the civil rights movement, she took to it like fish to water. While critical of the administrative faults of the Portuguese regime, she was a moderate in her political aspirations, open to the ideas of decentralization and greater financial autonomy for Goa, and more importantly a zealous protector of the Goan identity, in the pre- as well as post-1961 regimes.
Her second book, Contribuição para um Mundo Melhor (‘Contribution for a Better World’) shows her love for Goa but does not camouflage her combative spirit. It has interesting reflections on the period spanning 1961-78; her missives from Portugal, Angola and Mozambique (August-October 1969); historical snippets about her newspaper; the story of the legendary José Inácio de Loyola Sr.; and photocopies of historic telegrams of the tumultuous days of September 1890.
Under the new political dispensation, her journal had to change its name to A Índia – just ‘India’! She was smart enough not to grudge this. But what provoked her ire was that the Comunidades had been given short shrift in a chaotic democratic state. In 1966, when interviewed by the redoubtable D. F. Karaka, Leonor fulminates against the police for searching her residence by night, looking for components of bombs and other subversive material used in the Vasco bomb case. Frustrated with their sole discovery, a book titled , her Indian passport was impounded and censorship was imposed on her paper.
The intrepid journalist declared that “her fight was against all governments who tried to deprive the people of civil rights and who imposed censorship, whether it was a Portuguese censorship or the censorship dictated by the Indian Government.” And some of her statements to the Bombay tabloid have a familiar ring even today: “The administration has gone rotten. In the (Goa) Assembly, the Opposition has accused the Government of nepotism, communalism, inefficiency and incompetence…. Laws have been passed without going into the constitutional right of the people,” she complained.
To redress her own grievances against the Government of Goa, she either met or wrote to Indira Gandhi every time. In her letter of 19th February 1966, she declared, “I believe in a Power above the powers of the world and in justice that comes, sometimes in time, at other times a bit late, in some manner or the other.” The restrictions were soon lifted, by a letter dated 13th May 1966, the significance of which day was not lost on Leonor: she was a great believer in the Message given on this day, half a century earlier, by the Mother of Jesus, when she appeared at Fatima, Portugal.
Leonor was truly blessed with a deep and empowering faith, or else she would not have endured as a career journalist until December 1975. And, not surprisingly, when the Angel knocked at her door on 8th January 2005, he must have found Leonor de Loyola Furtado e Fernandes, at the ripe old age of 95, still steadfast in her principles and faithful to her people.
(Goa Today, June 2009)
Remembering Leonor: Editor Extraordinaire
To the dead it probably matters little whether or not they are remembered: having done their bit on earth they now belong to Eternity, where worldly honour and glory are of no consequence. But paying them homage is a cardinal civic virtue – an expression of gratitude for the valuable services rendered by them to the community, which also helps to imbibe sterling values that might well be scarce in a new day and age.
That is what links us to Leonor de Loyola Furtado e Fernandes on her birth centenary. Born on 24th May 1909 to Miguel de Loyola Furtado of Chinchinim and Maria Julieta de Loyola of Orlim, she was married to Martinho António Fernandes of Colvá. She was a woman of many parts but essentially a matriarch and a grand lady of the Fourth Estate.
Wife and Mother
Leonor – Lolita, in her close circle – was a person ahead of her times. She was a career woman with a difference. When the Panjim-based eveninger Diário da Noite (2nd May 1953) asked about the beginning of her occupation, she said, ‘I don’t remember clearly when I started writing. I know I became a mother at 16 and it must have been after this that I began writing in earnest.’
This candid statement of fact was also a reflection of her priorities. No doubt it was a man’s world but as a gifted woman she had found her way out. Talking to me (Herald Mirror, 15th September 1996), she said that her professional work never disturbed her duties as a housewife, “because my husband was an intelligent man with humanistic interests at heart. He never interfered in my work as I never did in his. There was a lot of mutual understanding. He gave me the courage to fight for my ideals – even though it might have reflected on him as a government official.”
And reflect it did. As Administrator of the Comunidades of Salcete, Martinho Fernandes, a lawyer by training, was dogged by controversy, initially fomented by individuals who eyed his post, while later some of it was fuelled by a heady mix of personal vengeance and political vendetta, thanks to his wife’s plain speaking in the weekly A Índia Portuguesa. The incumbent emerged unscathed, through long and tortuous battles up to the apex court.
