Prutha Goa

Eccentric scholars do not abound in Goa and most recently she lost one of her most enigmatic sons. Tenacious in his pursuit of refined scholarship, José Pereira formed the fourth member of an intellectual group (Mario Miranda, Alban Couto and Eusebio Rodrigues) that had sworn to resurrect intellectual endeavours so dominant in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, but perhaps hindered by the censorship imposed by Portuguese dictator, Salazar. He passed away after completing 84 years of age, on the 26 th of January in the USA. Though a native of Curtorim, Goa, José Pereira was born in Mumbai and spent much of his life outside the realm of his ancestry. His literary contribution is vast, amounting to 145 articles and 24 books. His knowledge spanned a range of subjects, including theology, architecture, literature and ethnomusicology. Some of his books are Hindu Theology and Golden Goa’s Art. José Pereira’s illustrious academic career began with an honours degree in Sanskrit f

He talks of a ‘madness’ that has driven him for years to salvage the cultural history of this verdant land called Goa. Its versatile heritage has been curated by Victor Hugo Gomes with painstaking perseverance and attention to detail. With his degrees in art and conservation, Victor has moved from village to village documenting trades that have disappeared or are slowly vanishing and has been curating a vast storehouse of Goa’s past in various symbols of her culture. It all began with excursions into forbidden areas. Always a curious child with a questioning mind, Victor would explore attics, storerooms and even the dark rooms used to punish him for misbehaviour, to find strange and intriguing items of interest like different types of clay pots, baskets, tools, old altars and wooden chests filled with clothes belonging to a bygone era. This childhood fascination for gleaning commonplace items, which have shaped Goa’s cultural history, and a questioning mind, nurtured by his grandmother