My favourite part of my Great India Roadtrip, however, is the road just south of Betul. Here the road winds around, up and down through thick groves of coconut trees or old wild mango trees with their bright new lime green leaves providing a contrast with the old dull and dusty growth from previous years. Their hard, green mango fruit is visible but small – another four or five months’ growth is needed before they are ready. After Malorem up a steep road is the cashew nut plantation. You can smell the approaching trees and fruit as the scooter struggles up the hills. Like the mangoes, it’s a little early for cashews but there are early large, reddish-yellowish squashed fruit on the road. Their unripe fruit is largely hidden behind the large leaves of the tree. You have to stop to examine the evidence. They have a most distinctive shaped fruit – a large, fleshy, kidney-shaped fruit with a toxic shell. And that distinctive smell, a little pungent with a touch of sweetness. Some of the trees beside the road are huge and look semi-wild. Their branches with their evergreen leathery leaves, however, bend low to the ground and are not always helpful for shade purposes. The cashew tree plantation finishes once a treeless, parched plateau is reached. Saleri is the next village I look forward to nosing around. Previously, it was possible to stop on the plateau and see the coastline and Agonda stretched down below you. Unfortunately now, the foliage and bushes are too thick and the panorama has gone.
At Saleri in 2016, my nosiness was rewarded. There was a lot of unusual activity around the local health centre. Scooters were parked everywhere and mainly women clutching their babies in one hand and letters and papers in the other queued to enter the centre. It seemed to be a vaccination day and it looked like people had arrived from many neighbouring villages. It was all very exciting and demonstrated the functioning of a rural health facility, in Goa anyway. No one bothered me as I sat on my scooter watching with interest this important day in the lives of the young patients.
Leaving Saleri, you go down the hill and cross almost immediately the River Saleri on the outskirts of the coastal village of Agonda. The river is biggish and sluggish at this point and is an estuary on the Arabian Sea. Fishing huts and well-used wooden fishing boats lie up on the mud flats. Small fish are dried in the sun on plastic sheets. A local told me that after the tourist season finishes in Agonda (in another 4–6 weeks) the workers from the hotels and restaurants take up fishing during the monsoon and summer months. They go out in the family boats mainly up the River rather than out to sea, and help to keep some money coming in during the quiet tourist period.
And then you are in Agonda. This is our favourite beach in Goa and is a beautiful crescent-shaped wide beach about a mile long, with elevated rocks and forested woods at each end of the beach. The trees, mainly coconut trees, come down to the beach edge and all the beach huts and rooms are hidden beneath the trees. Unspoilt, unsophisticated, friendly and above all shady, it is lovely waking every morning overlooking the beach or at least a few metres from the beach. And there are protected turtle spots on the beach. We have never seen them, but apparently, they are the endangered Olive Ridley turtles and are a lot more common on the Indian east coast. There are reports from Agonda of them coming ashore around April, laying their eggs at night and, five days later, 50-odd baby turtles making their way down the sea. How magical must that be?
Fifty yards behind the beachfront is the only road through the village. Tourist shops and kiosks together with restaurants cramp either side of the road – all a bit busy and to be avoided when possible. Apart from the wonderful beachfront, two events, however, characterise Agonda for us. First are the nesting sea eagles high up on the southern rocks. They seem to have been there for a few years. I think we saw them on our 2016 visit but I can’t be sure as they are so similar to the more plentiful Brahminy kites that patrol the sea waters just offshore looking for dead fish and other prey. They differ in size and in their tail feather shapes but they both have that lovely reddish brown, chestnutty plumage with a contrasting white head and breast. Beautiful birds, so don’t forget the bins!
The most famous site in Agonda, however, are the bat trees. Located along the northern bit of the road through Agonda, many hundred and possibly thousands of giant fruit bats hang upside down from branches on three trees beside a smelly, polluted tributary of the River Saleri. They are sometimes referred to as ‘flying foxes’, have dark snouts and rusty brown faces. They are silent throughout the day but at around six in the evening they start stirring, begin their screeching calls, stretch out their wings disturbing their neighbours before flying off for a circular test run. I’ve watched (from a poo-safe spot) their evening stirrings for up to a couple of hours at a time. By the time it is dark and difficult to see what is happening, about half have left the trees for their night feeding. The noise is deafening and they are huge in size. When a crow or raven passes nearby, you get some indication of their massive size. The first time we saw the bats I’m sure they were only in one tree. Now they are crowded in three trees, the largest one being a huge eucalyptus tree. A ‘birder’ told me that the fruit bat is one of four different bats found in India. We have only seen this species and it is a mesmerising sight. Unforgettable.
