Not often but every once in a while the past rises in strange ways. As it did in 1901 at the Santa Cruz Ground in Fort Kochi. If one goes by the writings of K.L. Bernard in his book, History of FortCochin, the ground held and still holds, in its buried layers, evidences of a past that links centuries of European hegemony over the area.
Presumably, before the Portuguese made Fort Cochin the first European settlement in Asia (1503-1665) the ground was a pond, with a temple standing on its east side, where Bernard Master’s (K.L. Bernard) house currently stands. During the Dutch period (1665-1773), the Portuguese fort, Fort Immanuel, was reduced to one-third its size and eight bastions were built, the Utrecht bastion coming up towards the east of the ground. The pond was filled with plucked idols, altars, pulpits and images from the destroyed Portuguese churches and covered with flattened earth. It became the present day ground flanked by roads — Bernard Master Road, Bernard Master Lane and the Santa Cruz School Road — on its three sides, with the Baron House on its west and towering rain trees lining its edge. It became the venue of seven tournaments, a playground for schoolchildren, site for exhibitions and training for men from the Fire Department that came up on its brink during the Second World War.
Biju Bernard, son of K.L. Bernard, says that his father’s love for history is well-known. As a legendary teacher, history buff and raconteur, his descriptions of events, gathered through hearsay and research, were gripping. The digging of the Santa Cruz Ground was graphically narrated, says Biju. He remembers his father’s retelling: The British began digging in search for fresh water, aware of the handed-down stories. The crowds gathered as the earth was scooped and waited and watched with bated breath for buried church treasure. They were indeed in for a shock. Out came two canons and a six foot statue of Mother Mary with Infant Jesus, a dog and a man with a knife at her feet. The crowd fell silent and the statue was whisked away. It now stands beatifically in an alcove of the newly constructed Saude Church on the Fort Kochi-Kanamally Road. The two canons are placed on the newly constructed walkway on the beach.
“This may be true. There were about more than 10 Catholic churches in the area, which were pulled down by the Dutch. Their images, altars and pulpits were buried, lost or cast aside. Earlier, it was easy to find them in curio shops, until the Indo-Portuguese Museum came up and the precious heritage found its way to preservation,” says Fr. Francis M.J. Fernandez, former rector of Santa Cruz Basilica.
Dutch cultural anthropologist Bauke van der Pol, researching Dutch history in India and whose book, The Dutch East India Company in India, was released last week, says that the Utrecht Bastion stood at the east end of the ground but no evidence remains. He concludes evidence of bastions from ruins and from the gradient of the land. Bauke says that the possibility of a water body may be the reason for the remains of the bastion to sink and hence the missing link. About the statue, he says that Portuguese images were decorative, artistic and ornate and hence the image of a dog and the man with a knife could be attributed to that.
David T. Mooken lives in the Baron House that stands imposing on the western side, its rear buttressed walls facing the ground. He bought the house from a Maharashtrian gentleman named Gavaskar who was from Mangalore. The house documents mention one Anne Abeehyel, who was believed to be a Portuguese spinster. “The houses then were built along and on the wall and had a courtyard in the centre of the building. One could walk directly on to the street from the ground floor. The first floor was the living quarters, the ground floor was supposedly a stable and there were ramps to walk the horse, which is good evidence. I am told there were two to three ponds in the ground with lotus blooms, which were filled during the Second World War. A balcony, facing the ground, and a stone staircase with a handrail too were features of the house,” says David.
Biju, sitting in the charming Master Café that overlooks the ground, talks of it being the home ground of Jolly Brothers who played their football matches here. Most of Bernard Master’s students are now in their 70s. The silver heads speak of him and of his stories as a gripping mix of fable and history. It’s a ground on which they have played. Today too children continue to play on the ground, none aware of its buried history, of the statue of Madonna that came out from under the earth.
