A Review of the Book, 'Beyond the Cape' Sin, Saints, Slaves and Settlers by Braz Menezes

The most refreshing aspect of Braz Menezes' book, ‘Beyond the Cape’- Sin, Saints, Slaves and Settlers is, although partly autobiographical and full of memories it does not slide into that terrible realm of sap.

Braz, narrates events dispassionately, events that touch deeply on the lives of Indians who for better prospects had gone to East Africa, here Kenya, in search of a better living for themselves as well as their families.

His terribly sad life as a Boarder at St. Joseph’s Arpora is revealed to us vividly in his letters to his Family. Unemotionally, Braz, tells us what we all know, the way religious Institutions treat their dependants, in this case the Boarders, without any qualms.

Now to the Book…

Lando, a precocious, intelligent boy of around ten lives with his parents in Kenya.

In the early forties a great many people one of them Chico, Lando’s Father had moved on to the British Colonies, this is where the jobs were. Although it was a wrench leaving Goa the familiar for the unknown, the choices were few. 

Goa was the place for people with huge tracts of land, the latifúndios, huge expanses of agricultural land, whose income enabled the latifundarios to live in great luxury. For the rest of the populace, although owners of land, it was difficult, a struggle almost, jobs were scarce and you needed to know the Right People to place you in a Government Job, which for most of everyone was quite impossible.

In a passage, Lando narrates how his maternal grandparents worked so very hard to harvest the cashew crop, selling the nuts and distilling country liquor from the cashew apples. But this bonanza came once a year, how do you support yourself the rest of the year?

So to Africa they went... Some to the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Lourenço Marques sometimes duped by unscrupulous Agents but British Africa was the best bet and that is where Chico headed to, with his young wife Anja.

Kenya was the best bet for Goans; they could work in Banks or as Government servants. They dressed well in Western clothes, they were adept at table manners, they drank all sorts of European wines and liquors, they were polite to the point of servility, they had of course exchanged one colony for another and their stint with Salazar had trained them to be docile and submissive, one of the key elements to survive in any Colony, live and work without Matata.

So Lando lives in Kenya, with his parents and his siblings, a comfortable life, good food, other Goan families, church, priests, the trappings of a civilized, Catholic population. 

Of course, there was the colour bar, something that was not enforced in Goa, so Lando grew up in a World of three colours.

At the top of the pinnacle you had the Colonisers, the whites, with special Clubs, front pews in the Church for European Catholics, restaurants, cinema theatres all for the White Coloniser, as young boys Lando and Jeep wondered what really went on in these places only for the elite, the White Coloniser.

Then came the Browns, the Asians, where Lando and Jeep fitted in comfortably and happily, they too had their Clubs and schools. Lando and Jeep knew exactly what was going on in these places, no surprises here, they were a part of the Christmas festivities, celebrations for the Feast of St. Francis Xavier, weddings when their parents danced the Mandó in mincing steps. Here it was the Blacks who wondered what really went on in these places, only for the Browns.

Nobody wondered what went on with the Blacks, living in hovels, ragged clothes and bare feet, nothing here to wonder, they were the dregs who worked for the Browns as well as the Whites.

There were of course other Asians; the Gujeratis who transported every part of their lives  in India to Africa, they were there to trade as they had done for centuries, they had no desire to be the‘Assimilados’ people white on the inside brown outside, coconuts.

Chico, had like every parent in Kenya this one burning desire, that their children be extremely well educated. For this, the parents were ready to go to any extent, working at two or three jobs, scrimping, saving literary every penny and shilling from their sometimes meagre salaries.

The women slogged on wood fires, something they probably had never done in Goa to provide good meals for their children and their very tired husbands.

Lando speaks with great feeling of the foods his Mother Anja cooked, Sorpotel, Xacuti, Pulao and the delicious Christmas sweets, dodol, nevreos. He and his siblings squatted for hours watching their Mother Anja, peel, cut, measure, simmer the ingredients for Christmas sweets.