It must not have been easy for Leonor to weather those storms while she raised four daughters, managed the household chores and the family estates. But the years rolled by and, interestingly, at 39 years of age, she was already a grandmother! In 1950, when that venerable journal, a family heirloom and historic mouthpiece of the pro-native political party called Partido Indiano, founded by the Loyolas of Orlim, was almost folding up, it was born again with Leonor.
Journalist and Author
It was for the first time that in the whole of the Portuguese speaking world and in the Indian sub-continent as well a woman was at the head of a newspaper. This was only a natural consequence of having her father for a role model: apart from being a brilliant physician and political leader, he had edited A Índia Portuguesa from the year 1912 until his sudden demise in 1918, and his memory remained with Leonor for the rest of her days. She once said, ‘If destiny were not opposed to it, I would have studied medicine. I had a fascination for the medical profession, so as to positively spread the good to all. But I was born for something else – and I am a journalist only. I would have liked to be a physician and journalist.’ (Diário da Noite)
A year after assuming editorship she travelled to Portugal, the only lady in a Goan media delegation comprising Fr Manuel Francisco Lourdes Gomes, Álvaro de Santa Rita Vaz, Amadeu Prazeres da Costa and Luis de Menezes Jr. They had been invited for a month’s stay, to see for themselves what the ‘mother country’ was like. It was a public relations exercise by the Estado Novo, for in March that year the Government had passed an amendment to the controversial Colonial Act, renaming the colonies ‘Overseas Provinces’ and considering them an integral part of a far-flung Portuguese State. The change of nomenclature reinforced the one-nation theory, in a bid to counter global pressure against European colonization in the post-World War scenario.
The exercise paid dividends. Members of the delegation sent regular reports to their respective newspapers. On her return, Leonor wrote about what had impressed her, not forgetting the meeting with Premier Oliveira Salazar and the Minister for Overseas Territories, Sarmento Rodrigues. She had spoken to pressmen from continental Portugal and its overseas provinces on different aspects of life in Goa.
This was the first and surely the most memorable of her many visits abroad. Her official trip of 1956, on the fortieth anniversary of Salazar’s New State, was marked by the publication of her first book, Salteadores da Honra Alheia na Índia Portuguesa, (‘Assailants of People’s Honour in Portuguese India’). The curious little book’s arresting title and explosive content prompted the Portuguese Governor-General Paulo Bénard Guedes to have it confiscated on its arrival in Goa. While the author’s primary intention was to publicize the truth about her husband’s professional troubles, these are universalized, turning the book into a “repository of truths that make up our life in India.” The picture of a coconut tree and a cobra on its cover probably point to the coexistence of indolence and poison in our land. The evil doings of some prominent individuals and the shady workings of many a public institution are exposed.
Civil Rights Activist
Leonor was a champion of civil liberties by virtue of her journalism. As a proud descendant of one of Goa’s best known families involved in the civil rights movement, she took to it like fish to water. While critical of the administrative faults of the Portuguese regime, she was a moderate in her political aspirations, open to the ideas of decentralization and greater financial autonomy for Goa, emanating from the new Lei Orgânica do Ultramar, and more importantly a zealous protector of the Goan identity, in the pre- and post-1961 regimes. This was clear from her statement upon taking her seat in the legislative council of Portuguese India, in 1961: ‘Regimes fall, empires vanish, ideologies die, but the land remains, and we have to work for Goa to remain forever.”
Leonor was now left to fight life’s battles alone. She had lost her husband in 1960; and under the new political dispensation, even her journal had to change its name to A Índia – just ‘India’! She was smart enough not to grudge this, given the fait accompli of the Indian take-over of Goa. But what provoked her ire was that the Comunidades were being given short shrift, enough to have Martinho Fernandes turn in his grave.
In her second book, Contribuição para um Mundo Melhor, a tribute to her husband, printed on her last visit to Lisbon, in 1978, she addresses him on his life's interest, saying, "Do you see the state of our land today, how the Comunidades are faring, and how the land is groaning under injustice?" (p. 8) “Because our people are not rebellious and have not lost their sense of discipline and honesty, there has been no revolution yet,” she thunders (p. 14). It is clear that although she wishes to reconcile everything under a positive title (‘Contribution for a Better World’) nothing can camouflage her combative spirit.
