Trip to India - Entry 18 - Such sweet sorrow...

Today is our final full day in Goa, and it is really quite sad.

At breakfast, Rico came over and Juliet and I decided to go with him to Old Goa. This is the first actually “tourist”-y thing we’ve done so far on the trip. We went down to the Basilica of Bom Jesus (the Christ Child) and were completely mobbed by old women attempting to sell us candles and marigold chains. I appreciate the need for such items – candles for the prayer offering, and the marigolds are a traditional offering in India – but I really, really hate being mobbed like that. We have been working on understanding Indian culture and what works here in India, I just wish that Indian salespeople in general had someone to tell them that most foreigners *really* dislike the in your face sales style. I’m sure this would only be important to actual shopkeepers, however, as I would be willing to bet that sales of these candles and marigold chains are all that supported these old women.

The square is a revealing glimpse into the practices of Catholic missionaries in non-Western countries during the early modern period (1450-1789) and beyond. The Basilica we visited was built by the Jesuits, an order started in the mid-sixteenth century in Spain by St Ignatius Loyola. Across from the Basilica were a church and Cathedral, one built by the Franciscans (founded by St Francis of Assisi in the early 13th century) and the other built by the Dominicans (founded by St Francis’ contemporary, St Dominic).

One of the most destructive aspects of missionizing in this time was the competition for converts between the various orders. Mission work had two different aspects: the spiritual and the physical. Spiritually, many of these missionaries sincerely believed in the need to save heathens and provide them the opportunity to choose Christ and go to heaven. However, the corollary was that these missionaries were very far away from home, and needed money and resources to support themselves and their flock wherever they happened to be. Poaching of flocks became a financial hardship and thus competition between the orders became the norm. Thus you have three very nice, very expensive large churches built within a short walk of each other.

The competition between the orders actually grew so fierce in Japan that the government there threw out all the Catholics and only the Dutch, being Protestant and uninterested in converting anyone, were allowed to trade on a remote island in Japan for nearly three hundred years until the United States forcibly reopened Japan in the mid-19th century.

I really enjoyed this part of our trip, though with mixed feelings. The architecture and statuary design were completely untouched by the influence of the high Baroque that changed the face of so many churches in Europe, but the very existence of the churches represented centuries of subjugation by the Portuguese in Goa. In fact, although India gained its independence in 1947, Goa only gained independence from Portugal in 1961.

After visiting the church square, we visited the ruins on the hill of the church of St. Augustine. This church had become a fulcrum point of tension, and was destroyed in the mid 19th century. Only one tower was still partially intact, but even from that tower, you could see the immense size of the structure, which would have been visible upon entrance to the harbor. Rico and Juliet decided to climb the old tower – which, as I just pointed out, has been in ruins for over a century and a half – as I watched from below, praying very hard that there would be no broken bones or scrambling to run for the driver in Goa. However, they both made it safely… and complete with some pretty cool pictures.

The control of Goa by the Portuguese actually reminds me of Lord Bevin’s famous quote to Mahatma Gandhi upon the departure of the British from India – that India was ungovernable due to its large size, multiplicity of languages and religions, and so on. I find it ironic that the local flavor of Goa is very Christian and Portuguese in general (the local folk songs are very Iberian in style), but everyone still speaks English. The very thing that Lord Bevin and the British gave to India – the English language – is what makes India governable. In India, no ethnic group or language can be valued in total above any other language group (even though Hindi is privileged), because English cuts across all boundaries. I compare this to my experience in Myanmar, where the Burmese people form the largest ethnic group, but there are multiple large ethnic groups in Myanmar which are essentially marginalized, both deliberately by the government and by default through the official use of the Burmese language.

In the evening, we arranged a great game of cricket. The rules of cricket as I know them – there are five overs with six balls each for each side. There can be only one bowler per over. If the ball hits the wickets, the batter is out. If the ball is hit and immediately caught, the batter is out. You can achieve runs by actually running, by being thrown a wide ball by the bowler, or by hitting the ball a distance far enough to achieve an automatic four or six runs. Apparently, the proper way to play cricket actually takes five days. And we thought baseball could go long!

For our final evening in Goa, many of us chose to go to Caravela restaurant again and linger over dinner. It was international night, so I was very happy with the food selection. By this time, nearly everyone on the group has had some sort of digestive/stomach upset, with various levels of severity, so I think nearly everyone was happy with the selection. Derrick has decided that naan and beer is the way to go for the remainder of the trip. Our group clearly isn’t accustomed to the volume of spices that are used in most of the food here.

We fly out in the morning to Bangalore, our long weekend being over. I expect Bangalore to be more developed than New Delhi and more shiny and less colonial looking than Mumbai. We’ll see if I am correct. I also understand that Bangalore is cooler than our last three destinations (meaning about 80’F), and I think all of us are ready for that after three days of near 100% humidity. I know that I am personally interested in seeing Bangalore as it is in the south of India, and I am curious to see what is different here than in the north and on the coast that we have already seen.