However, it is not the villages or the trees or the bats or beautiful Agonda that is the most memorable aspect of this Great India Roadtrip. By contrast it is something completely different that opens up and reveals the most distinctive feature of Goa – namely, its Portuguese and Catholic Church history, as touched on above. In almost each of the villages that line the route is a pristine, whitewashed church, often with an attached school. Given that some of the churches have a date going back to the seventeenth century, my humble little road trip must have been along a route or horse track stretching back four or five hundred years. It was a little spooky thinking that this road I was pootling along on my scooter probably had horse-drawn carriages carrying the local Portuguese dignitaries, colonial officers or Church officials many hundreds of years ago. The Goa Chitra Museum, which I mentioned earlier, has an entire hall devoted to wooden carriages of various designs, intricacies, sophistication and technology that were pulled by oxen or horses. Perhaps one or more of them travelled along my little coastal route down to Agonda to inspect the cashew nut, mango or coconut crop for that year!
The Portuguese hugged the coastline, built their churches along the coast (leaving the interior to the Hindu majority) and built their houses in the coastal villages. It is noticeable, however, that evidence of these houses become rarer the further south one goes in Goa. Around Varca in the Salcette region up to Margao city are numerous examples of these magnificent colonial structures; less evidence is apparent in Canacona. When it comes to the churches, however, there was no holding back. Every little village seemed to have some church edifice still dominating the village. In Varca for example there is the grandiose Cathedral, all white apart from its features picked out in blue. Three levels high with a grand courtyard surrounded by a small wall, the church dominates the village. At Canaguinim, there is St Sebastian Church perched up on the hill with the road below. A large signpost depicting the crucifixion has as its main message, ‘Drive with Care. Make Accident Rare’ (sic). St Sebastian Church itself overlooking the village and surrounded by coconut trees seems to incorporate living accommodation and again has recently been painted white with dark blue colours around the window and door frames.
Perhaps the most elaborate church buildings are at Assolna village. Built in 1616, Our Lady Queen of Martyrs was built on the ruins of a Portuguese fortress on the banks of the River Sal. The church itself is a substantial building, pristine white and seemed to have anticipated large congregations. In the church courtyard is a huge statue of Christ with two angels blowing their trumpets and surrounded by four apostles – all in marble. Originally, this agricultural village depended on rice and coconut crops with harvests of mangoes and jackfruit in the summer months. Today agriculture has largely disappeared and the money sustaining the village is from exiled workers in the Gulf
States or on the tourist boats – a very Goan experience today. Attached to the church is the school – the Regina Martyrum High School – with a banner over the entrance proclaiming “400 Years of Faith”. Across the road from the church is an elaborate covered cemetery surrounded by a six-foot wall. The memorial comments on the burial grounds are in Portuguese and, more recently, English. All in all, the Catholic Church has had and continues to play an influential role in the village and possibly region.
And then there is St Anne’s Church in Agonda itself or Holy Trinity Church or the Church of St John the Baptist in Benaulim, Salcete.
The interest I have, however, is not in the documentation of the extent and nature of the Catholic Church in southern Goa, but rather in understanding a little more clearly the currents and issues underpinning Goan ‘identity’ today and its place within wider India. The continuing historical weight of the Portuguese in Goa seems clear-ish. What is less clear is the current situation. Interestingly, this particular road trip to Agonda seemed to confirm for me the continuing authority and influence of Catholicism in Goa today. It did more than this though. It illustrated (in a very pleasant manner, I must admit) how distinctive and different – culturally, religiously, historically, materially – this part of India is from the rest of the country.
Chapter 5
That Empire – then and now
Calcutta delights
Calcutta, one of the great cities of the world, is always hot, always dusty and always busy. It doesn’t seem to figure strongly in most Western travellers’ itineraries to India but for me this city with its 15 million inhabitants provided some of the most lasting memories of all the great Indian urban centres. The response of others who have visited Calcutta seems similar – they liked it. We stayed in a small hotel round the corner from Park Street, just south of the city centre. We familiarised ourselves quite quickly with the local Bengal eating places around the maze of stalls that made up the New Market, the legendary cake and tea shop at Flurys on Park Street, the wonderful Oxford Bookstore and the local rickshaw pullers who never gave up trying to get us on onboard. Most mornings we were up early and off to sit for an hour or so in the local small enclosed park and gardens on Park Street. The local residents from the overlooking apartments were out enjoying the early morning sunshine, like us. Children before off to school were playing, stacked plastic chairs were unstacked and pulled into a circle for chat and gossip, joggers hurried around the small perimeter track and breakfast sandwiches eaten. We too were soon included in the sandwich rituals as they welcomed us to ‘their’ gardens. After the park, most days involved a tram ride to some different part of the city. Sometimes it was to nowhere in particular – the purpose and joy simply was sitting in the tram and enjoying the inside and outside goings-on.
I’m not sure why Calcutta ‘out-memorises’ Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore or some other cities – perhaps expectations were not that great or the compact nature of the city centre encouraged a greater pedestrian feel to everything when contrasted with other cities. It might also result from the accessible nature of narratives for Western tourists. While Calcutta is clearly a very Indian city it was also quite visibly the old capital of the Raj. More than any other city apart from New Delhi we were reminded, it seemed, of this British presence. Calcutta was after all the second city in the British Empire after London. There are obviously other claims to fame for Calcutta – its contemporary cultural activities, its pride as ‘the intellectual capital of India’, the cinema of Satyajit Ray or, until 2011, the rule of the Communist Party. However, the British had left an indelible footprint that is not only difficult to ignore but which raises numerous questions which this chapter explores.