Eye-opening Interview
In 1966, The Current, a well known weekly published from Bombay, invited readers to send in entries for an interview competition to mark the publication’s 18th anniversary. Leonor submitted her experiences as editor of A Índia. As one of the four short-listed, she was interviewed by the redoubtable D. F. Karaka, who, curiously, twenty-three years earlier, had been mentioned as one of her favourite authors. It was a rendezvous of two editors sans peur et sans reproche…
The picture of Leonor that accompanied her “interesting entry” was considered “almost as threatening as the entry itself”. On the morning of the interview, a tornado was expected to blow into the newspaper office, bearing a flaming torch in one hand and a sword in the other. Although Leonor fulminated against the police for searching her residence by night, looking for components of bombs and other subversive material used in the Vasco bomb case, “the tornado from Goa was only a gentle breeze”, wrote Karaka. Frustrated with their sole discovery, a book titled Invasion and Occupation of Goa (National Secretariat for Information, Lisbon, 1962), containing world press reports on the contentious Goa Question, her Indian passport was impounded when she was on a visit to New Delhi and, back in Goa, censorship was imposed on her paper, with a heavy bond and two sureties made necessary to ensure “due performance of the restrictions”.
The intrepid Goan journalist stated that “her fight was against all governments who tried to deprive the people of civil rights and who imposed censorship, whether it was a Portuguese censorship or the censorship dictated by the Indian Government.” She especially decried censorship under a democratic set-up. “I wanted to publish in my paper extracts from Inside, which is a Swatantra Party paper. These quotations were cut out by the censors,” she said.
Final Years
Some of her statements to the Bombay tabloid have a familiar ring even today: “The administration has gone rotten. In the (Goa) Assembly, the Opposition has accused the Government of nepotism, communalism, inefficiency and incompetence…. Laws have been passed without going into the constitutional right of the people,” she complained.
While she made a case for the preservation of the Goan identity, showing her red-pencilled extracts of Nehru’s speech at Siddharth Nagar, Bombay, on 4th June 1956, to redress her own grievance against the Government of Goa, she either met or wrote to Indira Gandhi every time. In her letter of 19th February 1966, she declared, “I believe in a Power above the powers of the world and in justice that comes, sometimes in time, at other times a bit late, in some manner or the other.” The restrictions were soon lifted, by a letter dated 13th May 1966, the significance of which day was not lost on Leonor: she was a great believer in the Message that the Mother of Jesus gave on this day, half a century earlier, in her apparition at Fatima, a place Leonor visited on several occasions.
Her meetings with Mrs Gandhi are recounted in Contribuição, which also carries interesting reflections on the period spanning 1961-78; her missives from Portugal, Angola and Mozambique (August-October 1969), which though “innocuous” were responsible for her passport problems yet again; historical snippets about her newspaper; the story of the legendary José Inácio de Loyola Sr.; and photocopies of historic telegrams of the tumultuous days of September 1890.
Karaka had found it “heartening to see a woman in her 50s, who had been so disturbed by the turmoil of politics, still crusading for the rights of the people and still having faith in a Power above the powers of the world.” Leonor was truly blessed with a deep and empowering faith – or else she would not have endured as a career journalist until December 1975. She said, “I have great faith in Our Lady. Although I have been harassed in my life by the powers on earth, I have never cared or worried.” And not surprisingly, when the Angel knocked at her door on 8th January 2005, he must have found Leonor de Loyola Furtado e Fernandes, at the ripe old age of 95, still steadfast in her principles and faithful to her people.
(Herald, 'Mirror', Sunday magazine, 24.05.2009)
Magic Aunt Zita
When our best-loved aunt Zita left for her heavenly abode a year ago, we felt a light going out of our lives. There was darkness everywhere. She had been struck by a crippling illness for a considerable period, but magically, her own light never flickered; on the contrary, by her exemplary fortitude, she radiated still more light. I got the picture when I spent a day by her side, at her home in Curtorim, to recall the good old times and to especially thank her for all that she meant to us. In her last months, kith and kin she had not seen in a long time also had the fortune of meeting up with her.
