The Evening Novena

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.

The touristy “sun,sand and feni” Goa is not what you get in this book,but people living the everyday life; people caught in their houses,defined by curios from the past speckling the rooms; and decrepit buildings run over by nature and time. The photographs,all black-and-white and brooding,show the loss of a time in the long shadows drawn against dark walls. From a wrinkled hand clasping a rosary to photographs of dead family members on a chipped wall,the images are poignant and introspective and seen through an affectionate eye.

Dasgupta’s relationship with Goa goes back to the early 1980s. “For me Goa represented a freedom not found elsewhere. You could be whoever you wanted to be in Goa. But it was only recently,after I moved there to live,that I found this other darker,more complex Goa.”