Remembering the Past: Place and Memory After Displacement

Venisha Fernandes / The author visits her ancestral village which was submerged
under a dam, and the ruins of which resurface every year for a short while at the end of
summer. But the author learns that for many villagers the village surfaces every so
often in their memory, and it is ingrained in their bodies. This is inherited by the author
herself though she never lived in Curdi, thanks to hearing her father talking about the
village ever since her childhood.
(This dissertation inspired, and formed the basis of a documentary film by the Films
Division of India directed by Saumyananda Sahi. The trailer may be viewed here).
Curdi holds a special place in my heart. It was my father’s village, and I had heard much
about it through him. Although I always had a great desire to see it and experience it,
my wish only came true when I along with my family visited Curdi in the summer of
2009. It is at this time of the year that the water level in the Salaulim reservoir goes
down, and the entire submerged village of Curdi re-emerges.

The trip to Curdi was sudden, but it was surely a treat to my eyes and soul that longed
to feel the warmth of the abode of my forefathers. Those moments spent there felt
very nostalgic; there was a sense of belonging in the air. Just two decades ago people
had lived there, but now only the strong foundations holding up shattered walls serve
as a reminder that Curdi was once someone’s home. The trees, cut to their heels and
hollow within, still hold on to the earth. A milestone stands beside the road, nameless,
yet saying much to my soul. The roads, built by the Portuguese colonial rulers, are still
traversable. I walked on the same roads that my grandparents had walked on decades
ago.
Venisha Fernandes explores the land of her ancestors in Curdi. (2009. Gasper DSouza)
The Chapel stands on a hillock, in ruins. Its façade has these words: ‘Sovoskai Tumche
Sovem,’ meaning, ‘Peace be with you’ in Nagari script. The steps leading to the chapel
are broken. Of the school building, only the foundation remains; everything else was
removed to be reused in the new settlement colonies. The cemetery at the back of the
Chapel is beyond recognition. Only a cross stands tall on a pillar, nothing else. Perhaps
I stood on the graves of my grandparents, perhaps I didn’t. But they are there, I know,
deep inside the earth. The water that touches their bones, I drink today.
There is a khariz here – a canal that was built to supply river water to the fields.
Although it is now silted over now, it is still very deep; its bed is decorated by a mosaic
created by bird footprints. Then there is Wagha Pedd ― tiger’s den ― a wild and and
beautiful rocky hillock where tigers once prowled.
A four-room building still stands by the road that connects Curdi to Vichundrem and
Neturlim. One of the rooms housed a flour mill. The police post which later became a
Forestry Office is in ruins, but still standing in front of the chapel. The residence of
the pakles (the Portuguese) is covered by moss.
My house, our house, that was made of mud, has only the foundation and some dwarf
walls standing. The broken roof tiles still lie in the courtyard. My father’s room was on
the right side of the house. Now a plant grows there. Behind our house there had been
a paddy field, beyond which lay another ward, in which our original house had been.
My grandmother didn’t like that muddy place, so my grandfather built this house
which was closer to the road. In front of the house, on the left-hand side, my
grandfather dug a well. The sopo (cement seat) of my father’s neighbour’s house is still
in good condition. It acquired special significance for me when I was told that Dad and
other kids used to sit there listening to the radio.

The foundations and some parts of the houses remain standing resiliently in the vast
barren land. (2009. Gasper DSouza)
Past memories came alive. My father and my uncle, who had accompanied us, were
busy locating things of the days gone by. Though most were gone because of the dam,
memories still remain, fresh or fragmented, to be cherished for life. Curdi as a village
now exists only as it is remembered by everyone in retrospect. Today I drink the water
that sweeps the land that my grandparents once walked on, the land whose fruit they
ate and that gave them shelter in its heart, when their own hearts stopped beating.

My house and my village now holds water within it and upon it, to nourish those who
are near and far, those who don’t know anything of this land. A land that lost its
children to give life to others and make their life easy. It is a sacrifice not gone in vain.
I was born and brought up in Sanguem. Curdi was submerged before I was born. Yet
people from Sanguem refer to me as a native of Curdi. The interesting thing is not the
submersion of the land and the displacement and rehabilitation of the people who had
once lived there, but the connection that those people have kept with the submerged
land till today. This is what fascinates me. I felt at peace in Curdi as if I knew the place.
Why? What made me feel so much at home in a place I had never visited before? How
is it that I feel I was always there in some way?

