In a similar manner then, what we
in Goa, given the spectacular disinclination to teach our history in schools,
have largely forgotten, is that in addition to claiming the Portuguese kings
and queens as our own, we can also rightfully lay claim to three Spanish kings.
From 1580 until 1640, the Portuguese crown was united with the Spanish crown,
allowing for two separate kingdoms, but just one King; a situation that ran its
course under the three Hapsburg Phillips of Spain.
With such a history in mind, the
Goan traveling in Europe has not merely a Portuguese link with that continent,
but larger European link. When traveling in the Netherlands, one thinks not
merely of the Dutch opponents of the early Estado da India Portuguesa, but also
of the fact that the Netherlands were once upon-a-time part of the Hapsburg
domains. Domains lost in the course of the wars that broke out in the continent
in the course of the Reformation. Similarly, when one travels to the one-time
imperial capital of Toledo in Spain, one does not start when one sees those
large double-headed eagles clutching the arms of the Hapsburg kings in their
talons. On the contrary, the emotion that one is faced with is that of pleasant
surprise when encountering the familiar. For did we not already see this motif
in Old Goa, proudly recording the sovereignty of Phillip, king of all of
Iberia?
The journey to Portugal was not,
as this column so often points out, to reconstruct some empty colonial saudadismo with regard to Portugal. On
the contrary, the trip to Portugal was to figure out if there were other ways
in which our relation to this country could be rearticulated in a contemporary
context. This contemporary context would not include only the examination of
the manner in which we can relate as South Asians, members of the Indian ocean
world, and as Indians, to Portugal. This
movement would also mean embracing its complex (sometimes obscured) histories
and giving them new relevance and meaning. In the course of this embrace, we are not bound to the nationalist interpretations of this history that the Portuguese may feel obliged to produce. On the contrary, we can legitimately rewrite this history from our own point of view. Embracing this history, making it
genuinely our own, allows us, in the manner that Mallka Todiya was claimed by her Indian subjects, allows us to make
similar claims on the heritage of the Philippine emperors. This claim of
inheritance should not ofcourse only be narrowly read, or shortsightedly
utilized, but more properly embraced, so that we effectively become citizens of
the world, a marked characteristic of the Goan (often an emigrant into this
large world).
Speaking of embracing this larger
heritage, and seeing ourselves outside of the frames we normally use, most
people would be surprised to realize that urinating on the street is not
particularly a crass Indian habit. All too often, one is apt to find
contemporary descendants of Philippine subjects, be they male or female, easing
themselves on the streets, especially late at night over the course of the
weekend. Come to think of it, this is not, and was not a practice unfamiliar in
the former realm of good Rani Todiya either! Some uncommon embraces it appears, can
engender uncommon perspectives.
(A version of this post was first published in the O Heraldo on 22 June 2012)