Age of Frenzy

by Mahabaleshwar Sail

  The shef loosened the ropes that bound Marto Nayak, Abu Mirashi and Ventu Nayak. ‘You will be sent to prison in Goapattana,’ he declared.

  The shef sent four soldiers to Ventu Nayak’s house to fetch his two grandsons, one aged fourteen and the other sixteen. He bound them up in the space that Ventu Nayak had vacated and the boys began to scream, ‘Ajja! Don’t let them take us away. Stay with us!’ Tears gushed out of Ventu’s eyes. He came back to his spot in the line and stood there silently like an ox waiting to be tied up in its shed.

  Marto Nayak and Abu Mirashi still stood on the other side. The shef summoned four soldiers, ‘Tie their hands and make them run all the way to Goapattana. Say that the shef of Adolshi village has sent them to jail. I will testify in court that these two men killed Daba Devli and his mother. All the new converts will be witnesses.’

  Marto and Abu quietly went back to their place in the line.

  ‘I assume now that all of you will become Christians along with your families. You have worshipped false gods and images. You are sinners. But Jesus will forgive your sins and the gates of Heaven will open before you,’ the priest declared.

  ‘Some of our people are hiding in the forest. What will you do about them? And why didn’t you bring Nilu Nayak here along with us?’ Payak Gaonkar demanded angrily.

  ‘I know Nilu Nayak well. He is a good man who loves the Hindu faith, but bears no ill-will towards Christianity. One day he will come to Jesus of his own will,’ the shef declared.

  ‘He will become a Christian. We shall ask him to,’ the priest added.

  Ventu Nayak, Surya Gurav and Lavu Nayak suddenly remembered that Nilu Nayak had summoned them to the temple to take the deity out of Goa, that evening. But they were standing here, bound by ropes!

  Nilu Nayak’s anxiety increased as darkness fell. The grace period that had been granted to the villagers had come to an end. A fresh contingent of soldiers had come from Goapattana, perhaps to take control of the temple the next day.

  Nilu knew that Murari Nayak’s family was hiding in the forest and that Mhablu and Balsu Nayak had returned to their homes earlier that day. He went to the edge of the forest and called out, ‘Murari, this is Nilu Nayak. Come out. Don’t be afraid. We must decide what we shall do with the gramdev.’

  Murari emerged from among the trees and Nilu took him to Mhablu’s house. Everyone was so scared that they spoke in whispers.

  ‘Lord Ramnath must be taken out of Adolshi this evening. Let’s meet at the temple at dusk,’ Nilu Nayak said.

  ‘What happens to us happens to our gods too. Let the gods remain here,’ Balsu said quietly as he walked away.

  ‘If someone brings the idol out of the temple, I’ll carry it away. But I don’t know what I will do with it. I will be lost in those strange lands,’ Murari said, his breath caught in his throat, his face dark with worry.

  ‘I’ll go with the Lord too. Better than staying here and becoming a Christian. Nilu dado come with us. Be with us till we set the idol down at some new spot,’ Mhablu pleaded.

  ‘Let’s see. Who wants to come to the temple with me?’ Nilu asked, but no one said a word. They were scared that they might be dragged to the camp and tied up with the other villagers. Nilu finally took Mhablu’s seventeen-year-old son, Shambhu, by the hand and set off to pick up the ceremonial sword from its shrine.

  They could see the oil lamp burning faintly in the sanctum, but its light didn’t carry very far and the large temple was quite dark. The priest and his brother, Timanna Bhat, were sitting silently, steeped in worry. ‘Who’s there?’ Rayanna Bhat demanded, startled.

  ‘Nilu Nayak, Bhatto. Come to take the Lord. We’ll take Him to some place where there’s no danger of sledgehammers and pickaxes,’ he said.

  ‘No, no! I won’t let you touch the Lord!’ The priest rushed to the sanctum and blocked the door.

  ‘Bhatto, the grace period granted to the temple has ended. They may come here any moment. Then there’s no saving the temple, or the Lord.’

