Goa is a fertile hunting ground for tall stories. Given its 450 years of Portuguese domination, the many colourful travellers from Europe who have faithfully (or otherwise) recorded their observations, including a detailed and vivid account of the Inquisition, its blooming as the destination of the ‘flower power’ generation of the 60s, its contemporary status as a laidback holiday centre, and its political games of musical chairs, which between 1990 and 2005 saw a roll call of as many as 15 chief ministers, a few of them ‘repeaters’, one would have imagined at least a shelf-full of novels on the place. Inexplicably, this has not happened, at least not in English. Even during the Portuguese era, such offerings were few, notable among them being O Signo da Ira (The Sign of Wrath) by Orlando da Costa. Just two relatively recent novels, Tivolem by Victor Rangel-Rebeiro and Let Me Tell You About Quinta by Savia Viegas, have been successful in capturing the aura of the place beyond the usual bromides of sun, sand and sea.
Varied cast
Now we have Sudeep Chakravarti’s The Baptism of Tony Calangute , which in itself is a reissue of Once Upon a Time in Aparanta , first published in 2008. Chakravarti is a versatile writer, having recently published the widely acclaimed The Bengalis: A Portrait of a Community , among other books. He has also published two other novels. Tony Calangute is no conventional crime novel but a spoof of this genre, replete with the most unsavoury characters, including the arch villain Winston Almeida, a greedy land-grabber and owner of the football team Almeida United; his two brothers, the cartoonish Iosif and the ambitious and ruthless Franklin, all from Varca; the corrupt cop PI Fernandes; the sadistic Brazilian transsexual known only as Princess; the Russian Sergei Yurlov, the ‘viceroy of trance’; and a host of others all pitted against the good guys, chiefly Tony Calangute himself, owner of Happy Bar in the barely fictionalised village of Succoro Do Mundo, and his cousin, Dino Dantas, the zealous activist and “self-appointed scourge of the fat cats of Aparanta” and the true hero of the book. A host of other minor characters, including a few “indu buggers”, flit in and out of the novel, which in the old days would have been called an ‘entertainment’.
Inventive language
And it is entertaining, the narrative speedy and often funny, though the colloquial lingo used seems more akin to Bandra English than Goan English, if such a genre actually exists. Here is a sample by Chakravarti via the villain Almeida: “What our aim is? Victory only. Victory only for fit buggers. Survival of — dis ting — survival of fittest, I am telling y’all. Udderwise, Goa going nowhere. No ticket only, so how to go? Mummy, daddy, childrens, young peoples, all be sad, no? Dis my goal, not only penalty only, but straight, dribbling like centre forward, one-nil, two-nil, tree-nil!... So y’all come and togedder like football team we go, all like centre forward, and score many goals for Goa…States for the peoples, lands for the peoples and powers for the peoples. Den only we all will be rich peoples and all. Den only.” The language would have rung more true if the author had incorporated commonly used Konkani expressions derived from the Portuguese, but it is amusing and inventive nevertheless.
Most people in Goa, even the ‘Catlicks’ (to use Chakravarti’s argot), would justifiably dispute the colloquialisms used in the book. In these politically correct times, it can even be risky to employ such parlance in print, more so if it’s out of context. Chakravarti is not guilty of that and, besides, his conventional language is both fluid and expressive.
Towards the end of the novel, truth eventually prevails, but at great cost and with plenty of dead bodies strewn around. There are several, easily identifiable parallels to real-life characters, but the malice, if any, is probably not intended. Tony Calangute is an entertaining beachside (or poolside) read.
The author does not pretend otherwise. Which means there is still that space in Goa for a tumultuous and sprawling Gabriel Garcia-like novel or at least a feuding family saga spanning several generations.
The writer has edited ‘Ferry Crossing: Short Stories from Goa’ and ‘Goa Travels: Being the Accounts of Travellers from the 16th to the 21st Century’.
The Baptism of Tony Calangute by Sudeep Chakravarti is published by Aleph and costs ₹299
