"Haven't We Seen this One Before?" - THE GOAN: I'm Not Here (24 July 2016)

Goa University’s plan to inaugurate a Bollywood course needs a rethink that includes the history of Goans in the industry.

A couple of weeks ago, ­­Goa University’s Board of Studies announced that it will introduce an optional undergraduate course in Indian cinema, tentatively titled “History of Indian Cinema, 1913-2013” (O Heraldo, 8 July, 2016). Commonly referred to as Bollywood, India’s is the most prolific dream factory in the world. While for this and other reasons Indian cinema is worthy of study, the trajectory of Goa University’s proposed course gives cause for concern.

Quoting Prajal Sakhardande as “[t]he brain behind the concept”, the news report chronicling the development of the film course states that the curriculum would cover the origins of “the Indian film industry in 1913, migration to talkies in the ‘30s, growth of regional cinema, Bollywood’s golden age from the ‘40s to ‘60s and the advent of ‘masala movies’ from 1970”. Additionally, Sakhardande is reported to have said that the course would focus on such components as the “[m]ovies starring members of the famous Prithviraj Kapoor family to decades when Dev Anand, Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, King Khan, Madhubala, Hema Malini, Sridevi and Madhuri Dixit ruled the industry…”­ Ambitious, no doubt, but the projected curriculum leaves something to be desired.

Indeed, there are plans to offer the Bollywood course alongside a couple of other options as part of the Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) available to undergraduates. Sakhardande states that “[b]esides Bollywood cinema”, other offerings may include the “history of regional cinemas, including Konkani films…” This is precisely the problem. Again, the study of cinema is important, and within its scope there is room for the consideration of the multiple regional forms generated within a national context and their relationship to one another; yet, what the proposed Goa University course seems to imply is that there is (or was) no Goan contribution to the cinema of India. Even as it is important to study Konkani cinema, the question to be asked is what does it mean to teach about Indian cinema in Goa without considering the place of Goa and Goans in the history of this national industry?

To say that the current curriculum privileges a mainstream perspective on Indian cinema is not a stretch, especially given how those who have conceived of the course have chosen to highlight the legacies of a set of particular players. On the one hand, this privileging of cults of personality suggests that things to do not bode well for the inculcation of critical analysis through the syllabus. And on the other, by uncritically presenting the cinema of India as the cultural production of Hindi-speaking actors and directors, Goa University participates in the occlusion of minorities, such as Goans and Baghdadi Jews among others, who greatly contributed to the history of Indian cinema. Such a nationalist agenda obscures the major contributions of Goans to the music and other facets of the Golden Age of Bollywood as evidenced in Naresh Fernandes’ Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay’s Jazz Age (2011) and the Konkani language film Nachom-ia Kumpasar (2015), directed by Bardroy Barretto.

It is no uncommon fact that the place of Goans in Indian cinema history has been relegated to the mists of time, leaving the contributions of many unknown even to their fellow Goans (leave alone Indians in general). For instance, it might come as a surprise to many that Anthony Gonsalves was a real person who worked in Bollywood and is not just the Christian character to whom he lent his name in the cult classic Amar Akbar Anthony (1977), in which Amitabh Bachchan plays the fictional Anthony. Ironically, even as Goa University has a Chair that is also named after the late and otherwise uncelebrated Anthony Gonsalves, its future Bollywood course does a further disservice to unsung Goan musicians and entertainers. Devoid of any consideration for how mainstream Indian cinema once thrived on the creative labours of such minorities as Goans, only to side-line them after their value had been expended, a nationally inflected curriculum taught in the very homeland of these forgotten artists participates in a dominant representation of Indian culture that refuses to grapple with its religious and cultural biases.

While several may not know of the impact of Goans on Indian cinema’s history, what they know all too well about Goa’s place in Bollywood’s imagination is the portrayal of the region in any number of Hindi films. Bollywood’s continued dalliance with Goa is as a hedonistic beach paradise and with all that such a place entails. Goa is the seemingly unpeopled land that hosts the shenanigans of party-loving Indians who seek a reprieve from the mainland, thus exemplifying the relationship between the metropole its colonial pleasure periphery. And if perchance a film might actually remember that Goa is not devoid of locals, then their depiction is often that of a stereotypical nature, where the sexuality and drinking habits of these characters are the stuff of ridicule. Beyond this, one still wonders why any of these Goan characters speak Hindi, which is again testament to the culturally homogenising nature of Indian cinema. 