Oh yes, Lando was really happy in Kenya with Jeep his pal and his dog Simba. They shared everything, laughter, secrets, plans, escapades they even shared religion discussing and comparing which Priest would give them the least of penances for all those zillions of transgressions that little boys find so irresistible.

Chico, like all good Catholics was obsessed with ‘bringing up Lando and sister Linda as good and proper Catholics, the fear of God and discipline has to be firmly instilled into them.’

It was very confusing for everyone, if you were afraid of God’s Wrath then where was that tender, merciful, loving God. Yes, there seemed to be contradictions everywhere. Chico himself was a very confused man, as I suppose Catholics are to this day, it did not help that he himself was an orphan who had never known any love or compassion.

His great obsession of confessing every little ‘sin’ was getting to be really tiresome.

The dream and the desire of an excellent education for their children was shared by all Goan parents, now where could they get this sterling education?

In Goa of course, in the bosom of their extended families and their ancestors.

In those Boarding schools run by priests and nuns. Here you would receive the best of Education under the tutelage of Priests, who as everyone in the Catholic world knows are the direct emissaries of God.

It had been Chico’s ardent dream to go to one of these Schools, but circumstances had prevented it, now this dream was foisted on to a young, very normal and happy boy Lando.

Here was Lando happy with his older sister Linda, leading a life that most ten year olds do, but he needed ‘discipline ‘you had to beat them into submission’ and that is what most parents wanted and still want.

How else would Lando be the perfect ‘Assimilado’ working in a Colony with White Masters?

So Lando was plucked from his happy home, a home that had his very loving, hardworking parents, his friend Jeep, his dog Simba and most of all the delicious food his Mother cooked and was brought to Goa.

Although Anja’s family lived in Goa, she was not at all happy to send off her precious son all the way to Goa, but Chico and Uncle Antonio were adamant, to Goa would Lando go, in St Joseph’s Arpora he would study.

On their arrival Chico’s Family was treated with great deal of love and concern by Anja’s Family, and then Lando was taken to Arpora to the very famous Catholic School to study and be trained for an amazing future...

That is when Lando’s and every Boarders private Hell begins. Lando, hardly mentions if the Jesuits resorted to the crass methods of torture that the Secular priests adopt in their schools.

Were the students canned, leaving their hands raw and blistered?

Were their ears twisted and pinched out of shape?

Were they kept kneeling for hours in the hot Sun? Lando makes no mention of corporal punishments.

Maybe, the Jesuits are refined, suave, and dislike corporal punishments, but History has proved that Jesuits are very intelligent and scheming, they know and understand people scrupulously, and maybe they have refined their methods of torture... they starve their Boarders.

Lando and the Boarders were starved, they craved food, they dreamt food, they discussed food but nothing helped.

Instead of playing as children usually do when they have some free time, they foraged for food; they sat under fruit bearing trees and waited for fruit, gnawed by bats to fall so that they could devour these “kollam” and assuage the terrible gnawing in their stomachs. They gathered wild berries and savoured them.

Nothing helped, desperate letters flew to their Parents, ‘Please tell Daddy to write to the Fathers for an extra loaf of Bread’, ‘the rations have not improved has Daddy written to the Priests?’ Nothing helped…

On the other side Anja and the other Mothers desperate, weeping every time a letter arrives from Goa.

Linda explains the situation beautifully, whenever Chico brought a letter from Lando home, he always brought an expensive bouquet of flowers or depending on the degree of Lando's misery, a box of really expensive chocolates to alleviate Anja’s distress.

Until one fine day …

One fine evening when Lando was gulping down his tea, a boy from a Senior Class handed him a note from one of the Priests, it said that the recipient of the note should come to Tea at the Rector’s Office.

 ‘Tea?’ ‘Was this some sort of a joke?’ But other boarders, who had received similar notes, clarified the matter.

‘Make the most of it; it’s High Tea with a great deal of food’.

Lando and Musso his pal in school decided not only to eat till they burst, but made plans on how to smuggle out food for later.

And what a spread it was, Christmas time, so there heaps of Nevreos, Dodol, Khulkhuls, ladoos.

