Short Takes Long Memories
By
Prabhakar Kamat and Sharmila Kamat
(New Delhi: Rupa Publications, 2011).
Price: Rs. 195/- ISBN_PB: 9788129118219
Short Takes Long Memories is a ringside view of Goa’s passage to India after 451 years of Portuguese colonial rule. Published by Rupa Publications, this is based on the reminiscences of Mr. Prabhakar Kamat, a retired IAS officer and diplomat based in Goa. The book is an account of Growing up Goan in a land buffeted by the conflicting claims of newly free India and a Salazarist dictatorship unable to reconcile itself to imperialism’s waning appeal.
A set of evocative images characterise Goa in the 1940s. As the global conflict rages on, in Goa the caminhão lurches along narrow lanes even as the funcionário público sips his ardha single in a safed cup of tea and the bhatcar berates the local layabout in pidgin Portuguese.
The end of the war allows the narrator to travels to Europe for graduate studies. In Lisbon, he adjusts to life under Dr. António Salazar, the Portuguese strongman as famed for his tight fist as for his tightfistedness. He learns why the Portuguese love coffee houses and is reminded that stepping out sans necktie is an egregious breach of etiquette. His interaction with freedom fighters from the larger Ultramar Português makes him privy to the unswerving resolve of men like T.B. Cunha, Agostinho Neto and Marcelino dos Santos.
As the 1950s proceed, he returns to Portuguese Goa and joins the colonial administration. Indian efforts to dislodge the Portuguese culminate in a blink-and-you-miss-it Army action. As Goa joins India, he gets to contrast the administrative styles of a colony with a free land.
The loss of the ‘swaggering capital of the Portuguese Empire of the East,’ to quote William Dalrymple leads to momentous changes in Portugal. Democracy is ushered in by the Carnation Revolution of 1974. Restoration of diplomatic ties between India and Portugal allow the narrator to return to Lisbon as an Indian diplomat. He gets to witness Portugal savouring freedom after 40 years of dictatorial rule - right around the time Emergency is imposed in India.