  The priest seemed to be losing his mind. ‘You Nayaks have your fields and your orchards. I have only the Lord. What will I do if I lose Him? I have served this deity since I was an infant. What will I do now, in my old age?’ he whined.

  Nilu felt sorry for the man as he grasped him by the arms and moved him to one side. Nilu prostrated before the deity and prayed in silence. He spread a length of red silk on the ground before the sanctum and placed the idol on it. He left the flaming wicks on the ground and brought the brass lamp out of the sanctum. He picked up the idol of Paikdev, one of the lesser deities in Lord Ramnath’s pantheon, and placed it on the silk cloth before stepping out briskly to fetch the image of Rudradev. Nilu went about his work with no sign of agitation, but the bhat’s wails, like drops of water, scattered in all directions.

  Suddenly, the priest’s wife appeared with a small cloth bundle which she placed beside the idols. ‘The Lord’s ornaments. No one came to remove them after the festival in Magh,’ she said. She was a tall, fair woman, much younger than the priest.

  ‘Why do you weep?’ she asked her husband. ‘There is a god. Today you serve this god. Tomorrow you can serve that god, if they ask you to.’

  Nilu Nayak tied the ends of the cloth together and placed the bundle on Shambhu’s head. He hoisted the heavy brass lamp on to his shoulder and picked up the sword, ‘Let’s go,’ he said. They set off with Shambhu in the lead and old man Nilu, with the sword in his hand, following in his wake. They could hear the priest’s wails even as they crossed the fields.

  The soldiers untied the ropes that bound the villagers once they agreed to become Christians. Some youths were sent home to fetch food for the men, but the cordon of soldiers remained on all sides. They would be baptized, along with their families, at the Kalapur church the next morning.

  Some four hundred persons gathered by the camp the next day. The fear and worry of the past months seemed to recede as children laughed and played and women gossiped. It looked like a group of people who were going to attend some temple festival.

  Padre Colaso told them how Jesus helped a blind man regain his sight. ‘You were blind all this time. You worshipped false gods. You will get new eyes, a new sight … You will be freed from sin and will be led to Heaven,’ he declared.

  They didn’t understand much about the new eyes and the new sight but Payak Gaonkar’s squint-eyed wife was delighted. If this wretched squint disappears and I get new eyes, I’ll become a Christian as many times as they ask me to!

  The next task on Captain Barrett’s agenda was to raze the temple and build a church in its place. It was a Christian village now, except for some five or six households that remained Hindu, but he wasn’t too bothered about them. How long could they survive without performing their rituals or celebrating their festivals?

  In the old days when Portuguese officials came to the village, people remained indoors out of fear. But now the men sat silently on their porches, and the women stared listlessly from behind half-open doors. They were not very excited, but nor were they scared. If a tiger strikes you with his paw and then lets you go, your fear and awe of the animal becomes less. Who knows, as new converts they might have felt these rulers are ‘our people’ now! Captain Diego Barrett discussed the issue of razing the temple with Shef Ribeir and Padre Colaso. Shef Ribeir would have liked to close up the temple and let the structure decay and collapse on its own, but Captain Barrett and Padre Colaso insisted on bringing it down at once. The viceroy had decreed that whatever material could be salvaged from the destroyed temple should be used in the construction of the church, and the remaining funds should be raised from the village. The church would acquire the gold ornaments, brass and copper vessels and the fields owned by the temple. They would appropriate the funds set aside for temple activities and demand contributions from the villagers for building the church. The senior priest exhorted the Christian gaonkars, telling them that as good Christians they should actively participate in the buil
ding of the new church. Every Christian male was expected to go to the temple site armed with pickaxe or crowbar or spade. Those who were not present would be punished.

  People huddled in small groups discussing the development. All of them were against going to the site the next morning. None of them could imagine raising their implements on a structure they had worshipped at for generations. The women told their menfolk not to get involved in this task. We don’t care whether the church is built or not, we will not touch a single stone in the temple, they said. Just as they used force to convert us, let them destroy the temple themselves.

  The next morning, some forty soldiers gathered by the temple. They waited for a long time, but not a single villager turned up. The captain was furious. He wanted the soldiers to start the job at once, but they didn’t have enough tools. Nor did they have the skills needed to dismantle beams and tiles and stone slabs.

