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As Naik writes: "The protest
in my novel Acchev (Upheaval) against the destruction of
humanity and nature is a cry from the heart. It therefore had to
be written in my mother tongue Konkani." Upheaval’s
richness lies in the ability of the translation to capture
the nuances, the smell of the original Konkani in English
without appearing affected. The novel, set in Ponda district in
north Goa, pulsates with Naik’s rich descriptions of the
cyclic rhythms of village life and the sacred ceremonies
entwining the sowing and reaping of paddy with the growing-up
years of the village children and the shy onset of their adult
needs. The scene between Kesar and Narshinv at Malni Punav, the
full moon night in the month of Poush at the dhalo, where
married women and unmarried girls join in a highly stylised
dance is replete with Lorcaesque (Bloodwedding) overtones
of the rites of initiation. The verses of the phugadi—the
ritualistic dances of women—heighten the effect. It is also
what gives the first part of the novel its sense of eternity and
timelessness akin to peasants going about their simple lives in
a Breughel painting.
This canvas of
characters moves beyond the confines of a medieval/feudal
morality play yet retaining the archetypal qualities of the
characters which transcend time and space. Babuso the lecher,
for example, recalls Gor-gor in Margaret Mascarenhas’ novel Skin
and Pandhari and Rukmini could well be the parents in Damodar
Mauzo’s short story Mingueliliche Ghorchim (Minguel’s
Kin) on the breakdown of a Goan family. And when the
centre cannot hold Abu the wise old man of the village, Tiresies-like
uses the metaphors of the wasted land on his deathbed,
"This isn’t an eclipse that will pass… leaving
everything as pure as it was before. Everything has been
defiled. Our food is impure…the work we do…who knows whose
seed grows in whose field these days…only the Spirit of the
lake sees everything". The breakdown of the Goan family in
Mauzo is pushed to its savage conclusion where Nanu discovers,
through the mediation of Manuel, his sister catering to the
needs of the mining workers—-an indulgence which was once his
own.
In its raw
energy the book is unputdownable. And if read at one go, one
emerges caked in the soot of the mines of Shenori, the dust on
the begrimed leaves on the route of the tipper trucks, and the
blood red waters of the once blue river. Upheaval churns
you in a way that only a good translation can.
The
introduction by Maria Aurora Couto reflecting Naik’s deep
anguish and a useful glossary accentuate its deep significances
for us all, wherever we are, whatever we do—-"These were
two villages. Mine was Volvoi and across the river was Maina
where mining took over the life of my friends. To my child’s
eye it was incomprehensible, the sea changes that transformed a
dream into a nightmare, the river where we fished and played,
the countryside we roamed and the life we once shared but which
Maina had irretrievably lost."
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TRUTH
is stranger than fiction they say. In Pundalik Naik’s The
Upheaval, it is difficult to say which is which. Published
originally in Konkani in 1977 Acchev is the first
Konkani novel to be translated into English. It fills a major
lacuna in Goan literature. The novel, by virtue of its
felicitous translation by Vidya Pai, also succeeds in bridging
the gap of 25 years to infuse in its central themes an
immediacy which is deeply disturbing, if not horrifying, in
its reality. A reality which continues to be lived out in Goa
even today.
