Prabuddha Dasgupta captures the many faces of Catholic Goa

As Dona Georgina Figueiredo, an old Goan lady wearing a flowery blouse bought in Lisbon, shows writer William Dalrymple around her 18th century mansion in Loutolim, she says, “The Portuguese were in Goa for a full two and a half centuries before you British conquered a single inch of Indian soil. And they were here in 1960, more than a decade after you all went home again.” Dalrymple recounts this in an essay that accompanies 70 photographs by Prabuddha Dasgupta in the book Edge of Faith (Seagull Books, Rs 1,495).

The Portuguese were forced out in 1961, but there is still a generation of Catholics living a double life, soaked in nostalgia for a time when the language of choice was Portuguese, when musicians played guitars and sang fados, when houses had art-nouveau balconies, when the Mass was in Latin and one had a drink at a taverna. “Spiritually, culturally even physically, they represent something unique which I have not seen in the rest of India,” says Dasgupta. “It was almost like encountering a southern European community that had little in common with the rest of India. And this community was Hindu a few hundred years ago.”

While Dalrymple’s 32-page essay speaks of how religion keeps the Goans united and what the Catholics and the Hindus share — superstitions, saints and idols— Dasgupta’s photographs show the remains of the past in the present. “The idea was not to have an essay that would support the photographs or vice versa, but to have two independent takes on the subject. One written and one photographic,” says Dasgupta who has recently bought a home in North Goa.

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