‘Kam zalem, voiz
melo’ is perhaps one of the most well-known of Konkani aphorisms. Its
popularity might lie in the fact that this maxim is used to describe the
ungratefulness of those who have received favors. But if one looks closely at
the saying, one would realize that in itself the aphorism means nothing. Such
idiomatic expressions have a meaning that is handed-down to us, but it can also
be the case that over time new meanings get attached to them. While considering
the original or attached meanings, I would like to think differently about wit
and wisdom that is handed down to us.
There are two aspects of this aphorism that I would
like to discuss. The first is its protagonist: the voiz. A quick search revealed that the word in fact has origins in
the Turkish language. Though in its original Turkish the word means a preacher
and one who gives sermons, in Konkani the term is always used for someone who
offers medical cures. In fact, if one consults old dictionaries
such as that of Sebastião Rudolpho Dalgado (1905), the Konkani synonym of
the Portuguese médico
is variously given as voiz, vaidya, and even hakim.
Rather than being a native or indigenous term, the word voiz apparently comes through Islamicate influences. This is not
surprising as vast areas of South Asia – including Goa
– have immense influences from the Islamicate worlds.
The voiz could
be a doctor with a medical degree, trained in Western medicine, or he could be
a practitioner of herbal remedies or zhadpalyacho
voiz, as Dalgado notes in his
dictionary. Further, a woman could also be a practitioner of herbal remedies
and was appropriately known as a voizinn.
In fact, being a voiz/voizinn is regarded as one of Goa’s traditional occupations. As such, what this aphorism
does is to recognize the importance of cure-work. With or without formal
medical training, the aphorism recognizes the voiz as an important institution in the Goan landscape. However, it
can be also pointed out that while it recognizes the value of cure-work, the
aphorism clearly privileges the voiz
alone, and not the voizinn.
This brings me to the second aspect of the aphorism.
While cure-work is recognized, many other types of work and equally important forms
of labor are not accorded the same sort of privilege as the voiz. This is also a comment on how Goan
society treats the importance of labor, and the inadequate remuneration that
such forms of labor receive. Why is it that only the voiz is at the receiving end of alleged ungratefulness? If at all
any voiz and voizinn will be at the receiving end of ungratefulness, then it has
to be the traditional practitioners from the bahujan classes who have to also
battle other forms of oppression, for the Western medicine-trained voiz was invariably of the elite classes
right from the colonial times.
It would be
obvious to anyone who has been even marginally familiar with the history,
economics, and sociology of Goa that it has actually been the working-classes
(cutting across castes), or the vauraddi masses,
that have been at the receiving end of so many instances of ‘ungratefulness’
from those who wield power. For instance, the bhatkar-mundkar land relations were never a bed of roses for the
laboring tenant. The laboring classes hardly got a share of whatever little
economic development was initiated towards the end of Portuguese colonialism by
the Portuguese state. New research, such as that of Raghuraman Trichur in Refiguring Goa (2013), on the Goan
economy in the colonial and post-colonial times has revealed that this trend
has not altered much in post-colonial Goa.
That much of what Goa is today is due to the labor
of its working class is expressed in the song Auraddi
from the hit Konkani film of yesteryears Nirmonn (1966):
“Pul te bandleai kunnem – Auraddeanim/Min
ustilam kunnem – Auraddeanim/Ranamchim xar keleaim – Auraddeanim/Gaum
sudraileai – Auraddeanim” (Who built the bridges – the workers/Who dug the
mines – the workers/Who turned forests into cities – the workers/Who
transformed the surroundings – the workers). Granted that the video accompanying
this song only shows laborers smiling from ear-to-ear and actually enjoying the
back-breaking labor, or, in other words, the film creates a romanticization of
back-breaking labor. Though I would like to argue that this romanticization is
produced by the imagination of the elites, the song does make a very important
claim of giving due credit to those who built or made Goa
through their labor. What the song does not tell you is how this back-breaking
labor has not been appropriately and adequately compensated throughout the
recent history of Goa.
So, if we look at the historical and sociological
contexts of ‘Kam zalem, voiz melo’,
then it surely seems like the voiz is
not the only person to be at the receiving end of ingratitude. Certainly not
the voiz with a medical degree, with the
financial and social means at his disposal to gain a higher education, whether
in Goa or abroad. I am sure there were many women cure-workers and people who
provide other forms of labor have not received their due share of recognition
and remuneration. So why would we collectively think that it was the voiz who was at the receiving end of
ungratefulness? Hidden within the well known meaning of the aphorism, is there
also a recognition that many other types of wokers or vauraddi have been at the receiving end of ungratefulness? If
indeed this is the case then is this Konkani aphorism also conveying a clever
irony?
Why the voiz dies,
I am afraid, will remain a mystery. But thinking about such maxims and
aphorisms could enable us to think about Goan society a little differently. Thus,
we as a society would need an inventiveness of language or new aphorisms.
Perhaps, now we need to occasionally slip into our conversation kam zalem, vauraddi mele.
(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 24 June, 2015)
