FOUR WOMEN AND A NOVEL OF SUBSTANCE

We may have heard a lot of stories about the seafarers. These men, generally from a Goan Catholic extraction, work for nine months of the year and spend the next three months on leave. While the representation, it can be claimed, has so far been centered on the trials and travails as well as the scandals of the tarvotti, the stories of their wives have not been told as much as they should have been. Also, it must be borne in mind that the stories of the wives of the seafarers may have been featured in the Romi novels called romanxis; these, however, have died a sudden death due to Machiavellian machinations and hence been wiped off from public memory.

Having said so, I do not think that these romanxis were ever successful in providing a strong woman’s perspective in this tarvotti narrative. In the recent spurt of Romi Konknni novels, I claim that we have exactly this woman’s perspective in the form of Sharon R. Fernandes e Soares’ debut novel, Handbag, recipient of the 2012 Konknni Martir Florian Vaz Award instituted by the Thomas Stephens Konknni Kendr. Her novel, for me, becomes very interesting as to a large extent it reflects the reality of the wives or spouses of the seafarers: their fears, their insecurities, their pathos and their joys. In this review, I shall compare and assess the work of Sharon Soares with a mini-ethnographic study that researched and reported on the lives of women living in Bombay and Goa and whose husbands were seafarers. This study is by Helen Sampson, titled “Left High and Dry? The Lives of Women Married to Seafarers in Goa and Mumbai” [Ethnography 6, no. 1 (March 1, 2005): 61 – 85].

The novel opens with Lisa, the protagonist, narrating her own life as well as the lives of three other women of whom we come to know through the agency of Lisa. These three women incidentally happen to live close to each other. Veronica is the contemporary of Lisa, with a very young daughter. Flory is an old woman well past her prime and Helen is a single woman, who, upon her transfer, comes to the village of Raia as a bank manager. In due course of time these four women develop a deep friendship that not only provides company for leisure but also becomes their support group.

Barring Helen, all the other three women are married to seafarers. Flory is married to Bosco who is now retired and spends most of his time at the local tavern and beats up his wife regularly. Lisa is married to Russel and Veronica is the wife of Edmund. If we closely observe the characters of Lisa and Veronica, we find that both these ladies despite having loving husbands and pleasant in-laws still yearn for domesticity and the ideal family structure to be completed. In a way these characters convey the hardships of women who have to look after the household in the absence of their husbands. This particular response can be seen in Sharon Soares’ novel. However, the abovementioned study by Sampson has shown that there can be another response: that of women taking charge of the household. This response is much more complex as such women “…had learned to manage finances; deal with mechanics, electricians, and plumbers; change light bulbs; pay bills; negotiate with bank managers; and generally undertake a whole range of traditionally masculine roles. Whilst some told me that they made efforts to revert to their ‘feminine’ role in the intermittent periods when their husbands returned home on leave, many others explained that they were unable to do so or chose not to do so. Regardless of their response to their husband’s return, all women living independently from their in-laws described living lives in which their social networks and contact with the outside world had expanded as a result of establishing single family households. Nevertheless many said that they remained conscious of the continued pressure from their communities to conform with traditional gender roles.”

            Another issue that is tackled in this novel is of the (alleged) promiscuity and extra-marital affairs. It was one of Lisa’s fears that her own father who worked in Kuwait was having an extra-marital affair and this she believed had caused her mother’s death when she (Lisa) was very young. When such a similar situation is faced by Veronica, where she dreams that her husband is cavorting with another woman, it is the support group that holds Veronica together during such difficult times. There are some tense moments before Veronica realizes that her husband is indeed faithful to her and that when he would return home, it would be for good. Such a support group, Lisa feels, could have stopped her mother’s death as her mother was helpless against the onslaught of wagging tongues in her village. Sharon Soares beautifully handles this situation in her novel as even in the study quoted above, the women “…described being conscious of the poor image of seafaring in terms of its popular association with promiscuity and drunkenness and felt that their own reputations were particularly vulnerable as a result of the image of their husbands’ occupation. In discussion of the image of seafarers, women were particularly conscious of issues of promiscuity.”

            Helen, the independent and single woman is the catalyst in awakening the other three women. However, in this novel, what is portrayed is not a violent and overt subversion of patriarchy but a subtle strategy where there is collaboration and support – both from men and women – where the idealized, traditional structure of the family becomes a much more egalitarian space. This may not mean that patriarchal structures are done away with but within these said structures women can negotiate for their own aspirations to be realized.

            Although I feel that this novel had the scope of portraying much more complex responses to the issues (as I have tried to indicate by juxtaposing the novel with the study of seafarers’ wives), it cannot be denied that Sharon Soares’ novel is of the utmost literary value. She has ably demonstrated her prowess by the ease with which she moves from one scene to another, with characters that are well thought of and deftly handled and how minute symbolism gets infused in the larger narrative (such as the object and symbol of the ‘handbag’) to produce a serious yet delightful 100-plus pages of fiction. Finally, there is a need for a talented writer like Sharon Soares to engage with the broader realm of Romi literature as she can provide, very forcefully, the much needed and critical woman’s perspective. After all, what is the point of asking for justice for Romi Konknni if this Konknni is inadequately represented by women writers and critics?

