The Flight of the Jackals

A Review of:  Songs of the Survivors, ed. by Yvonne Vaz Ezdani, 2007,

Goa 1556, Goa. Price Rs. 295

When one thinks of Goa and the colonial experience, it is the Portuguese who immediately spring to mind, given that since the 16th century uptil 1961 they ruled over Goa. But Goans also had to deal with the British who held sway over the rest of India. For one reason or another they have had to migrate to territories controlled by the British. Songs of the Survivors tries to relive some aspects of the hitherto little known migration of Goans to Burma.   

The aroma of Saligao, the village of North Goa which is otherwise noted for its Neo-Gothic church, pervades the pages of Songs of the Survivors. Not only is the editor Yvonne Vaz Ezdani from Saligao, but so is the publisher, the cyber-pundit Frederick Noronha, for whom this book is the first child of his new publishing venture - Goa 1556 (so named because 1556 is the year that marks the arrival of Asia's first printing press in Goa).

But not only that, no less than 16 out of the 24 contributors are from or have close ties with Saligao. It is not clear why so many of the essayists come from the village and most of the others come from North Goa - but there's probably an element of cunning here - if they had written a book about Saligao, the readership for it would have been severely restricted, but now these Saligao-kars have an audience of not only of those interested in Goa but also those interested in Indo-Burmese as also World War 2 history. Not for nothing are the denizens of Saligao known as "kolles" or foxes!

Except that the animals that howled in their paddy fields at night and which gave them that appellation, may not be foxes at all, but rather jackals. And not just Saligao-kars but all migrant Goan Christians share some of the traits of this scavenger. Through most of the years of the Raj, they followed the conquering British Lions into their colonies where they became a buffer between the rulers and the colonised and in the bargain helped themselves to the left overs of the masters until these peoples were liberated.

The preface of Songs of the Survivors promises "to explain  why and when Goans went to Burma, how they earned their living there, how they adapted to the local culture and lifestyles,and what they felt about the land and the people" However the book does not tell that story, at least not in a direct fashion, but rather focuses of the last days of the Goans advent into Burma, as the Japanese began attacking the country in 1941.

It is more concerned with how they escaped from Burma, now Myanmar, sometimes losing all their hard earned fortunes; how they had to escape through submarine infested seas; or wild beast and snake and disease ridden hills and forests. Some never did make it - these essays, as the title suggests are the tales of the survivors and speaks of how they managed to rebuild their lives often from scratch.

It is an interesting tale and the evocative chapter titles egg the reader on to explore their contents. To sample a few , 'Butterflies...But No Flowers', 'A Street Named D'souza', 'In Good Times and in Bad', 'Corpses at the Music Shop' and 'High Drama at Burma Cafe'. Some of the accounts are gripping; a few are not.

If one reads the book from the point of view  of the writers, then the Introduction which gives an overview of Burma, along with the different accounts either first hand or by the children of those who escaped, and those who had to stay behind and live with the Japanese, are like the pieces of a mosaic that give a good picture of the plight of the Burma Goans during that time.

But a more interesting way of approaching these Songs is to dig out of them the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that will reveal the larger picture of why the Goans landed in the land of the pagodas, and their relationships with the British, the Burmese, and later the Japanese.

For instance the story of A. J. De Cruz tells us that he "had his early education at the parish school, where he learnt his reading, writing and a little arithmetic, and of course music..." Whatever one might say about the proseletysing Portuguese - their gift of Christianity was what enabled the Anglican British to be comfortable with the Catholic Goans, without having to share the same church. 

Also the rudiments of the Roman script which they picked up in the church schools helped the early migrants towards understanding the English language and thus they could clerk for the British; later they took to English education with zeal, often becoming the teachers themselves. Music become another route for them to play second fiddle to the masters.  Of course it helped that they took to the subterfuge of pretending they were Anglo-Indians as one contributor's account openly states, or as another's slyly implies when she recalls a "Charles Macellin, also known as Maxy Machado from Saligao and his wife Mathilda Marie" .

All in all they did very well for themselves shedding their lowly Goan peasant status to become part of the modern middle classes. So much so that by the time they were forced to evacuate Burma, the ladies had become practically memsahibs " used to cooks and servants". Though there is fond regard for the Burmese people, nowhere is there any mention of them working under the natives.

And the accounts of those who could not get out of Burma for one reason or another suggest that these Goan jackals were not particularly attached to any one set of predators - they could serve the Japanese as well as the British. Perhaps the book may help trigger off some introspection about the Goan character. Incidentally, one absence seems puzzling - there is little mention about that favourite pastime of Goans of all religions - caste politics.

  

'Songs of the Survivors' is a well produced book (it has a good index, something which many Indian publishers tend to  forget), and is written in simple readable English. Given that the exodus of Goans was repeated in the 1960's and 70's in East Africa though for other reasons, perhaps there is a moral hidden in this book for them - that whatever be the defects in their motherland, they would be wise to retain their ties with her, for in times of adversity it is she who will welcome them back with open arms.