Any Bollywood course at Goa University that fails to take up a critical analysis of Indian cinema’s gendered, class, and ethnic representations while also not pointing out the history of the industry’s cultural co-optation will simply rehearse a script we are all too familiar with. The proposed course represents the opportunity to correct Bollywood’s egregious treatment of Goans while also paving the way to offer undergraduates a chance to engage with cinema anew. In the meantime, the audience awaits.

From The Goan.

"The Long Game" - THE GOAN: I'm Not Here (10 July 2016)

Goa and Macau share an Iberian past and a gambling present. Yet, casinos which rely on local heritage as lure do nothing to sustain it. 

While on the hydrofoil to Macau on a recent visit from Hong Kong, I chanced upon an older issue of the on-board magazine, which prominently featured an article titled “Your Very Own Macau Experience” (Horizon, June 2016). The article is about the region’s latest tourism slogan: “Experience Macao Your Own Style”.  Leaving aside the odd grammatical composition of the catchphrase, it and the article’s title reminded me of the slogan created by Tata Housing for their Goa Paradise property project: “It’s Time to Claim Your Piece of Goa”.

Writing elsewhere, columnist Jason Keith Fernandes notes of the poster for paradise that greeted him at Dabolim airport in January this year, that what is most offensive about the Tata slogan is its blatant imperial tones. “The word ‘claim’ continues to have [colonial] connotations, and … is [an] effective call to an act of conquest” (O Heraldo, 22 January, 2016), Fernandes argues. While the consumer is given primacy in the case of both these advertising phrases, what the slogans also suggest is that these former Portuguese enclaves – their very Iberianness being the major draw for holidaymakers and investors – are devoid of locals, or that they do not matter. As Vishvesh Kandolkar deduces when writing in this newspaper about second homes in Goa, investment properties are promoted as “‘virgin’ sites” for the wealthy while the presence of Goans and their housing needs are occluded (“The Rise of the Villament”, 13 September, 2015).

Even as the article I read about the Macanese slogan presents the veneer of the isle’s culture, its true purpose is to showcase the many attractions offered alongside the casinos that the place has become famous for. The coincidence with Goa is once again self-evident, and not least because of designs to introduce yet another gambling boat into the state’s waters, amidst protests. As the pleasure peripheries of the great modern empires of India and China, Goa and Macau, respectively, serve as playgrounds whose Iberian charms make them just that little bit different, but not completely alien, from their mainland metropoles. Doing no great favours for the growth of local culture, casinos at both sites bank on the differentness of their host locations as a lure, with scant regard for sustainability, either of environment or industry.

Ironically, I used the casinos in Macau as my landmarks as I ventured around the island. I’d ask for 

directions based on the proximity of heritage sites to these modern edifices. But at one point I was 

spectacularly lost. Thanks to a passenger who spoke a little English, I discovered that I’d taken the bus 

going the wrong way. Privy to our exchange, an elderly woman first asked the person I had spoken with 

something in Chinese and then touched my sleeve. “Fala Português?” she enquired. I brightened up. 

“Sim!” I responded, hoping that the few years I had spent studying the language would pay off now. I 

understood enough of her rapid fire instructions to find my way to Fortaleza da Guia, making the trek 

all the more memorable.

On the return trip, seated in front of a group of American exchange students on the hydrofoil, I could 

not help overhearing their conversation. I gathered that they were on a weekend jaunt away from their 

university in Hong Kong, and as they compared notes on this their first visit to Macau, they came to the 

same conclusion. “I don’t know that I’d come back”, one of them said. “For what it is, it’s just not worth 

it. Too expensive”, another added. “I could have just gone to Vegas”, yet another decided. As 

illuminating as this conversation was, it was also rather disheartening. It was clear that these visitors 

had not ventured past the casinos, had experienced nothing of Macau’s unique Luso-Asian heritage, and 

might never have the opportunity to do so in the future. Indeed, they had travelled halfway around the 

world to have the same experience they could have had in their own backyards. 

