December 28, 2011
 
Books cannot always please, however good;
Minds are not ever craving for their food.

- George Crabbe, English poet (1754-1832).
 
This book under review, Shades within Shadows, by Alan Machado (Prabhu) released on December 16 by Lata Kini, President, Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry, is not meant to please but to record the agony of Sarswati’s Children – hence shocking. The migration of these children from the north India to Goa and then to Canara had been recorded by Alan in scholarly debut book titled Saraswati’s Children in the 1990s. This, a sequel and more on the subject, was expected to follow. Incidentally, the platform to launch the book was provided by Catholic Association of South Canara and the venue by St Aloysius College.
 
The author, Alan, is a descendant of a branch of the Machado (Prabhu) family of Aldona, Goa, who emigrated to Mermajal, near Farangipet, about 1680. The family was decimated by the captivity with only one known survivor, Joao, who returned to the ancestral village in 1799, when Tippu Sultan was defeated, and killed, by the British forces at Srirangapattanam. An engineer by profession, the author has worked in Australia and England and now a resident of Bangalore. A committed researcher on the history and social life of the Canara Catholic community, his first book, Saraswati’s Children, covered the history of the community from its pre-conversion times in Goa, migration to Canara to immediately after the captivity.

Some 50,000 converted Christians emigrated from Goa to Canara between 1570 and 1740. In March 1784, Tippu Sultan ordered the arrest and deportation of Canara Christians to Srirangapatnam and confiscation of their property as also razing down of their churches. The book is a story of life and death and survival of the near destruction of the unique culture of the community, how Tippu’s actions, based on suspicion that Canara Catholics supported the foreign invaders, Portuguese and British, against him, nearly destroyed a community and left the traumatic events of the captivity forever imprinted on its psyche.
 
Speaking at the release function, noted scholar, Dr William Robert D’Silva, said that the book historises the identity of Canara Catholics and locates it within a process of identity formation. Unlike other authors who go back in time when they write about Mangalorean culture, Alan has brought a change by writing the story into the future. He has written fiction which is supported by facts. The language used is communicative and the author has looked beyond the Mangalorean Catholic community, by including influences of the Tulu community in the book. Some excerpts from the book reflect the style and substance of the book.
 
The launching of the book by Sudha Kini points to the common roots and heritage of Kokanies – Catholics and Hindus. “Here also lived another community from Goa, the Konkane. The Bhats and Baligas, Hegdes and Kamats, Kinis and Kudvas, were related to the Gonsalveses and Goveases, Lasrados and Lobos, Mascarenhas and Mathiases. When the Portuguese came in their carracks and carvelles with sword and crosses, they persuaded the Nazareths and Noronhas, Pereiras and Pintos, Rebellos and Regos to go to the church instead of the temple. The Church sheltered and guided them, baptized and married them, buried, and sometimes burnt, them, while the Mallyas and Nayaks, Prabhus and Pais, Shenoys and Vaidyas, who resisted this embrace fled Goa.

Saldanha and Sequera, Tauro and Tellis, Veigas and Vas, still remained Brahmins of the highest caste; only their religion had changed. They remembered they were Acharyas, Bhats and Kamats, Malyas, Prabhus and Shenoys as well, and maintained their old bonds with those who remained Baligas, Kinis and Hegdes, Nayaks, Pais and Vaidyas for here they too were wrapping in their isolated section of society. They conversed in Konkani and enjoyed their fish, and among themselves, the Konkane rubbed the Christian for adopting the ways of the ferangi, and the Christian reminded the Konkane who had invited the ferangi: “Goachi bhuy, hem Mhala Paichem ghor”.
 
Mhala Pai, the sardesai of Verna when ruled by Bijapur, suffered under his exactions.

Thimmayya Nayaka, admiral of the Vijayanagara fleet, in nearby Honnavar nursed personal ambition in Goa. When Alphonso Albuquerque’s fleet appeared off Goa, the two made common cause. Everything fell in place. In 1510 Goa became ferangi territory. But the dream soon turned into nightmare. Mhala Pai fled Goa bled, and the people blamed Mhala Pai who, in inviting the ferangi, had acted as if Goa was his alone.”
 
Alan uses evocative narrative with rich imagery. Sample this: “The path to the river led past a crumbling structure of stone, once a bhuthstana, beneath an old jumblum tree. Its plaster had peeled off and fallen to the ground through years of neglect. Its bared walls stood exposed and its once pink laterite stones turned black. In season, the ripe purple fruit of the jumblum fell on the sthana, splashing it numberless black spots. The roof lay low under the load of disintegrating lime and mortar and loosening clay. Seeds of wind-blown grasses and weeds sprouted there, growing luxuriant and tall with the rains, withering in summer. The jumblum tree aided the disintegration. Its roots pushed into the foundation and cracked its walls. Seeds excreted by passing birds collected in the cracks. From them grew immature banyans and other trees whose roots pushed deeper into the crumbling mortar and snaked over the stone to the next crevice.”
 
When Joao, the only survivor of his clan, returns to his ancestral house, somebody else was in its occupation. “All of a sudden, the crashing cascade of memory and emotion overwhelmed Joao. Tears rolled down and splashed at his feet. His vision blurred and he saw nothing where he stood, alone in a desolate place, beneath the indifferent sky with nothing but silence in between. Joao, the only one to return and remember, the last of his tribe, and the first, on the first day of the first month of the first year of the new century.” At the release function, Alan read passages from his book, and concluded on a note of pathos: “ Joao is my ancestor because of whom I am here and this book is here”.
 
The book is a rich and readabl mix of many strands seamlessly woven together. Since Alan extensively uses Tulu expressions, I was tempted to sum it up as Puligoddel, a tasty dish made of many leftovers. Alan has dipped into many sources and whipped up an enjoyable and creative concoction of his own. But, the book has no rancidity or staleness of Puligoddel. It is an inviting and satisfying cocktail which even teetotalers can enjoy with relish and profit.
 

John B Monteiro, author and journalist, is editor of his website www.welcometoreason.com (Interactive Cerebral Challenger) – with instant response format.