— Field Notes dated: May 21, 2009.

Objectives and methods

For one of the courses in M.A. Sociology I had carried out a study on
the dhangar community who were displaced as a result of the Salaulim Irrigation
Project. In that study, I focused on the impact of displacement, and of the
government’s rehabilitation package on their socio-economic life. Studies related to
development-induced displacement are well known in India because such exoduses
are a recurring issue; millions continue to lose their ancestral homes and land over the
years due to the introduction of irrigation projects, dams, naval bases, nuclear plants,
and similar giant undertakings.

Objectives

My focus in this study is not on place as a geographic location but on the regeneration
of place in memory. My interest is in knowing what makes people remember their old
land; could it be that their memories fill a psychological need, and help them sustain
their identity through life? How are people still holding on to the memory of a place
which they no longer can live in? What are these memories that keep the place–Curdi–
alive in their hearts even today? Do people try to re-create their old village in their
new residential areas? How do people construct and re-construct their place through
memory?
As my focus is on the place through memory in the displacement and rehabilitation
saga, I first explored the theorized work of other social scientists to put the
experiences of the villagers of Curdi in a wider context.

Place theory

Place is not a dormant phenomenon; it is as much alive as we are. Subconsciously we

are always interacting with the place in which we live or work. “Place” by itself is not a
place but a space. “Space refers to location somewhere and place to the occupation of
that location,” writes John Agnew, in an article published in 2005. Space as a concept is
ever present but turns into a place with human interaction and intervention. The
meaning that we give to places comes more or less from historically subjective and
shared cultural understandings of the terrain. The sociologist Thomas Gieryn maintains
that meanings are sustained by diverse imageries through which we see and
remember places.

In Konkani, the mother tongue of Goa, kudd means body and it also means a room.
Thus our body belongs to a place.

Place is one of the constituents of identity. In Goa people attach a lot of importance to
their village of origin. There is the notion of a mull ganv, meaning one’s original village.
The name of the village is sealed in people’s surnames; so we have such family names
as Sanguekar, Mapxekar, Shirodkar, and Kurdicar. Thus, the place where people live
forms an essential part of their identity. In Konkani, the mother tongue of
Goa, kudd means body and it also means a room. Thus our body belongs to a place. In
Konkani, place is called zago; the other meaning of zago is ‘awake;’ hence, if we
combine these two meanings, we can conclude that the place is awake, it is alive.
All of us have a ‘sense of place.’ This can be interpreted differently by different people.
For some it can be the physical characteristics of a place, while for others their
perception or feeling for a place may constitute their sense of place. The sense of place
gives a feeling of belonging to the place. We incorporate the place within us, in our
body. It is the fusion of the human and the natural order, according to Helen Cox and
Colin Holmes. A sense of place is a social phenomenon that depends on human feeling
for its existence. Such a feeling may be derived from the natural environment but is
more often made up of a mix of natural and cultural features in the landscape, and
generally includes the people who live there.. However, Christopher Campbell argues
that our sense of place is stable not because the world is stable, but because a place is
a constructed phenomenon able to stand on its own.

How does the bonding between people and place take place? What kind of interaction
goes on between a place and the people who inhabit it? Interaction simply means the
ideas, stories, songs, myth, prayer, music, dance, art and architecture that are linked to
a place. We produce these links and they in turn link us to the place. Through these
songs and stories we constantly keep in touch with our place and are aware of the
place we live in. Awareness about a place comes through an interaction with the place.

John Agnew pointed out in a chapter published in 2005 that any particular place can be
many different places to different people because each individual will have different
memories in that place. A decade earlier, Keith Basso had posited the idea that places
also possess a marked capacity for triggering acts of self-reflection, inspiring thoughts
about who one presently is, or recalling memories of who one used to be. Casey
Edward in 2001 moved the focus from an individual in a place to the place itself: “The
places are themselves altered by our having been in them. Places come into us
lastingly… if our experience there has been intense – we are forever marked by that
place, which lingers in us indefinitely, and in a thousand ways, many too subtle for us
to name,” he wrote.

