How does one respond in a
situation when faced with the statement, ‘Ah, you are from Goa? My grandfather
used to be the Governor of Goa.’ The responses it turns out, can be varied,
depending on the situation one encounters this phrase in.
The first of such scenarios was
when ensconced in the home of a friend, who had spent the day creating
scenarios within his plush home for a commercial. As we reviewed each of these sets,
our eyes fell upon an oriental looking bird-cage. ‘This cage,’ the friend
announced ‘was made in Goa.’ I looked incredulously at the object. A wooden
bird cage built to look Indo-Saracenic, there was no way it could have been
made in Goa. ‘But it is’ he insisted ‘it was a baptismal gift to my
grandmother, who was, along with her father and family, in Goa at the time.’
‘In Goa?’ I asked all excited; ‘what was
her father doing there.’ ‘He was the Governor-General’. This to my mind did not
settle the provenance of the bird-cage, but that bit of our conversation ended
there.
A second such situation occurred at
the birthday party of a colleague’s daughter. At some point in the afternoon I
was introduced to the child’s grandmother, who flashed me a most wonderfully
warm smile and indicated that she had always wanted to visit Goa, but had as
yet not managed to do so. For good measure she also indicated to me, with the
same level of warmth, that she also had a cousin, General Craveiro Lopes, who
had been the Governor of Goa.
Perhaps in both circumstances the
conversation stopped short on the Governor thread, but continued on others,
since I did not know my Goan history well enough to be able to have an
intelligent and cultivated conversation on the Governor in question. This lack
of history was however filled in rather interestingly when reading some of the
works of Ravindra Kelekar. In this one particular essay Kelekar wrote; “People
in Goa knew this man (Francisco Higino Craveiro Lopes) very well, as his father
General Craveiro Lopes was the Governor of Goa. He would often create a ruckus
in Panaji in those days and many people have been involved in altercations with
this 'white-skinned ruffian'. Rajabab Hedo threw him down on the road during a
fight. His father got so fed up of his ways that he sent him off to Daman as
Governor. This man was now Head of State.”
(A version of this post first appeared in the O Heraldo dated 11 Dec 2011)
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