Age of Frenzy

by Mahabaleshwar Sail

  For a moment the padre thought of going to Gopika’s house. I can ensnare this whole family and convert them to Christianity, he thought. They will have to convert anyway. Their neighbours will not leave them in peace. But the next instant he decided that it wasn’t right to take advantage of their difficult situation. Jesus wouldn’t be happy. If they came of their own free will the next day, it would be different.

  Ever since he heard about the Inquisition, Padre Simao’s mind was in a turmoil. It was just not right. It would create more obstacles, people would be terrified and move further away. The task of building bonds between men’s minds, of calling out to their hearts would become more difficult.

  They set out in their wooden ships with sails unfurled. They faced storms and hurricanes in their journey across the ocean that covered such a large part of the globe. Many of them died on the high seas when food and water ran out. Some fell prey to illnesses. Sometimes the ships lost their bearings and sank to the bottom of the ocean. And yet the ships loaded with troops kept coming. What force guided these courageous spirits, what did they aim to achieve? The fleets sailed thousands of miles to Kochi and from there to Daman and Diu as they grew familiar with the coast.

  They’d loot the ships of the Arab traders on the high seas and drive them away. They would attack the local people of the places where they landed. They were such audacious rogues, nothing seemed to daunt them.

  But one thing was certain – they came armed with a crucifix in one hand and a sword in the other. Religious propagation was the basis of all their activities even in later years. Why did they take so much trouble? They didn’t conquer territory or expand their empire significantly. They didn’t gather immense wealth by establishing a flourishing trade. What they did, however, was intimidate the local people, beat them and set fire to their homes in a bid to spread Christianity, which seemed to be their only aim. It was this single-minded purpose that enabled Albuquerque and his small force to defeat Adil Shah’s mammoth army and conquer Goa.

  One should not be so naive as to believe that it was Mhala Pai’s request to Timmayya to rid Goa of the Adil Shah reign that opened the door to the Portuguese and let them slip in. The Portuguese army was cruel and the first thing they did after setting foot in Goa was to massacre six thousand Moors. They appropriated their wealth and property, and took the widows and young women into their fold. They needed a base from which they could expand their empire, carry on trade and propagate their faith. They chose this spot with great care. Their presence was so terrifying that if the proselytizing demon had not taken control of their activities, they could have built a vast empire. Their colonies, too, were different from those of the other European powers. They made Goa their home even though it was impossible to administer Goa from distant Portugal. Storms and tempests during the perilous journey by sea ensured that one out of four soldiers died on the way. Albuquerque therefore encouraged his soldiers to marry local women, he even brought the beautiful young widows of the slain Moors into the Portuguese fold. Those who opted for such marriages were rewarded with money and land. They were freed from military service and settled in other trades.

  Not only were the Portuguese bold and fearless, they were also very resolute. Though their aim, right from the start was to propagate their religion, they spent the first thirty years establishing administrative control over their surroundings. During this period, they assured the Hindus that their social and religious rights would be respected.

  So when the forced conversions began, the Hindus were the ones who suffered the most. This was partly because of their innate love for their land and their religion. It was also because the taboos of caste and religion with regard to diet and social interaction kept the Hindus isolated within walls of blind faith.

  The dismantling of these walls created a major upheaval in their lives. If the shadow of a low caste person or a menstruating woman fell on them, the upper-caste people felt that they had become impure. For them, the thought of forsaking their faith and taking the religion of people who ate cow flesh was catastrophic.

  On the other hand, the Portuguese were remarkably adept at combining religion and administration. When the religious leaders demanded something, the administration executed it by using force. The religious leaders held crucifixes while the administrators clutched their swords and over them all loomed the shadow of the Inquisition. These committee members were all powerful, and everyone, right from the viceroy to the common soldier, the fidalgo landlord to the baker and the tenant farmer in the field was terrified of them. They even threatened the King at times.

  Bishop Joav Albuquerque called a meeting of priests belonging to the different Christian sects in Goa. Only Simao Peres received no invitation.