One can argue, however, that in today’s society it is the norm to leave one’s place
behind and migrate elsewhere for work, education, and other factors. John Agnew
points out that a tension thus exists between trying to claim a presence in a place and
leaving such a place behind. Hence it becomes important to understand the ideological
power of landscape and the village, which stands in opposition to a city and an urban
area; and hence the related terms like ‘community’ and ‘culture’ must also be
understood as counter to those of the urban area. Cox and Holmes affirm that, at the
village level, social relationships are more direct, informal, and total, and therefore
more significant, whereas those of the city or urban areas are more formal, abstract,
instrumental, and functional in nature.

Memory theory

Save for the thin edge of the present, everything else is a memory. Memory is very
crucial to the existence of human beings and social relationships. Jonathan Foster
argues that although memory is personal and internal to an individual, external and
social acts are impossible without it; for example, remembering a friend’s face, or
holding a conversation. Memory is far more than simply bringing to mind some past
events or things. Memory is the re-construction of the past in the present. And this re-
construction is influenced by the present itself, by our present beliefs, our pre-
suppositions and expectations and mental set up. The memory that we are able to
recollect may contain some actual elements of the past, but taken as a whole it is not a
perfect and a ‘this is as it was’ image of the past, but an imperfect re-construction of
the past located in the present. Foster points out that we tend to remember the past
better, and bring to mind the relevant information or memory, if we are in a similar
state of mind and in a similar physical environment.

A collective memory of the past is shared by the whole community. Collective memory
refers to the distribution throughout society of beliefs, feelings, moral judgments, and
knowledge about the past. Individuals do not know the past singly; they know it with
and against other individuals. There is only one history, but there are as many
collective memories as there are human communities. Collective memories are
normally restricted to the most recent past (not more than a lifetime’s length), and
limited in their validity to members of a particular community.

These works on place and memory have been the filters through which I examined the
memories of the Curdikars, the people who used to live in Curdi.


Curdi. 2009


Remains of the chapel in Curdi. 2009



Pottery amidst ruins. 2009



An old stone wash basin. 2009



The grannary. 2009


Milestone markers on the old road running through the land. 2009


Vast expanse in Curdi. 2009


Villagers walk along the old road. 2009


Foundations and some walls still stand. 2009



Venisha. 2009

Methodology

I took to heart Cox and Holmes’ statement that “Any study regarding place involves a
narrative component that reflects the actual interweaving of the relationships among
people, objects, and messages, which produces place and which may be viewed as a
discourse.”

My interviewees, whose names are changed here, lie in the age group of 50 to 80-year-
olds. Jacob Rodrigues, 80, former toddy tapper and farmer, was a member of the Curdi
village panchayat during the first panchayat elections of liberated Goa. Rosario Dias
too is an agriculturist and a toddy tapper. Both reside at Vaddem. Freddy Mascarenhas
was a government servant and was among those who had marked the houses that
were going to be submerged. Augustine Furtado was one of the young men who had
moved out in search of employment. They reside at Valkinim. Alex Gomes was the
last sarpanch of Curdi, he also taught at the Curdi high school. Maria D’Souza was
married in Sanguem much before Curdi was submerged; she now works at the
Salaulim Irrigation Department, where many people from Curdi got employment.
Maria and Alex both reside in Sanguem. Remetina Fernandes, a housewife, was
married in Curdi and many years later moved to Vichundrem, six kilometres from
Vaddem.

The arrival of the Salaulim Irrigation Project

Jacob Rodrigues got the news of the Salaulim Irrigation Project when he was serving as
a panch member in the Curdi Village Panchayat. In 1964-65, along with news of the
impending submergence of Curdi, the government also announced the compensation
and rehabilitation package to the Curdi panchayat.

“The Panchayat said yes to the government’s decision because they felt that the
government couldn’t be given a negative answer,” Rodrigues says. “People initially
were opposed to the project but gradually came to accept it.” Rosario Dias says he
didn’t feel bad initially because they had nothing to lose, as the property was owned
by bhatkars who were not very kind to people.