  The soldiers gathered whatever implements they could and set about demolishing the sanctum. And the blows of an evil Satan, the cruel master of a blind, treacherous age began to fall on the sanctum sanctorum walls. The sound reverberated through the village. Harsh, cruel sounds. A temple, a spring, a lake, a peepal … what beautiful surroundings for these gods! No one bothered to ask whether the gods were really present in the temple. It was the innocent faith of people over so many centuries that had turned the idol into a powerful god.

  Each stroke of the pickaxe seemed to pierce every eardrum in the village. The sound echoed in every heart. Everyone grieved, as though a near one had died. The blows pounded their heads. An ancient, exquisitely fashioned skull was being crushed.

  Rayanna Bhat sat quietly outside the temple while his wife and children watched from their door. His brother Timanna was seated beneath the peepal. Rayanna had been distraught ever since the idol was carried away. He had not spoken a word nor had he eaten anything for four days. He’d been telling everyone over the last few months that if the outsiders dared to touch the deity or the temple, they would be rendered childless, they would take to their beds, the sledgehammers would strike their own heads. But now, the deity had been taken away from the temple, and disaster loomed before him. His brother remained cocooned in silence. His wife tried to reason with him, ‘Let’s go and live in the holy city, Gokarn’ she said, but he refused to listen. ‘I’ve lived in this temple since I was an infant. Forty years have passed here, this is where I shall die.’

  When the soldiers entered the temple, Rayanna went up to the captain. ‘You are the rulers who have taken over this land, why do you destroy the gods and the temples? Our faith is built around this deity, and it is on Him that we depend for a living. I had believed that the deity would destroy you if you entered the temple, but I know now that nothing of the sort will happen. All the rituals of worship that we conducted here are worthless! What matters now, are our bellies. You are taking away the only means of keeping our bellies filled.’

  ‘Bhatto, you are an ordinary man, and small men like you should have no trouble making a living. You served the temple all these years, serve the church from now on. We will build a large church here, we need people to work in it,’ the captain said.

  ‘What work will I do in a church?’

  ‘You were the bhat in the temple, you can be the padre in church.’

  ‘Can I really be a padre?’

  ‘Not you. We were thinking of making your son one,’ the captain intervened, signalling Padre Colaso to remain silent. ‘Bhatto, become a Christian along with your family. Your son and you can work in the church, we can make your son a priest.’

  A trace of a smile appeared on Rayanna Bhat’s face. Suddenly the captain asked, ‘Where are the deity’s ornaments?’

  ‘This wretched woman put the ornaments into the cloth bundle in which they carried the deity away. Didn’t listen to anyone,’ the bhat snapped.

  His wife stepped forward suddenly. ‘Can’t they make new ornaments for their gods? Why do they need our poor god’s ornaments?’ she asked.

  The captain summoned the villagers for a meeting that afternoon. It was more than a year since the last gaonki had taken place. Kenkre, Mangru Shenai and Krishna Shenai came from Raigali while the Nayaks of Shirvaddo, who were new converts, turned up in full force.

  ‘I had summoned all of you to work on building the church. Why didn’t you come?’ the captain asked.

  ‘Where was the need to pull down the temple to build a church?’ asked Ventu Nayak. ‘Just as the temple was built on the people’s faith, so will the church one day. What is left in that structure? The deity has been carried away. Hammering at it is like pounding a palm rib thinking it’s a snake! Those blows will only land on our hearts! You may have forced us to convert, but that god still resides inside us. Now you go manage the demolition yourselves. We might help in building the church some day, but we’ll worship our old gods as well.’ The old man was fuming.

  ‘Do you mean that you did not become Christians of your own free will? Do you not consider yourselves as Christians?’

  ‘No! No … No!’ There was a chorus of angry voices.

  Padre Colaso was beside himself with rage. ‘A Christian who goes against his religion commits a grave sin and a heinous crime. The King has set up the Inquisition in Goa to tackle faithless people like you. I shall give your names to those officials and they will throw you in prison and burn you to death,’ he threatened.