Tia Zita spelt magic, in the positive sense of the term. She was cheery – that’s magic; she loved unconditionally – and that’s magic, too. What else could one wish for? You ask, what is the secret of all this? Her very life – lived less for self and more for others. Her unspoken motto was ‘Fazer o bem, sem ver a quem’: Doing good to all and sundry. At times she must have felt misunderstood, but she took it all in her stride, convinced that loving kindness conquers all!
St Paul exhorted the New Christians to be, ‘like Christ, everything to everybody’. To some our aunt was the Sun, to others the Moon. She burnt strong and bright as the sun, and stood by her family like a rock; and like the moon, her soft side provided a cushion to the family’s generation-next in their difficult moments. She would make light of any problem and top it off with a delectable treat!
With that perfect balance she managed home and office. Her husband experienced her self-giving love for more than quarter of a century; colleagues at office and staff at home valued her understanding and jovial disposition. She generously gave of her time, especially to her mother, and of her money to those in need. Her easy smile would turn into peals of laughter, triggered by an upfront comment or some naïveté of yesteryear. With no children of her own, she was a mother to her nephews and nieces. It was in her nature to reach out to everyone, which won her the epithet ‘Mother of Mercy’!
She was a woman ahead of her times. She studied and worked in British India and then joined the state tourism and information bureau in the Goan capital. In the early 1970s – when hardly any lady in Goa dreamed of owning a two-wheeled motor vehicle – she would ride her Rajdoot scooter to her workplace in Margão. This spoke of her outgoing personality, her initiative, and of her daring, too, especially considering that she could neither start the bike nor park it securely: a man-servant at home and a peon at the office usually did the honours!
As the first manager of the government-owned tourist cottages in Farmagudi, she once played host to our bachelor statesman Vajpayee, then a foreign minister. He praised her penchant for landscaping, while our aunt quite naturally engaged in repartee reflecting the Goan joie de vivre. All of which must have got our poet-minister to pen a verse or two!
Aunt Zita herself was not an armchair tourist; impelled by the travel bug, that slim and fair-skinned lady, who was always in step with fashion, crisscrossed India and some countries in Europe, with a relative or a friend. And after having been a ‘tourist’ all her life, in the two decades of her retirement she was essentially a ‘pilgrim’ who daily went to church for Mass and was engaged in charitable activity.
Several years earlier, a critical tryst with illness, which she was healed of thanks to a non-surgical intervention by the saintly Dr Ernest Borges, had been a turning point in her life. But her final test came during the Holy Week last year: she lay in the hospital bed – her purgatory on earth – her sweet visage reflecting Christian resignation vis-à-vis that inescapable moment of reckoning.
It is a moral certainty that Tia Zita is now in the Beatific Vision. And most certainly, too, none of what has been said here will be of importance to her; it rather will make us all the difference to realize that her life was an echo of this touching quote: ‘I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again’ – which could well be a way for us – who are not of this world – to look forward to the treasure that awaits us in Heaven.
(Herald, 27 March 2009)
Banner pic: Isabel and I, flanked by T. Zita and T. Francisquinho, Neura, 13 May 1994
Sonia - The Fado's New Fate
Sonia Shirsat is the Fado’s Lady Fate in Goa. On Valentine’s Day she swore her love for Portugal’s iconic melody. That the song has come to stay became obvious from the near-full Dinanath Mangueshkar auditorium that lapped up every bit of Mundo Fado II, Sonia’s first solo show on home turf.
Sonia’s voice is extremely well suited to the fado. Her talent first became evident at the ‘Vem Cantar’ contest (2002), through her superb rendering of Madre Deus’ ‘O Pastor’. Before long, ‘Barco Negro’’ sung by her also became a people’s favourite. And this time, a bright new ship – ‘M. V. Mundo Fado’, if you like! – dropped anchor in Panjim, from where it will again sail the Seven Seas.
Impressive is the line-up of fado greats that Sonia has performed with over the years. But more fulfilling must have been her own first solo concert, Mundo Fado, held in 2008, at Museu do Oriente, close to Alcântara docks, by the Tagus. She sang to a packed house, with guest artistes including Mestre António Chaínho, Manuel Leão, and Casa de Goa’s musical troupe, Ekvat!
Notice the poetry of that fabulous setting: the Orient, harking back to Goa; the proverbial waterfront, where the Fado originated amidst a sailor community; and the Tagus, from where all those intrepid ships once sailed “o’er seas hitherto not navigated… to seek out new parts of the world”….
