The Indian Ocean - Michael Pearson [193]
In his classic account In an Antique Land, Ghosh found in Kerala ports which had once been prosperous. Mangalore was lauded by Ibn Battuta, and by the Portuguese Barbosa. Then it fell into decline as the British passed it by. But more recently men from one village which is part of the larger town have worked in the Gulf and prospered; 'everything around us, the well-tended gardens and the pastel-coloured bungalows with their thickets of TV aerials, spoke of quietly prosperous, suburban lives.' In other parts of Kerala Ghosh found 'large houses, some new, with sharp geometric lines and bright pastel colours that speak eloquently of their owners' affiliations with the Persian Gulf.' Later he commented on 'a small cluster of Gulf-gilded houses.'5
The example of people from Goa in western India is in many ways typical. We are writing here about the Christian part of the population, not the Hindu. People from this enclave have migrated for centuries, long before it became part of the Indian Union in 1961. Indeed, ironically as the old Goans move out or back and forth, a flood of migrants from other parts of India has changed completely the whole aspect of Goa. Migration from Goa was and is encouraged by the poverty of their homeland, and by their having been converted early on by the Portuguese to Roman Catholicism. The result was that they had none of the food taboos which limited both Hindus and Muslims: Goans could cook any sort of food for anyone, hence their prominent role as cooks and stewards on western ships. Goans also, as a result of a long colonial experience, were more 'westernised' than most other Indians, and so could serve as nursemaids, musicians, and so on. The widespread network of the Catholic church provided support, advice and spiritual comfort wherever a Goan ended up. Christian Goans were alert to wider changes in the Indian Ocean area. In the mid-twentieth century many more attended English language schools in Goa than those teaching the Portuguese of the colonial masters.
This expedience has meant that Goans have had several different favoured places to migrate to. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century the focus was on the other Portuguese colonies, especially Mozambique, where they and other Indians controlled the economy. Later in the nineteenth century British India was the El Dorado, along with other British colonies in East Africa. In 1921 it was estimated that Goa's population was about 470,000, with another 200,000 living outside. For the last few decades the movement has been to the Gulf states. Today there are sizeable communities in such South Asian cities as Mumbai, Pune and Karachi, and further afield in Nairobi, Kampala, Dar es Salaam, Bahrain, Abu Dubai, and even in London, Lisbon, California, Toronto and Sydney. The village of Moira is perhaps typical. A researcher in 1980 found that half the population were Catholic, and of these 85 per cent got cash income either from remittances from those overseas, or from the superannuation of those who had returned.6 Thirty years ago one would drive around Goa and the locals would point out the large houses of people who had been chief stewards, or cooks on British ships. Today the even more elaborate new houses belong to families working in, or returned from, the Gulf, just as Ghosh noted a little further south. This hints at the way Goans, and other diasporic communities, circulated, being away much of the time but retaining strong ties with their homes and villages of origin, sending back money and hoping to retire there. In particular, Goan women over the last two centuries have been major