A couple of kilometres down Park Street is the celebrated South Park Street Cemetery. We visited the cemetery a few times in 2012 to escape the heat but also to examine more closely the stories and implications of this historical venue. The cemetery covers some eight acres, is enclosed by a high brick wall, has some 1,600 tombs, and has been substantially restored and renovated in recent years. Ancient rambling trees and flower beds and pots provide a shady canopy for the extravagant array of monuments, urns, pyramids, carvings, obelisks, raised plinths and fluted columns. Opened in 1767 and closed around 1831 for the employees of the East India Company, the cemetery can boast links one way or another to the likes of Rudyard Kipling, William Thackeray and Charles Dickens. Each of the tombstones seemed to tell its own story of disease, battles, shipwrecks and politics. One of my photographs is a tombstone of a “Collector of Revenues” who died aged 29. There is this interesting inscription on the tomb headed “In His Public Capacity”. “He accomplished by a system of Conciliation what never be affected by Military Coercion. He civilized a Savage Race of Mountaineers who for Ages had existed in a state of Barbarism And eluded every Exertion that had been practised against them.” Insights into the work and beliefs of these early colonisers are evident throughout the graveyard.
Incidentally, it was the South Park Street Cemetery that introduced me to the Asiatic Society. A plaque by the entrance gate announced that recent clear-up schemes and cemetery alterations had been funded by the Society. Delving into the history of the Society, I came across a number of names that I would meet in subsequent readings especially over the archaeological discoveries relating to Ashoka the Great who ruled around 230 BCE. Most prominent of these names was of course Sir William Jones. Founded in 1784 the Society’s extensive and valuable library together with its museum both in Calcutta remain on my list of visits to do when next in the city. I think it remains today as a viable organisation although its website is a little dated.
Most of Calcutta’s landmarks drip with variations of the sentiments carved into the stones of the South Park Cemetery. The white marbled Victoria Memorial for example (or the VM as it is commonly known) with its mixtures of Italianate and Mughal architecture was completed in 1921 and in 25 galleries houses the glories and triumphs of British conquest and of the British monarchy. When we visited the VM we couldn’t enter and missed regrettably the Calcutta Gallery with its paintings, documents and photographs of old Calcutta and the Independence struggle. We did manage to see, however, the formal gardens and water features. Like many of the Raj monuments and buildings throughout India, the subplot is often one of ‘shock and awe’ – monumental edifices that are designed to convey power, authority, permanence and subservience. St Paul’s Cathedral, where we had a picnic lunch in the shade of its numerous trees, must have provided similar bewilderment to the locals when it was opened around 1847.
Of less imperial significance but no less impressive is Howrah Bridge across the River Hooghly in north Calcutta which we crossed in the bus on our way to the Botanic Garden. This 750-metre single cantilever bridge was built by the British in 1943 to facilitate access to Burma during the Second World War. The traffic jam on the bridge is infamous as was the case on our crossing; it is said to be the busiest bridge in the world in terms of foot passengers. Apparently and difficult to believe, some two million cross it daily. Beneath the Bridge on the muddy grassed banks of the river are a busy collection of barbers, masseurs, cloth sellers, sleepers, people washing, buffalo grazing and rickshaws. The Botanic Garden founded in 1787 by the East India Company had seen better days and was in desperate need of support and toilets. It was nevertheless a welcome spot of calm and space in a city famous for its frenzy.
Equally restful were visits to the Maidan, the vast 1,283-acre open parkland in the heart of Calcutta incorporating several football stadia, the Kolkata Race Course and the famous cricket ground of Eden Park. Begun by the British in the mid-1750s, great tracts of jungle were cleared for military purposes and the creation of Fort William. Busts of Lenin and well marshalled demonstrations with hundreds of waving red flags with their hammer and sickle welcomed us as we strolled around the park.
I was in India during then British Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit to India in February 2013. Little was made in the Indi
an newspapers of the economic agenda underpinning the visit or the biggest-ever delegation of business people accompanying Cameron. Space was provided for the expression of regret by the Prime Minister for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 in Amritsar in which at least 400 unarmed Indian men, women and children were killed by British soldiers. Cameron remarked to the press in India that, “I think there is an enormous amount to be proud of in what the British Empire did and was responsible for. But of course there were bad events as well as good events. The bad events we should learn from and the good events we should celebrate.” Always a smooth talker that masked a lack of substance to his politics, Cameron managed to smaltz his way through the India visit. Three years later, the political chancer gambled once too often and, in an attempt to quell the grumblings of the pesky reactionary wing within the Conservative Party, took Britain out of Europe.
Banyan Tree Adventures Page 15