_____________________________________________________________________________ \\\\\___ JIM REEVES RESOURCES ___\"-._ /////~~~ tinyurl.com/jimreeves ~~~/.-' Goan Web Resources tinyurl.com/goanlinks _____________________________________________________________________________ "The Goans of Karachi, have a history of their own" _____________________________________________________________________________ (Allan Fernandes of Toronto kindly sent us this article) With the East India Company consolidating themselves in India and with the occupation of Sind by Sir Charles Napier in 1843, many Goans did not want to live under the Portuguese and very many wanted to improve their lot. So they moved first to Bombay and later to Karachi. The first Goans came to Karachi by sea in sail boats, called Dhows. Karachi at the time was a small non-descript town and a one-way stop to the important ports of Bombay and Calcutta. It is difficult to imagine the difficulties these early settlers had to face in an alien land, where conditions were hard. But by sheer grit and determination and by their adventurous spirit, these early Goan settlers lost little time in improving their prospects for a better life. The British needed people to work with the British Army and other civil jobs in Karachi. They found the Goans hardworking, loyal, honest and well behaved and easy to manage. The British were, therefore eager to have these pioneers settle in the area. They first hired them in service jobs - as domestics, bearers and cooks and some supplied food. The British subsequently offered them jobs with the British Indian Civil Services - in the Customs, Police, Railways, Telegraphs and other government jobs. Most of the early Goan settlers in Karachi were single males - they started "chummeries" and moved out, building their own houses and forming their own townships. Many would get homesick and would make trips to Goa by sea for a holiday and on vacation - they would encourage more people to emigrate to Karachi for better jobs. One of the main concern of Goans wherever they settled was their religion and the Karachi Goans were no exception. Most who came to Karachi were Roman Catholics. Since there was no church in Karachi at the time, they made sure that one was built. With full support and help of the Irish Fusillers, the Goans started St. Patrick's chapel, which became a Church and later a Cathedral. The Church, became the center for the whole Catholic community for adults and children and the Goans gave very much of their time in helping in all the Church social and spiritual activities - they organized excellent 'melas' and fairs, they organized plays and concerts, sports and picnics, they trained altar boys to serve in the church, opened a catholic library and started a church choir and organized prayer meetings and sodalities for adults and teenagers. They even had an early Sunday morning Konkani mass and choir. The majority of Goans studied at St. Patrick's High School, which was the only Catholic School for many years in those early days. Most of the teachers were Goans. It was the Goans of Karachi and St. Patrick's High School, that gave India and Pakistan their first Cardinals (Cardinal Valerian Gracias and Cardinal Joseph Cordeiro) and also a number of Bishops and Archbishops - (New Delhi,Allahabad, Nagpur, Poona, Calcutta, Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad). Besides in the religious and spiritual - the small community of Karachi Goans excelled in the sports and athletic fields, and produced one of the best sportsmen in the world and on the sub- continent, in hockey, cricket and boxing. St. Patrick's High School and the Karachi Goan Community also gave the British, Pakistan and India - Judges of the High Court, Army Generals, Cabinet Ministers, Mayors of cities, Hockey and track Olympians and Test Cricketers. From a miniscule community of Roman Catholic Goans perhaps one of the smallest in the world, can this be matched ? As the Goan population in Karachi began to grow, they felt that they had to organize themselves and have a place to meet and to hold their own social and sporting events. After working hard, Goans love to have a good time and to enjoy themselves. So in 1886, Goans started the Goan Portuguese Association (GPA) and in 1930 gave a new name to the club - Karachi Goan Association (KGA). The present KGA building is still to be matched - it is a magnificent structure, and a popular Karachi landmark. The building has an extensive dance hall on the upper floor and is also given out on hire for weddings. There is a spacious stage for concerts, plays and operas. There are billiard and card rooms, table tennis rooms, a well furnish library and a well stocked bar and an outdoor tennis court. The KGA was the pride of the Goans and was the center of many cultural and social events. First class dances and operas all organized by the members of the KGA were