A paradise lost for the Goan people

Once Upon a Time in Aparanta
Sudeep Chakravarti
Penguin Books
220 pages
Rs250

Goa means different things to different people. To tourists, it's one of India's happening places and a hot destination for New Year bashes. Companies that have their conferences here apparently get the highest numbers of sign-ins.

Many have also dropped anchor here to pursue their creative inclinations and that includes the author of Once upon a time in Aparanta, Sudeep Chakravarti, resident since 2004, whose attention is engaged by the old world charm of the place that's fading away.

Chakravarti's attempt distills the many conversations with the locals; brushes up on the spellings of yore (Caxinath is how Kashinath is spelt in Portuguese); finds local nuggets that feni from a particular village is the best available, and blended all these with local newsmakers — corrupt politicians and wheeler-dealers — to weave a tale that is part-racy, part-nostalgic and at best a casual read for an extended weekend. The text is peppered with local language expletives and Portuguese expressions, one of which translates as "confusion to our enemies' and is used when raising a toast.

The plot, which is never quite substantial, revolves around a set of characters that include a professor and self-appointed guardian of the place, a corrupt politician called Winston (but with none of Churchill's erudition), a drug lord, a transexual and a corrupt cop.

In the end, the chief characters meet with gory ends right from the do-gooder who's eliminated by the "mafia" to the Russian "viceroy of trance" who was found with a bullet hole in his neck, in Moscow.

Chakravarti's book may have some resonance now given the events surrounding the mysterious death of Scarlett, the Brit teen who was allegedly raped and killed and more recently, the sordid events surrounding the Monserrate case.

The writer has used a satirical approach to describing a Goa that is going, going… and maybe not yet gone, and his characters are largely caricature, and all irrespective of their educational status speak a kind of pidgin-Goan English.

For the author, this has been an opportunity to give vent to his own creativity of words with expressions such as "the sea that embroiders the land to the west" or a reference to a villa as a 'lovingly built puzzle of stone" and yet another, Avenida Srinagar, a reference to a road line with shops owned by Kashmiri businessmen that are a front for nefarious activities.

d_brian@dnaindia.net