So it was at Alcântara (‘the bridge’, in Arabic) that Sonia crafted her musical bridge with the fado world. Climbing onto the international stage is no mean task, especially for one not fully born into the genre. Sonia chose to cultivate it, chaperoned by her Lusophile mother Maria Alice Pinho, who belongs to a Goan generation raised on Portuguese music.
Mundo Fado II started off with an evocative instrumental medley by Sonia’s main accompanists, Flávio Teixeira Cardoso (Portuguese Guitar) and Pedro Miguel Soares Marreiros (Spanish Guitar) from Portugal. While they were at it, in walked Sonia draped in a designer gown and shawl. The backdrop was a quiet, understated, white with colour focus lights. Her first song was ‘Cansaço’ (‘Weariness’)… but needless to say both audience and artiste were zestful until the end!
There was a happy mix of familiar and not-so-familiar numbers. ‘Alfama’ (a tribute to Hotel Cidade de Goa’s restaurant of the same name where she is the lead artiste at the monthly ‘Noite de Fado’) was followed by ‘Amor de Mel’, Fado das Horas’, ‘Tive um Coração’, ‘Meu Amor Marinheiro’ and ‘Zanguei-me com o meu Amor’, among others.
Sonia’s show was marked by measured stylistic innovation. It featured the tabla (Mayuresh Dattaram Vasta), the flute (Marwino António da Costa) and the dhol (Santosh Sawant). And in a style all her own, the vocalist had none of that over-the-top emotionality of the Portuguese fadistas, nor did the tempo quicken as the show progressed; but she sang with passion, offering personal and historical snippets in her announcements.
Sonia infused the fado with new blood, giving the genre a fresh lease of life, and perhaps scope for another to emerge (in a Goan tradition of give and take, which people of good will must endorse). ‘Rua do Capelão’, a ‘modern fado Severa’, with flute and guitars, was a tribute to Maria Severa, 19th century Portugal’s best-known fadista. The popular ‘Cartas de Amor’ was backed by flute, tabla and Spanish guitar; and ‘Ave Maria Fadista’ by tabla and the guitars. It was most fascinating to see the Indian instrumentalists gel with their Portuguese counterparts in ‘Barco Negro’. The latter also took to ‘Doreachea Lharari’ and ‘Adeus Korcho Vellu Pavlo’ as fish to water.
Sonia hailed the mandó as ‘Goa’s fado’! And curiously, hiding behind the Konkani title of our best-known farewell song were Portuguese lyrics – the labour of love of a suave Goa enthusiast Manuel Bobone. The ensuing musical dialogue symbolised a confluence of the past and the future; and its melody is an apt signature tune for Sonia’s Luso-Goan musical experiment.
Mundo Fado II unwittingly commemorated the centenary of the modern fado, first recorded in 1910. And, putting behind its nearly five-decade long hiatus in Goa, Sonia gave a clarion call to young fado singers Danika da Silva Pereira, Manuela Lobo and Efigénia de Santana Miranda to rise to the occasion. She also expressed her camaraderie by inviting guest artistes Carlos Manuel Meneses and Allan Abreu (both Spanish Guitar), Daryl Coelho (Mandolin) and Franz Schubert Cotta (Portuguese Guitar) to be on stage with her. And early in the show, she recalled the musical moments shared with Orlando de Noronha and Dinesh K., both of whom couldn’t make it that day….
That’s ‘Team Sonia’ for you, poised to carve out a brilliant new fate for the Fado in Goa!
(Herald, Goa’s Heartbeat, 23 Mar 2011)
Surreal Tête-à-Tête
It was one of those nights when at first it looks as if nothing out of the ordinary is going to happen; but then, when one is already dead to the world – and can’t possibly expect anything to happen – almost everything happens.
Yes, in a dream anything can happen, triggered by a poignant scene witnessed earlier in the day, a gripping tale told or heard, or by interface of nostalgia and anticipation. For, as Eliot says in Four Quartets, “Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past.”
The tête-à-tête I had on the second night of the New Year gave me the sense that “all time is eternally present, All time is unredeemable.” Time past and time present did get inextricably mixed when I was greeted by my grandmother Leonor (1900-1992), of happy and adorable memory.