held at the hall. During the Christmas Season - ten days of various functions were held at the Cluy - the top bands (all Goan) were in attendance, also held were children concerts, plays and whist drives. For two years during World War II the KGA was requisitioned to the United States Armed Forces, stationed in Karachi and used by them as a Senior Officers Club. The KGA also played host to the Late Duke of Windsor then Prince of Wales and the First Governor of the Province of Sind. The Karachi Goan Association put on many plays and operettas- all Goan talent - which drew high and appreciative audiences - members of the diplomatic corps, top government officials and prominent and business people. The operettas were on a very high standard. The musicals and operettas which was all Goan included the Gilbert and Sullivan Musicals - the Mikado, the Gondoliers, Trial by Jury, Pirates of Penzance and the HMS Pinafore. A mile from the KGA building, was the KGA Gymkhana for all outdoor and indoor sporting activities. It is a 30,000 square yard plot, with two tennis courts, an indoor badminton court and a field for cricket, hockey and soccer, which was played regularly on these grounds. Inter village games were held regularly on these grounds. As in any other place if there is more than one Goan there has to another Goan Club. This was an era when the community was divided based on social and professional status and many Goans started separate clubs for themselves and families. In Karachi another Club - The Goan Union was organized - a very well run club with a lot of exceptional talent. Smaller than the KGA, but very successful. Never was there any animosity between these clubs. After all members of both clubs attended the same school and church and prayed and played together. Given their small size of the population - the Karachi Goans are proud of their achievements and contributed immensely to the new country that was created - Pakistan. They did exceedingly well and held top positions in the various Government and Civil Services and Defense Services. There was a second migration of Goans from India to Karachi, when Pakistan was created. Quite a few of them came to settle in Pakistan and all were successful in their jobs and professions - many became managers in firms and business houses, some opened their hospitals and medical clinics and some became high ranking officers in the Defense Services. The Ideal Life Assurance - the biggest in Karachi now in Pakistan is purely a Goan institution and spread all over the sub-continent. The only mill in Karachi at the time was the India Flour Mill a Goan enterprise and the only printing press was also a Goan enterprise. Here are the names of some important Goans of Karachi and what they achieved, mind you this is not a complete list. Cincinnatus Town in Karachi a very large residential development is named after an outstanding Goan leader - Cincinnatus D'Abreo. Hussain D'Silva Town another prominent residential development was started by Jerome D'Silva. Latin Britto Pedro D'Souza, was also a famous Goan land developer in Karachi. Two Karachi Goans held the rank of Lt. Generals in the British India Army. Frank D'Souza, who was born and was a student in Karachi, became the first Indian to be appointed by the British as a member of the Railway Board of India. The membership to the Board was the preserve of the best. At the time of partition, Jinnah specifically requested Frank D'Souza for his help to set-up the Railway System in Pakistan. Frank agreed, but made one condition, that his home in Pakistan would be de-requisitioned. Jinnah and the Pakistan Government agreed. On completion of his job in Pakistan, Frank returned to India and gave his beautiful house in Karachi to the nuns to be used as a home for the aged. What an excellent man! As mentioned earlier the first Cardinals of India and Pakistan were from Karachi - Cardinal Valerian Gracias and Cardinal Joseph Cordeiro. Cardinal Joseph Cordeiro (Oxford) a brilliant man was mentioned as a "papable" (possible Pope) in the Time Magazine. After the death of Pope John Paul I, he was appointed by the Pope as Secretary of several Curia Committees in Rome. Even as cardinal, he would use his bicycle on some of his visits, till he was informed by the Inter-nuncio that was not the right way for a cardinal to travel. Charles Lobo, Judge of the Sind High Court and Chairman of the Public Service Commission in Pakistan, was also appointed Pakistan delegate to the United Nations. Edward Raymond was the first Indian to be appointed by the British on the Indian sub- continent to adorn the Bench of the Judicial Commmissioner's Court in Sind. His son Herman Raymond (Oxford) was one time Chief Prosecutor of Sind and Baluchistan and was also made a Judge of the High Court and was appointed by President Ayub Khan on a Special Judicial Committee to investigate the action of the politicians. Edward