  ‘I am a faithful preacher of the Word of Lord Jesus. When all the other priests have been invited, why have I been left out? This is an insult to a faithful priest,’ Simao said.

  The Bishop was a tall, strapping figure with a complexion as ruddy as ripe fruit. His tiny eyes, reduced to mere slits by the rolls of oily flesh gleamed. ‘The Jesuits out here do not consider you a priest. They do not count you as one of them,’ he declared.

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I don’t, either.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You have no letter of recommendation from the King. All the other priests were selected by the King. As was I.’

  ‘But I have a letter of permission from the Pope.’

  ‘You still need the King’s recommendation.’

  ‘Is the King greater than the Pope?’

  ‘I refuse to answer that. Let me tell you, though … the King’s religious policies are drawn up according to the Pope’s orders. Yet, in his own country, the King has greater powers.’

  Padre Simao Peres remained silent.

  ‘Go back to Adolshi and work according to your convictions. Just don’t interfere in the work of the other Jesuits. They say that you incite people against Christianity. You insist that people should become Christians of their own free will. This goes against the dictates of the King and the viceroy. You know how powerful the Inquisition is. You may be stripped of your priesthood and thrown into the dungeon for working against the faith.’

  Padre Simao remained silent for a while. ‘Leave Adolshi village to me. I’ll serve the people with love and lead them to Jesus. I tell you again, using force is against the teaching of Jesus. One who truly follows the Bible will never do this.’

  The Bishop was furious. ‘Get out! Just mind your own business. The Pope has given you permission so I’ll let you stay. Otherwise you’d have been deported to your own country. Or burnt at the stake as a traitor to the faith. A band of soldiers, officers and priests will soon reach Adolshi. They’ll convert the whole village within a year.’

  Padre Simao turned away quietly.

  Barely fifteen days after this incident, a group of strangers entered the village. Led by Captain Diego Barrett, the group consisted of a shef, three cabos, two priests and eighteen soldiers. Except for seven local soldiers, all the others were white-skinned Portuguese. They were all Christians, even the local soldiers were new converts. Captain Diego Barrett was seated on one horse while another horse had stores and provisions strapped to its back. The soldiers too carried loads, balancing boxes, baskets or bundles on their heads.

  It was a Monday and a large crowd of devotees were waiting in the Ramnath temple for the ceremonial bathing of the deity. The elderly priest, Rayanna Bhat, and his son, Subba, were conducting the rituals when Lingu, the temple musician, rushed in. ‘Those wretched creatures have arrived in the village, forty or fifty of them. Brought horses and guns and swords,’ he gasped.

  The people were terrified. Rayanna Bhat kept chanting the name of the Lord over and over. Every time some bad news trickled into the village, the old priest’s heart would be filled with dread. ‘Lord, don’t let those creatures enter this village. Strike them dead outside the borders,’ he’d prayed. Lord Ramnath is the protector o
f this region, if they step into this village their children will die, they will be burnt to ashes – he’d assured the devotees. Earlier, even when the villagers saw two soldiers, they would hide and cower in fear. Now the foreigners had come in such a large group. All that they had dreaded over the years had come true.

  The Betaal shrine stood just beyond the temple grounds. It was a large mud-walled structure with a tiled roof and a dung-smoothed floor. There was no separate sanctum to house this deity – a huge boulder with a pair of eyes carved on its surface – which stood in the centre of the shrine. It was ritually bathed with the blood of eight to ten goats and some two hundred chickens during the Jogvani festival celebrated on a moonless night in the month of Magh. Betaal protected the village from ghosts and spirits, fevers and other afflictions, but if he got angry he would kill their children, people believed.

  The captain reined in his horse when he got to the Betaal shrine. ‘This is where we will stay,’ he said. The soldiers carried their loads into the temple and the two priests sat down to rest. Captain Diego Barrett and Shef Camil Ribeir stood by the horses surveying the village.

  ‘Quiet place. Full of farms and orchards,’ the captain remarked.