While in real life it was grandma who waited for reports from the world of light, now it was my turn to seek news from beyond the tomb… about the Light of the World.
I was helping out at the funeral of a close relative when suddenly my Avó took centre stage. This was uncharacteristic of her, as like Mary in the Magnificat she always kept a low profile. In a coffin she lay – moved, quite oddly, to a busy commercial establishment at the Panjim church square, which was once called Largo das Flores, the Flower Square. But there were no flowers anywhere, no candles, no voices of mourning – only the din of the madding crowd and the motors outside.
It wasn’t an upsetting sight to behold, because the old lady herself was relaxed, seemingly waiting for a visitor to arrive. She had closed her eyes: I reckon she found no sense in doing otherwise after glaucoma had struck her blind in the last four years of her life.
My Brazilian friend Aluísio used to say, “When God sends you an illness, be sure He will also make the bed.” So it was for Avó, who had been blessed with an extra sense. She could literally feel the presence of a person in the room, although this time around she had mistaken me for Fernando, her firstborn and my father standing by her cradle. The cause of the confusion? Maybe my voice which sixteen years down the line has, so they say, grown closer to my father’s. But soon she said, radiantly, “Ah! It’s you, Oscar!”
The exclamation caused a gush of memories, like her grandchildren whom she always welcomed home – me in particular, every single day, after that gruelling journey to Quepem and back.
“Absolutely delighted to see you, Avó,” said I, feeling that sixteen years had telescoped into a day. While in real life it was grandma who waited for reports from the world of light, now it was my turn to seek news from beyond the tomb… about the Light of the World. I just could not wait and so, like a stuttering rifle’s rapid rattle, I fired a few questions:
“Avó, does God exist? Have you met Him? Spoken to Him? Where is He?”
That is when I noticed her standing upright. There was behind her a glass door as clear as crystal and sporting a red-and-yellow horizontal band; which opened onto the footpath. In stoic silence, with her eyes still shut and her smile withdrawn, she faced my inquiry. I thought briefly that my references to the divine had been brash, and was going to apologise; but the very next instant, perhaps misreading her stillness as endorsement of my momentary unbelief, I prodded her with more questions:
“Where is He? Up there, or down here? Were you there?”
An inquisitorial Pilate got no answers from Jesus, did he? The same here; and, in addition, I was woken up. In vain did I try to recover that magical ambience of suspended consciousness, by burying my face deep in my pillow! There was also that enigmatic lady in a green sari, who was babbling a few nothings in her bid to liaise between my grandmother and me; but again, to no avail.
Fled was that vision, the saving grace being the sound of music about my ears: later I identified it as “Jezu, Ballka Pritichea” (‘Our Dear Child Jesus’) – a solemn polyphonic composition by our very own Fr. Vasco do Rego. (On waking up I was divided between that hymn and Fr Peter Cardozo's vivacious "Zoi Jezu, Amcheá Raza", meaning 'Hail, O Christ, Our King!'')
By now the sparrows outside had begun their chirpy melody, while the inside of me thumped like a drum. Hailing that hymn as a sweet reply to my impatient musings, I realised that it was nearing the Angelus, a moment very close to Avó’s heart. I was gradually coming to terms with my intimate reality, confident that it had disturbed no one, but soon thereafter, pretty shaken up was I when my firstborn, Fernando Jr., waking up as usual at seven o’clock, asked quite matter-of-factly, “Papa, whose funeral did you attend yesterday?”
(Herald, 9 February 2009)
The Place to Celebrate Christmas
Have you ever wondered about the best place to celebrate Christmas?
In my growing years I would often hear overseas relatives sing the praises of Christmas celebrations in Europe; it made me feel that something was amiss in Goa. And last Sunday, Zelia, a plump and contented lady, sixty-plus, living in a suburb of Lisbon, boomed in the churchyard, ‘Here it doesn’t feel like Christmas at all. Back home, you will find shop windows decorated by now, and people rushing about their Christmas shopping.’
No feelings of inadequacy on my part this time round. If that is what she feels, so be it, I thought, and it took me back twenty years to my own reservations about Lent in the Portuguese capital. I remember saying then to Mario el mexicano, a university pal and churchgoer, ‘Back home, we have the Way of the Cross from our city church perched on a hillock to the Archbishop’s Palace on another hilltop. It’s unmistakable; it really makes one feel it is Lent.’