Lando and the other invitees fell on the repast much as the inmates of Bergen-Belsen must have done on being liberated by the British Army.

The stuffed their mouths, they did not pause; some of the food went into pockets of their trousers, even shirt fronts.

The Priests meanwhile watched them with a calm demeanour, little smiles playing on their ascetic faces, they knew what effect food has on starving little boys. Midway through the repast one of the Priests shot a question;

After a couple of years in this venerable Institution, did they feel some sort of a glow in their chests; did they feel they could join the Order? Did they feel they had a vocation?

That is when Lando and Musso despite their hunger ask pertinent questions about the Seminary.

‘Would their grades be transferred to the Seminary Records?’

’Of course they would’ assured the wily foxes.

On their return to the Dormitories, the two little boys take stock of their young lives. Starvation, periodic outbreaks of dysentery and to add to their misery regular infestations of bedbugs.

Nothing much to look forward to for the next seven years…

A better bet would be to join the Seminary, life would be very comfortable and most importantly food would be good and in plenty.

But then Lando remembers what his Mother Anja had whispered in his ear before he left for the School, ‘Do not join the Priesthood’

So Musso and Lando carefully craft a letter to their Parents. They write about how the Priests had succeeded in explaining ‘those special feelings that he and Musso had been harbouring in their inner selves’.

They now felt they both had vocations for Priesthood, they would like to join the Seminary immediately.

Lando, further adds that once a Priest, he would follow in his Uncle Orlando’s footsteps, go to Brazil, work with the poor; give them heavy penances for their infractions so that those unfortunates in Brazil would be better Catholics.

He then adds that he was sure his Dad in particular would be happy with this momentous decision of his. He urges the Parents to reply straightaway as the move to Seminary was immediate.

Anja and Musso’s Mothers go berserk as expected and in a couple of weeks’ time both Lando and Musso are out of the Prestigious Boarding School on the way to their home…Africa, here we come.    

Braz Menezes has not minced words neither has he glossed over the facts when he narrates his life at the St. Joseph’s Boarding School at Arpora.

At some point of time, most of us have stayed at Convents and Colleges run by Religious Orders, suffered the same experiences and indignities as has Braz, and glossed over our experiences.

‘Oh remember Sister Rose Marie how cute she was…remember how she used to roll her eyes when Gilda sang that Israeli Song’ and all of us Grandmothers now, burst into peals of laughter. We pretend that we have forgotten that Sister Rose- Marie as a Boarding Mistress was a tyrant...

Sister Rose-Marie starved us, let me not mince words. The Meals were of the poorest quality, foul rice, curries that were so watery that they vanished once put on the rice, the cheapest vegetables, beef that ruined your jaws so hard and stringy it was, and fish so malodorous that once placed in your mouth was sure to get your tongue and mouth itching.

The sad part and the most devious part was that on complaining, the Boarding Mistress would adjust her wimple and in a show of great moral hurt would say, ‘If you don’t like our ways, you can leave for a better place’.

Sadly, I would not have left, at least I did not have the gumption to do so, and we were conditioned to be ‘good girls.’ People would ‘talk ‘and marriage proposals would not come our way.

So we stayed…as the Nuns knew we would. 

Braz’s parents and ours too, paid a great deal of very hard earned money, saved and scrimped at great sacrifice to send their children to these so called prestigious convent schools.

What deceitfulness prompted these Religious Orders to defraud us to such an extent? Force us to live in appalling conditions, eat meals not fit for anyone.

What sort of religion teaches its propagators to betray parents who send their children to these Institutions with such high hopes and such trust?

Braz, you are my hero for tearing the veils we place around these Religious Institutions, for getting me out of my somnolent state and to see face-on the Religious orders for what they really are.

So now if some of my friends narrate to me with laughter crowding their throats, that Sister Marie-Isabel is at the ripe old age of 85 preparing charts, painstakingly drawing the Agonised Face of Christ, I would say, ‘Sister, it is high time, you really looked very deep into His eyes’