A Goemcar in Lisbon

To be a Goan in Lisbon is to be in a relationship, caught between two rather different kinds of nostalgia, or more appropriately, saudades. The first is a nostalgia, a terribly bitter-sweet longing for Goa that has been left behind. The names of streets, the colour of buildings, the façades of some these buildings, trees, even the names of most people here, constantly remind you of Goa. Here in Lisbon lie the final resting places of people you grew up with on a first name basis; Afonso de Albuquerque, Vasco da Gama, Amalia. Lisbon, you could sometimes say, bears the imprint of Goa. For me personally, as someone who grew up in Panjim, Lisbon is Panjim enhanced. It is also on many fronts, the possibility of what Panjim and Goa can be, if we in Goa can get our act together.

This possibility is not the mere aping of Lisbon however, for there is much to be critiqued and improved on in Lisbon. This is where we come to the second kind of nostalgia, a longing for the old. This nostalgia is a dead-end. There is no future in mourning for the Goan pre-1961 past. This history is either extremely problematic to claim, or it was in fact the history of a small set of Goan families who have access to Lisbon and its metropolitan elite. The Goan living in Lisbon in 2010 does not necessarily need to rely on this past to forge a contemporary relationship with the city; the present moment gives one enough and more opportunities to do so.

It is precisely this present moment that could allow us to reinvent the Goan relationship with Lisbon. This is a necessary relationship to reinvent precisely because of the unsung- and more recently increasingly suppressed - pages of the history that we share. We need to look beyond the chapters of history celebrated by these small select Goan families and look at the manner in which the silent members of Goan society reinvent this relationship. Such an exploration would allow us to move away from the problematic colonial and nationalist articulations of our relationship, and shift toward a more cosmopolitan relationship based on mutual respect and sharing.

This look of a Goan living in Lisbon (and in extension Portugal) is not based solely on Goan emotions and experiences. On the contrary, this look at Lisbon is also based on the recognition of the fact that the contemporary Goan is also a South-Asian. To be South-Asian is to recognize that not only is the contemporary Goan born as an Indian citizen, but is engaged with a larger sub-continental politics. This truly sub-continental lens, freed from the shackles of restrictive nationalism, provides the Goan with an enhanced vision from which to examine and introspect on the Lisbon experience. To fail to do so would otherwise lead us to fall back into the narrow ruts of the nostalgic longing for the Estado da IndiaI under the Estado Novo. As I stressed before, this experience is too limited to provide to us support for a reinvention of a new Goan relationship with both Portugal and the world. In deed a relooking our relationship with Portugal will also impact on the manner in which we relook our relationship with the people we share the subcontinent and the country with.

But perhaps the reinvention of a relationship is beyond the capacity of a tiny column. My offerings here will seek to diary the manner in which a contemporary Goan negotiates life in our former metropole. Who knows what will come out of this exploration?

(First publised 6 Feb 2011)