  Restraining the padre, the captain said, ‘They have become Christians just now. Very soon they will follow the path of Christianity, they need time.’ Turning to the villagers he said, ‘Bala Shenai the former kulkarni has left the village so I nominate Andrew Gracias, son of Mungru Gracias, as the new kulkarni. He has brought all the books and papers that I have asked for. You can decide who will be the new mhal gaonkar, but I have a suggestion – Ranu Kaisuro will be a good choice.’

  A few members of the Nayak community began to protest. ‘No, no, that can’t be. There are only three or four Brahmin families left while there are more than forty Nayaks in the village. The Brahmins have used their authority over us all these years, we won’t let that happen any more.’

  ‘Yes, the Brahmins wielded their power, so the gaonkari system worked well. Everyone’s rights were protected and religious functions were conducted well,’ Mungru Gracias declared.

  ‘Forget all that. There are no caste divisions any longer. We are all Christians, now.’

  Christa Gracias was most annoyed. ‘How can everyone be the same? Brahmins are Brahmins and Kshatriyas are Kshatriyas. We shall remain Brahmins as long as the sun and the moon appear in the sky. We were Brahmins amongst the Hindus, why won’t we be Brahmins amongst the Christians? To be a Brahmin is a mark of our caste and our status. We have not sold this status to anyone,’ he said.

  ‘We don’t care who you are, there are more Nayaks in this village so we are the stronger community. The village headman will be a Nayak. Let Ventu Nayak be the mhal gaonkar,’ Babli Dias declared.

  ‘The gaonki system has been disrupted and must be brought back on track. The church must be built and we will need money. The next two years will be very difficult. Padre Colaso and I will accompany the village chief to the viceroy to seek financial help. So he must be a smart and educated person,’ the captain said.

  ‘Let Kenkre Bhatkar be the mhal gaonkar,’ Ventu Nayak interjected in a small voice.

  ‘The church will replace the temple. Everything else in the village administration will remain the same. The King of Portugal is not interested in village affairs. The temple’s wealth belongs to the church now. The land that belonged to the village, which we had taken control of, will not be returned. Some of those fields have been given to new converts. The rest will be sold and the money used for building the church,’ the captain declared.

  ‘You had promised land to those who became Christians. Many of the early converts got fields, but new converts have got nothing. Some of us have very little land, we should get fields too,’ Surya
Gurav said.

  ‘We shall extend full co-operation to all those who have become Christians. No Christian will remain poor and weak. Once the church is built, you will become masters of the village. We will take control of the land that belonged to those who have left the village and distribute it amongst the needy,’ the captain promised.

  The villagers hadn’t come forward to pull down the temple, yet the captain was a happy man. This was a Christian village now, and the system of village administration had been put back in place. ‘You are good Christians now, so your names and your clothes must be like other Christians too. You must not wear dhotis or turbans now,’ the captain said.

  The people looked around and saw that Ranu Kenkre and the other Brahmin villagers still wore dhotis and had turbans on their heads. The captain was not happy about this.

  ‘You must not use Hindu family names any longer. Use your Christian surnames. You must not hide the Christian names you have been given,’ he declared.

  The next day a band of workers, skilled in the art of demolishing buildings, arrived in the village. They had been requisitioned by the captains in charge of villages where temples had to be torn down. Some of them had demolished structures in Bardez. One of them, Timothy Moraes, earlier known as Tima Chari, was the son of Narsu Chari of Adolshi. He had worked as a wood cutter until his father-in-law taught him the art of carving beautiful objects out of wood. Skilled craftsmen were paid large sums of money to carve wooden images of Jesus and Mary, crucifixes, ornamental frames and altars for the new churches and chapels that were sprouting all over Goa.

  One day Tima went to Goapattana to work on some project and for the next six months there was no news of him. A new law forbidding churches and chapels from using objects created by Hindu craftsmen had been passed. Tima, who was intoxicated by the money he earned and the good life he lived, converted to Christianity to retain his job. He left his wife and married a Christian girl.