  ‘Yes. The villagers are religious. Won’t become Christians easily. But they’ll wilt when they are faced with some trouble. Their temples and shrines give them strength. Once these are destroyed, their roots will be cut off.’

  The captain stared intently at Shef Camil Ribeir. ‘Shef Ribeir, which is your ancestral village?’

  ‘I don’t know, senor. My father came with Timmayya’s troops from Honnavar. He fought against the Moors during the battle for Goapattana and was rewarded with a house and orchards and made a police chief by Viceroy Albuquerque. But he remained a Hindu till his death.’

  ‘And then, Shef?’

  ‘After he died, I was told to convert if I wanted to keep the house and orchards and work for the government. So I became a Christian. But my mother refused to be baptized.’

  The captain stared at him shrewdly.

  ‘Do you regret this, now?’

  ‘No. This happened twenty-six years ago. I’m a Christian now, my wife is a Christian, and my children are Christians. We recite the Rosary every evening and we eat pork and beef. Sometimes I feel that this whole world should be converted to Christianity in a single night. If I could do something about it…’

  ‘Be patient, Shef Camil Ribeir, this job will be yours. You are most suited for it. Your ears are pierced, like theirs. A sharp thorn can be used to dig out another that is embedded in the flesh. Do you know what that means?’

  Shef Camil Ribeir was six feet three inches tall, well-built, with skin which was the colour of wheat. His black eyes, however, were clear and lent a touch of softness to his face.

  The news that the white-skinned foreigners were camping in the Betaal shrine spread through the village like a fire fanned by the wind. This had never happened before. Sometimes, on a wave of high spirits, they’d enter a temple. But they’d leave almost at once and the villagers would summon the priest and perform purificatory rituals and cleanse the place. They had never come to the village loaded with provisions, nor had they set up camp in a temple before.

  The Brahmins of Raigali and the Nayaks of Shirvaddo gathered under the banyan tree just beyond the settlement and spoke in low voices, ‘We’ve heard of the terror they’ve caused in other places. Now this calamity has reached our village…’

  ‘… my heart is sinking with fright!’

  ‘… we should thrash them and drive them away. Chop off their legs!’

  ‘… they’re cruel people. Have the strength of elephants. And then they have swords and guns!’

  ‘… they might be important people in their own country, but this is our land.’

  ‘… their schemes won’t work in our village. We are protected by the deities in eighteen temples, only those gods can help us now…’

  Some men from the village hid amongst the bushes by the Betaal shrine and surveyed the scene. The soldiers had converted the shrine into a camp. They had set up two hearths and placed large cooking pots on them. They drew water from the temple pond and filled their mud pots at the sacred spring. The villagers were furious.

  ‘Don’t defile the shrine and the temple pond like this,’ Demu Gurav screamed.

  The captain glared at them. Then he drew his gun and pointed it at some monkeys on a nearby tree. Taking careful aim he pulled the trigger and a monkey crashed to the ground. All those who were hiding in the bushes ran for their lives. One of them later told the others that the monkey had folded its palms in prayer and uttered ‘Ram’ with its dying breath. And someone who was listening said, ‘Of course. Monkeys have always been devotees of Ram. How could this one be any different?’

  At dusk, the villagers gathered at Shirvaddo. Every one of them was terrified. A storm was brewing in their lives – it sought to sever their umbilical ties and cut off the roots that bound them to their land. Something was happening, something was about to happen … Something new was going to burst forth, trampling upon the old established customs. There would be destruction everywhere. People called out to their gods, ‘Deva! Only you can save us and protect our religion!’ But who would protect the gods themselves? They didn’t know whom to approach for an assurance that their gods would be left unharmed. We have to protect them ourselves, they thought. But we’re not strong enough, we won’t be able to withstand their might. The very thought of a confrontation made their limbs turn cold with fright.

  Ghana Shenai of Raigali was the village chief. He was an elderly man and his moustache as well as the tuft on his head had turned completely grey.