Raymond's eldest son - Leonard Raymond was Archbishop of Allahabad, India, and another son Maurice Raymond (Cambridge University) was the first Pakistani General Manager of the Karachi Port Trust. Joseph D'Mello was appointed Chairman of the Pakistan Railway Board. Sydney Pereira rose to be Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. In the field of sport - Peter Paul Fernandes of Karachi was the first Goan to be selected as a member of the Indian Olympic Hockey team he played in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Old Bombayites will remember PP Fernandes, as he was commonly known, when he would come with the Karachi St. Patrick's Sports Club hockey Team (all ex-St. Patrick's school students) or with Karachi Goan Association Team to play in the Aga Khan Hockey Tournament. Mennen Soares represented Pakistan in Badminton, maybe the only Goan to represent a country in Badminton. Phoebe Barboza (nee Dias) the No.1 Women's Badminton player in Pakistan. Dr. Michael Rodrigues Pakistan's No. 1 Table Tennis Player. Bertie Gomes was the All India Heavy Weight Boxing Champion .Some of the old-timers say that Lawrie Fernandes from Karachi, who as an outstanding hockey center forward and who played for the All India Telegraphs was better than Dyan Chand, but for some reason was never selected to play for India. To-day, many Karachi Goans have left their homes in Karachi to settle in other parts of the world, (Canada, Australia, United Kingdom and the USA and in other countries) and they have continued to do well in these countries, naturally so, because of their dedication, loyalty, hard work, education and religious background. Lenny Barretto 13 Apr 2000 ___________________________________________________________________________ Austin Noronha of Toronto kindly sent this in: ___________________________________________________________________________ "Those were the days" ___________________________________________________________________________ Masood Hasan Sunday, June 12, 2011 It is hard to believe that Pakistan was once a gentle country. It is even harder to believe that some of the most wonderful people lived here. All that seems like a misty memory which has little relevance as you face the day’s first rude slaps. A friend passed me an interesting short article about the Anglo-Indians who lived and worked in what is now India and Pakistan. The Anglos are long gone swallowed up by the mists of time, driven out from here to fend for themselves. But in their extinction lies a bigger tragedy. The Anglo Indians were fun people. But more than the singular expertise they brought to the jobs that became traditionally their forte, they added a swing, vibrancy and a sheer joy of living spirit to our society that in many ways epitomised the new, fresh spirit that was Pakistan. That was then. Now it’s a fading sepia tone picture. Those of us who grew up with them, watched with considerable sadness as family after family left this country to go and live in alien climes. There was nothing left for them. They were wise in retrospect. Look at our bestiality towards our minorities. But while the Anglo Indians were here, they gave us a unique gift. The joy of living and of being alive. The Anglos were a British creation – some say a hideous British blunder. Although the British Empire at one point held absolute power in over 52 countries there was only one undisputed ‘jewel’ in the royal crown, India. It was part of their policy to protect this jewel from within as well and so began a policy of encouraging British males to marry Indian women – Anglo Indians who would intrinsically be at home with British mannerisms and always do the ‘pucca’ thing yet be more English than Indian in their thinking, a defensive ring around British interests and way of life. Many experts believe that had it not been for them, the British Empire in India would have collapsed. Ethnically engineered, they were the only micro-minority community ever to be defined in a country’s constitution and yet the irony was that they were a race without a country! The Anglos were no ordinary people. In India and later Pakistan, they virtually ran the railways, post & telegraph, police, customs, education, nursing, healthcare, import/export, shipping, tea, coffee & tobacco plantations, coal mines and gold reserves. Thus Anglos became great teachers, nurses, priests and doctors and the girls, debonair, confident, skilful became the best executive secretaries, special assistants and office managers. There was no one to match them. But it was their colourful and vibrant approach to everyday life that was so infectious about them. Like all small communities, they segregated into enclaves that were all their own. The Anglo-Indians were truly spirited people, fired with a zest to work and party hard. The boys were typically razor sharp, cutting deals that would invariably begin with lines like, ‘I say bugga you know what happened? That bugga Tony, man he screwed me real good, bugga took my damn cash bugga and disappeared.’ And the reply, ‘You don’t say bugga,’ and ‘I’m tellin’ ya, ask Fernandez man – Tony rogered him too man,’ ‘Say swear,’ ‘Swear bugga this Tony cat, man he’s somethin’ else,’ and on and on went the stories. There were always stories. The Anglos were superb musicians and dancers. The floors (toba, toba) were full on Saturday nights, Sunday afternoons, jam sessions – and other handy occasions – sometimes they didn’t even need to have a reason. At the hangouts, Karachi particularly and Lahore catching up all the time and Sam’s in Murree, the Anglo Indians could set a floor on fire as they jived, jitterbugged, rocked & rolled, swung, waltzed or shook sensuously to Latin-flavoured mind blowing melodies. And it was on the dance floors that you saw girls who could break your heart with just a look, hair tossing, laughing their pretty heads off as adept and handsome male escorts took them through the paces. The Anglos congregated in special areas within the cities where they made warm, inviting homes. In Lahore, they were behind The Indus Hotel on The Mall, in the environs of the railway colony and in residential areas where family names like D’souzas were as common as Mohammad Iqbals today. In Karachi names like Preedy Street, Elphi were synonymous with them. Wherever they were - they were not very affluent, but you were always welcomed with a cold beer, a quick shot if it was nippy and at Xmas time, the special cakes made to order with each family guarding its secret recipe passed from generation to generation. There was the Burt Institute, the Railway Colony to name just two and then there were the clubs and nightspots. In Karachi there were many and even more there were the musicians – row upon row who filled these and played jazz, rock even fusion – or whatever you fancied. The bands grew on trees. The Strollers, Francisco Boys, The Bugs, The Cossacks, Willie Po and the Boys, The Incrowd (inspired by that superb hit from Ramsey Lewis and quite the rage then), The Drifters, The Panthers, The Talisman Set (see their group picture, faded and blurry and you could mistake them for The Jackson Five), Bloody What’s the Matter? (Yes there was a group called just that), The Keynotes, Flintstone, The Fatah Brothers, Captivators and the Saints of Rawalpindi (now surely replaced by the devils incarnate). Nightclubs with foreign acts especially in Karachi were the rage. Agents, artists, con men, musicians, strippers, belly dancers all arrived and exited at this hustling port city. Jazz legends like Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Charlie Byrd, Benny Carter, Quincy Jones (who gave Michael Jackson that memorable beat heard in ‘Billie Jean’ and who was to give MJ some great musical direction) – they all came here and they loved Karachi and this country called Pakistan, where there was hardly any crime worth mentioning and nobody knew how to use bombs leave alone the killer guns. ‘If someone fired a shot in midair in Golimar,’ muses a gentleman from those days, ‘the word would spread through Karachi like fire.’ But that was a Karachi that was perhaps just a million not burgeoning at all ends with an estimated 14 million now. And although someone recalls that ‘the city was planned differently but grew differently’, Karachi started to disintegrate before our eyes in the 70s. The 1972 laws enforced by ZAB to please the fundos broke the spirit of all of us, particularly the Anglo Indians. Bars, discos, clubs all shut down in fear. Suddenly hosts of musicians and other artists had no livelihood. ‘Tolerance went up in smoke,’ recalls one sad person. Came 1979 and the evil Zia and the coup de grace forced the Anglos to escape, migrate anywhere they could go. They left by the droves, never to come back. The clubs died, the dance floors uprooted, the many services they offered fell by the wayside. In driving out this small community, we dug our own graves. We rapidly became soulless, grey, hypocritical and boring. With them gone, an integral part of decent civilian life was snuffed out. Guns replaced guitars. The scorched landscape that we inherited, now mocks us. Laughter has changed to anguish. Pakistan may be a ‘hard country’, but it is also a barren and desolate land. One gentleman of the fabled 60s sums it all up in one line: ‘Those days are gone. They will not come back.’ Quite an epitaph wouldn’t you agree? The writer is a Lahore-based columnist. Email: masoodhasan66@gmail.com NOTE: Please check out this excellent Resource to learn about Goans of Pakistan: http://www.goansofpakistan.org/ ____________________________________________________________________________ Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html Doctrine of International Copyright Law ____________________________________________________________________________