How long before some other attraction calls to the fickle tourist? While the impact of waterfront casinos in Macau and floating ones on Goan waters take their toll environmentally, they also cannot be relied upon as guarantors of local employment; simultaneously, the casinos’ reliance on local legacies sees no return. Investment in cultural heritage could be the long game, a consideration eclipsed by the desire for fast profits through short cons. For now, though it is the house that always wins, that victory does not belong to the land upon which it is built.   

From The Goan. 

"Brexit and the Perils of Comparison" - THE GOAN: I'm Not Here (26 June 2016)

No strangers to referenda, even as Brexit is reminiscent of the 1967 Opinion Poll to Goans, the two are far from being alike. 

Indeed, it was just a generation ago that Goans saw their fate decided by a referendum. The January 1967 Opinion Poll, which followed the 1961 annexation of Goa by India, allowed Goans to elect whether their homeland would be merged with the adjoining state of Maharashtra. My parents’ generation decided that Goa and Goans deserved to preserve their own cultural identity as reflected by the vote for the region’s geographic insularity. Nearly a half-century later, the fate of many Goans once again hangs in the balance as the results of another referendum on another continent are announced. The Brexit poll has concluded and, by a very slim majority, the people of the United Kingdom have chosen to leave the European Union. 

On the surface, the polls may seem similar even though five decades separate them. Both the Opinion Poll and Brexit were about a decision to be part of a union, even if the former was to initiate a merger while the latter was to leave one. Nonetheless, the Opinion Poll sought to further undermine the autonomy of Goan people by seeking to obliterate the geopolitical boundary that, if nothing else, gave Goans a distinct cartographic location within the Indian union. 

It should not be remiss that caste politics played out in the mobilisation efforts to galvanise Goan participation in the Opinion Poll. What could easily be mistaken for a show of Goan solidarity is but a veneer for the truth that if Goa were to become a part of Maharashtra, those of the upper castes would lose their mini fiefdom. This is not to suggest that a merger with that other state would have improved the situation. Rather, the results of the 1967 poll might also be analysed as the outcome of a decision by Goan bahujans whose solidarity lay with their own land and community, regardless of upper caste political designs. The interests of the elite would have remained the same regardless of whether Maharashtra were to take over or were Goa to remain separate. 

However, even as these caste fractures within Goa are obfuscated, what the Opinion Poll further sought to occlude was that though it was a democratic exercise, it was one within a limited gamut. Goans were being given a choice in 1967 – a belated one that should have been theirs in 1961: not whether they should or should not merge with Maharashtra, but whether they should be part of the now-independent, formerly British India or not. If anything, the Opinion Poll was a means for India to further establish its hold over Goa through the charade of democracy. 

That Brexit impacts Goans is precisely because our tiny part of the world was once under the Portuguese Empire and only later under the Indian one. In contradistinction to those Goans who made their way to the United Kingdom via British East Africa in the last century, the more recent waves of Goan immigrants who have journeyed to England directly from Goa have done so as Portuguese citizens; their European nationality allows them to work anywhere within the Union. The later immigrants have largely been working class people who have sought to better their lives abroad while also adding to the labour pool and tax revenues of Britain.

To say that Brexit is this Goan generation’s Opinion Poll would not be euphemistic. Yet, even as this vote affects Goans and so many others, the two referenda are not alike. The Opinion Poll was a decision by a colonised people to retain their identity, while Brexit is the expression of a very old and powerful empire flexing its clout in the modern era. The United Kingdom may be a kingdom only nominally, but as the birthplace of neoliberalism alongside the United States, it continues to function imperially, extending its colonial legacy of yore. Where the Opinion Poll drew the line around a minority, Brexit draws one against immigrants and refugees. Some hope is to be had in that only a little more than half of Britain voted for the exit, but it also shows a nation split and one that too conveniently forgets its history.

What is to become of those Goans who continue to be Portuguese citizens in the United Kingdom? What of the many Goans whose dreams of reacquiring Portuguese citizenship so that they could better their opportunities may now come to a standstill? Time will tell, but it will be a worrying wait as Europe and the rest of the world grows more xenophobic and the labours of the once and still colonised continue to underwrite the progress of the powerful. 

From The Goan.