People are entitled to their individual feelings, aren’t they? And God can touch the core of our being in any situation we may be. Ours is not a rectilinear world; and like the heavenly bodies we can go in curves, yet reach the destination the Creator has planned for us. After all, whatever our weaknesses – to quote Yeats, the Irish bard – He who is wrapped in purple robes, with planets in His care, ha[s] pity even on the least of things asleep upon a chair….
But for our part it is better not to lose sight of the Ultimate Reality. At Christmas, the crib, the star, the tree and the lights – however beautiful; the carols – howsoever melodious; the sweets, no matter how delicious – and the little joys they all afford us – should not be an end in themselves.
Rather, our crib and star competitions could help us promote healthy relationships; our tall and intensely decorated trees, to gaze heavenward; the shiny decorative lights we display in our homes, to reflect the state of our souls; the carols we sing, to foster peace, goodwill and harmony among us mortals; and all the eats and drinks that we prepare could well be an expression of the profound joy and love we share with our family and friends.
And what shall we say about the ever-present Santa Claus and his gifts?
A few days ago, a young television journalist interviewing passers-by in the street came up to me, thundering with great expectation, ‘Sir, tell us what Santa Claus means to you and your children!’ And perhaps to her surprise, I said, nonchalantly, ‘Very little.’
Santa Claus means very little to me and my family. This is one institution that has almost become an end in itself – hardly a reminder of the good old St Nicholas, and of Jesus Christ, alas, none at all! Santa has not sanctified but altogether commercialized and secularized Christmas. How I wish Santa had not sought to turn this feast of extreme tenderness, extremely banal.
We cannot let the Christmas mystery turn banal. No doubt, Jesus was born in a humble stable, into a poor family. Simple shepherds were the first witnesses to this event. But – as the Catechism of the Catholic Church points out – ‘in this poverty heaven’s glory was made manifest.’ And the Church never tires of singing the glory of this night:
The Virgin today brings into the world the Eternal
And the earth offers a cave to the Inaccessible.
The Angels and shepherds praise him
And the magi advance with the star,
For you are born for us,
Little Child, God eternal!
This verse from Kontakion of Romanos the Melodist sums up that Mystery-in-swaddling-clothes. And, as the Catechism further remarks, ‘from the swaddling clothes of his birth to the vinegar of his Passion and the shroud of his Resurrection, everything in Jesus’ life was a sign of his mystery’ – a mystery that certainly calls for deep contemplation.
It is of supreme importance, particularly to contemporary man, to note that the Christmas mystery is richer than the richest of shop windows. And we needn’t go to the ends of the Earth to realize this: When we participate in the Mass this day, with a pure and contrite heart, we will come upon the experience like a benediction. Then we shall see that our hearts are the best Crib for the Little Child, God eternal, to be born in and also the best place to celebrate Christmas!
(Published as Editorial, The Stella Maris Bulletin, December 2008; and reprinted by Herald, 22 December 2008, and Renovação, 1-15 January 2009)
THE MAESTRO’S TOUCH
Three cheers to the first of our very own Von Trapps – on their comeback and creditable stage performance during the birth centenary celebrations of their patriarch António de Figueiredo. This Goan maestro was perhaps singly responsible for setting the Western musical scene in our land on a firm professional footing, way back in the mid-1950s. I heard he was quite a sensation in those days and exerted an important influence on the Goan people.
I heard he was quite a sensation in those days and exerted an important influence on the Goan people.
I vividly remember my parents recommending the Goa Philharmonic Choir and Symphony Orchestra, which was to perform under his baton at the Menezes Braganza hall, in 1973. It was a veritable feast for my senses as an eight year old, never mind the minimal acoustic conditions of the venue. The concert also proved to be the beginning of my love for western classical music, especially as a result of its many replays, possible for us as a family, thanks to my father who had taken the initiative to audio-record it on our spanking new Hitachi!
How I wish the local stations of All India Radio and Doordarshan had taped the proceedings of this birth centenary for the larger Goan family at home and abroad! And as a more eloquent public homage to the maestro, it would in the fitness of things to have Kala Academy’s open-air auditorium named after him who was the founder-director of the Academia de Música (now Kala Academy’s department of Western Music), and similarly, a prominent city and village street too; to have a bust of the maestro installed in the premises of the Kala Academy, scholarships instituted in his memory, and to entrust a musicologist with the job of writing a biography and putting together his musical works. The centenary CD released by his admirers is a step in the right direction, but only for starters!