            With its tight editing and a beautifully executed cover by Milan Khanolkar, this book cannot be missed by enthusiasts of Konknni literature as well as academics and students of anthropology and sociology who want to further study the conditions of women whose husbands are seafarers.

Handbag by Sharon Fernandes e Soares (Panjim/Ponnji: Dalgado Konknni Akademi), 2012; pp. 120, Rs. 100/-; Phone: 91-0832-2221688 (Available at Dalgado Konknni Akademi, Panjim)

(A version of this article appeared on Gomantak Times, dt: January 20, 2013).

UNTOLD GOAN MIGRATION STORIES

If one were to ask me about a history book that I had read, on Goa (or for that matter on any other subject) that was so interestingly well written, my answer, without batting an eye-lid, would be Selma Carvalho’s, Into the Diaspora Wilderness. I was expecting to find random biographical sketches of Goans who undertook long and arduous journeys to unknown and distant lands, but what I got was more than I had expected: a history book that I read like a thriller-novel!

Selma Carvalho has spent most of her life in the Diaspora and hence she is able to bring a personal touch to this volume on Goan migration to the African colonies (of the British primarily), the Gulf, Europe and America. Along with the numerous stories of persons of extra-ordinary courage that Selma deftly etches against the background of the history of the region concerned, she also weaves her own personal story with equal eloquence. By placing the seemingly insignificant history (of a Goan) against the history of a region, Selma might have very well ushered in a change in analyzing Goan history and the way we perceive it. This book tells us the stories of those men and women who were nearly forgotten by everyone, including history. The focal-point is the humble Goan who comes from an equally humble village.

In this book, Selma assesses the political climate and economic condition of each region in which her stories are based. The reader will surely be awed by the fact that many Goans had a major part to play (politically and economically) in each of these regions. Reading through the pages one finds that racism is also a major element. This is natural as Selma has intimately experienced being a ‘brown’ person in the Gulf, in America and in the UK. She has walked the precarious tightrope of racism. Selma has a rare gift of the sensitivity of a writer as well as the spirit-of-inquiry of a historian. No one has ever portrayed the pathos of the expats with such haunting and heart-wrenching detail.

This book has certain lines and passages that are sure to stay with anybody who reads them for a long, long time. Selma is at her literary best when narrating her own migration story. After living in the Gulf for twenty-eight odd years, she had to leave that place – a place to which, she never belonged. And when she felt homeless and lost, this is what she said, “I bowed my head to hide the tears. Would I ever be back? I didn’t know. With a thud on my passport, the young immigration officer stamped me out of the country, my place of abode for 28 odd years. I was a stranger just passing through.” Sure, all of us who have left our home and family behind and are based elsewhere can empathize with the predicament of Selma.

A new look and perspective is seen in the pages of this book regarding the much mocked as well as envied tarvotti (one who works on a ship) and the Gulfie (one who works in the Gulf). This book records the chronicles of such Goans likes the ayahs, butlers and cooks and people engaged in other odd jobs in distant lands, and trying to plug their experiences and contributions to the mainstream history. Though all these stories begin in Portuguese India, one is startled to find the extent to which the British colonizers have shaped them. The English-speaking and meat-eating Goan Catholic was so indispensable for the British administration, particularly in Africa. In fact, the Portuguese appear only fleetingly which goes in to underpin the much neglected and overlooked influence of the British in the Goan Diaspora. Most of the records that Selma has utilized to write this book are lodged in various libraries across England and this should come as no surprise in the light of the abovementioned facts.

The most surprising of stories in this book are the ones of Goans in Kenya. Pio Gama Pinto, very much politically active before and after the independence of Kenya, became that country’s first martyr. Needless to say, he was from a Goan extraction. Kenya’s second vice-president, Joseph Zuzarte Murumbi, belonged to a Goan-Maasai ancestry. His father hailed from Guirim, a village in Goa.

Selma’s voice and prose flows like music and she has the words to keep the reader hooked-on to the book. But when Selma moves to the UK with her husband and daughter, her story ends abruptly and the last few chapters seem to be loosely strung together. This book could have also done with a better cover rather than a collage of nautical maps which gives it an appearance of a geography text-book. But these complaints dwarf in front of the immensity and magnitude of the work put in by Selma.

In one of the chapter titled, The Exiled Intellectual, Selma talks about the Goans who having an intellectual bent of mind, sought success in other lands, yet who were always longing to come back home. This longing, Selma says, is advantageous as, “Goa at least will never be bankrupt for its artistic sons of the soil, whether in Goa or in the Diaspora, refuse to abandon her.” Comforting lines not only about sons but daughters as well (like you Selma) who refuse to abandon dear Goa. With her voice and intellect, Selma shouldn’t stop at just one book. Into the Diaspora Wilderness is a must-read!

(A version of this article appeared on Gomantak Times, dt: October 6, 2010)