  ‘Fifty-two generations of our people have lived in this village, blessed by the gods. And now these people just enter our shrine and camp there! We must drive the wretches out. We’ll have a meeting tomorrow, let the whole village decide what must be done,’ he wheezed.

  Damu Nayak climbed on to a branch of the onvli tree and let out a shrill cry, ‘Dugga … Dugga … Dugga Mhar …Come quick! Inform the villagers that a gaonki will be held tomorrow!’ he called.

  Dugga lived in the Mharvaddo, the colony by the stream beyond the farmlands where the low caste villagers lived. He heard Damu Nayak’s cry and set off for Shirvaddo. Dugga made the first announcement standing under the bael tree. ‘A group of unknown mean-looking chandals has entered the Betaal shrine. The temple is defiled. Our religion is in danger. The chief gaonkar has called a meeting under the peepal tree tomorrow afternoon. Everyone must be present!’ he cried.

  It was already quite dark by now and Dugga still had to go and inform the people of Raigali and then go through the fields to Deulvaddo and the artisan’s colony. Dugga asked for a staff to protect himself from the dangers lurking underfoot, but no one was willing to lend him one, so he cut a length of bamboo from someone’s fence and swishing it in front and across the path and beating softly on his drum, he set off for Raigali.

  The villagers cast fearful glances at the Betaal shrine as they sidled past it on their way to the meeting the next afternoon. Thirty-six gaonkars were seated on the stone platform around the peepal tree, about two hundred paces away from the Ramnath temple. Lame Bhairu Nayak was carried there on a rope basket slung across a pole, either end of which rested on the shoulders of his two strapping sons.

  The village chief, Ghana Shenai, looked exhausted. ‘You can see what calamity threatens our village. They’ve destroyed the sanctity of our gods and our shrine. We were confident our gods would protect us, why doesn’t the Lord tear their limbs apart? What do we do now? We believed that they wouldn’t come to this remote village. But the wretched creatures have reached here! I don’t know what to do, I have no advice to give you all,’ he said as he mopped his face.

  Immediately, lame Bhairu Nayak flared up. ‘Don’t just sit here and mope. If you sit and cry like this, they’ll push their way into your homes and cook beef on your hearths. Fight them, dri
ve them out. Lay their corpses on the ground. Pick up your axes and sickles and staffs,’ he cried.

  Shiva Nayak seemed scared. ‘Let us go and meet them, let us plead with them to let us be. We are poor people, leave our gods alone, we’ll say to them.’

  The other villagers burst out in anger at his words. ‘Plead with them! With those wretched, impure creatures! If we act mild they’ll only step up their atrocities. They should be thrashed and driven far away!’

  Subrai Shenai was listening quietly all this while. ‘The Nayaks of Shirvaddo should handle this job. They belong to the Khatri caste, they are the protectors of the village. Their ancestors were part of the King’s army, they fought with swords, they say. Now you have only sickles strapped to your waists. All this is mere talk!’ he said.

  ‘Boasting about the exploits of our ancestors won’t help us now. You talk of thrashing them and driving them away. They have guns that spit fire and swords that can cut us down. Don’t you know what they’ve done in the other villages?’ Lavu Nayak interjected in a reasonable tone.

  ‘That’s what I call cowardice! Stick your tail between your legs and run away from the village. Leave your temples and your gods to them,’ Bhairu fumed.

  ‘Getting angry won’t help, Bhairu, we must think calmly and then decide. Let us appeal to the gods, first. If the village remains safe, we’ll take the deity ceremoniously around the village. Lord Ramnath is our only refuge now, let us depend on Him. We’ll ask Him for some sign, let Him indicate what we should do.’

  ‘You mean you won’t even pick up your scythes and knives if they start breaking down the temple? Is that what you are saying, Raya?’ Bhairu asked.

  ‘What use will those knives be? We’ll lose the temples and our lives as well.’

  ‘Such words don’t suit you, Raya. You’ve grown as massive as an ox. Go home, borrow some of your wife’s bangles and wear them on your wrists!’