The concert also proved to be the beginning of my love for western classical music, especially as a result of its many replays, possible for us as a family, thanks to my father who had taken the initiative to audio-record it on our spanking new Hitachi!
(The Navhind Times, Panjim, 22 August 2003)
Fort and Church of Reis Magos
On the right bank of the Mandovi, facing Panjim's river front boulevard at Campal, stand a fort and church called Reis Magos (The Magi), landscaped by red rocks, yellow-green vegetation and a fishing village. The turreted walls and baroque façade in this chromatic setting come out soft in the morning rays, turn awesome at noon, and are a sight to behold when silhouetted by the setting sun or bathed by the moon.
Perched on the south-eastern edge of the Bardez tableland, the citadel was constructed in 1551, enlarged on different occasions, and finally re-erected in 1707. It is now X-shaped with two inner courtyards. Together with Gaspar Dias, its counterpart on the opposite shore, it was meant to provide the second line of defence for the capital should the enemy manage to sail past the Aguada and Cabo forts. Interestingly, the fort that acted as a minor jail until 1993 was where, over a century ago, Madhav Rao, the rajah of Sawantwadi stayed when on an official visit to Goa with a retinue of 1500 men, 1000 horses and 4 elephants.
A perennial nearby spring with abundant potable water catered to the fort; but to nourish the soldiery with "living water" the Franciscans erected a church alongside its walls in 1555. This three-storied edifice (the taluka's first), with its impressive light of steps, was part of their now extinct mission centre. Their college promoted Konkani studies, and produced eminent churchmen like Dom Matheus de Castro, Goa's first bishop. It was also there that both viceroys and bishops sojourned prior to assuming office upon their arrival in Goa, or after relinquishing it. Some of them lay buried within the church precincts; the walled parish graveyard nestling on an intermediate level between the church and the fort came much later.
This historic locale, called Verem, is now better known for its annual celebration of the feast of the Epiphany on 6 January. No viceroy, bishop or nobleman now attends; it is only three village boys in gala attire who still play the Magi. They descend from the ramparts (earlier they did it on horseback), carrying their precious gifts and the solemn Mass begins even amidst the din of the traditional fête outside. Only trinkets though they sold- and not gold, frankincense or myrrh in the tradition of the Magi the fair that was once worthy of the fort's enclosure has now become a roadside affair. But the joy it brings to all that throng to it! What form all these customs will take when the fort turns into a heritage hotel soon, only time will tell!
Banner: https://rb.gy/xjugos
First published in 'Heritage Point', Panjim Plus, 1-15 January 2002, p. 6
Yuletide Recollections
Solemnising the dogma of the Immaculate Conception at the city church (8 December) was a good spiritual preparation for Christmas just round the corner. The angelic music of the Salves at twilight prefigured the celestial choirs intoning "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" a fortnight later. Caroling house to house, late in the evening, was the order the season (the proceeds went to Mother Teresa's Asilo). City clubs like Nacional and Vasco da Gama organised carol singing competitions, balls and street dances. The household would be agog with the Crib, the Star and the Christmas Tree.
24th December: after the Midnight Mass, we used to head straight for the pillow to herald Pai-Natal (Christmas Father) in our sleep. We woke up the next morning, excited about the festa da família (family celebration) – more recently, a veritable family reunion at lunch or supper! We particularly relished the consoada (meaning, the season's sweets, in Goa) comprising traditional homemade delicacies that Avó (Grandmother) Leonor insisted on having for Christmas.
The days that followed, up to 6th January, feast day of the Reis Magos (the Magi, or Three Wise Kings) at Verem, saw Panjimites on their evening beat around the city. They invariably walked up to Timoteo's mechanised crib, or drove to Francisco Martins' at Ribandar. Other private houses and public squares used colourful lighting.
Once upon a time, that was my Christmas agenda. Much of it has gone but some of it has remained in the form of a musical reverie, thanks to Jim Reeves, my childhood star who still sings "Jingle Bells", "Silent Night", "Mary's Boy Child" and "White Christmas".
(First published in Panjim Plus, 16-31 December 2001)