Alex Pereira was nineteen years old when he heard that a dam was going to be built
across the river. “We thought that it was not possible to build a dam across this huge
river. I couldn’t believe that it would turn into reality. Some people thought that the
government was going to join the two mountains in the village which were miles apart,
which to them was simply impossible.”
Freddy Mascarenhas says at first he thought that it was a joke, adding, “People even
refused the rehabilitation and compensation package.”
The process of shifting and the initial experience in the new place
Alex Pereira says “Leaving our village was not sudden, it was a gradual process. The
government acquired the land, compensation was worked out and land was given to
people in Vaddem and Valkinim. Trees were cut in Curdi for timber. Enough time was
given, the process started in 1971 and culminated in 1986.”
What was his initial experience in the new place? “While I was living and working in
Curdi, my house at Sanguem was under construction, I used to go there from Curdi, so
the new place was not really new. I didn’t have any difficulty in adjusting to the new
place.”

Rosario Dias resettled in Vaddem, and the initial experience for him was marked by
hardships. He had no job. “That time I felt we were better off in Curdi”. He then took
some coconut trees on lease and started toddy-tapping. But the government had given
them land. What did he do with that? “Yes. Land was there. It took some time to get
our first harvest since there was no proper water supply. We had to face a lot of
hardships especially because of water – both for domestic and agricultural use. We
were supplied water by tanker. However, we have been getting a proper supply of
water for the last five years.”

Freddy Mascarenhas felt bad to leave his village. “The water started rising around June
1986. When we left the village it was almost barren and to see it like that was very
traumatic.”

And it left behind…

People too, along with all their household items. They dismantled their houses and
used the coconut beams, roof tiles and laterite stones for the construction of new
houses. Rodrigues says he couldn’t bring the laterite stones used for the foundation of
his house. He was also forced to leave behind his cows, as there was not much space in
the new place. He left them behind in the wilderness.
Rosario Dias brought almost everything, from the wooden planks and roof tiles to
utensils and furniture. He says the things help him to remember the days he spent in
Curdi. He says the remembrance is there on certain occasions, but not every day.
“Memory can’t be too often and everyday but on and off, on special days and
moments.”

Freddy Mascarenhas couldn’t bring some of the field implements as the water level
started to rise rapidly, and because he couldn’t bring them his wife still nags him.
Augustine Furtado says he brought all his household items. Do they remind him of
Curdi, and how often? “When a particular topic emerges pertaining to that particular
thing then the memory comes alive. However it is not there all the time, perhaps
because of lapse of time. Moreover we have got here many things like plots and what
we used to do in Curdi we are doing here. We are producing here. But comfort-wise
Curdi will always surpass anywhere else”.

Mrs. Remetina Fernandes says, “People cried while dismantling their houses and
shifting their things to the new place”. Many things were left behind in Curdi and one
thing that she yearns for is her metal spoon which she liked very much.

Vaddem or Valkinim: The choice was theirs

The government chose two rehabilitation sites: at Valkinim and Vaddem, which are 10
and 24 km respectively from the town of Sanguem. Residential and agricultural plots
were provided at these two sites. Earlier there were a few ganvkar families living at
Vaddem and some dhangar (pastoral tribe) families at Valkinim.
Many people from Curdi chose Vaddem over Valkinim because its soil was more fertile
and it was a forested area, so plenty of firewood was available. A few families chose
Valkinim because it was closer to Sanguem.

People vividly remember the days of their displacement. Leaving was not easy. There
was pain at having to leave behind their houses and their trades, yet there was hope
for a better future amidst uncertainty. A different life awaited them in the
resettlement colonies: new houses, new neighbours, and new opportunities. Thus it
was an end of one society and the beginning of another. The irrigation project brought
with it the disruption of the old feudal-agrarian order and paved the way for self
reliance through the agricultural plots which were given to them.

Animating past in the present ― Curdi remembered

Memories are always with us, especially of the things that we hold close to heart. The
fear of losing something makes us cherish it all the more. Our memories are altered by
the present circumstances that we live in. But each memory has its own context and
place. A memory of the past can serve to remind us of something that is absent from
the present. Let us now see how people choose to remember Curdi.

The mere mention of Curdi takes people back to their submerged land. They are filled
with enthusiasm and happiness. For Alex Pereira the mere mention of Curdi brings to
his mind the whole village scenario— the fields, the river, the khariz (canal), the
chapel, the school, the football ground, the cemetery and more. And even at 80, Jacob
Rodrigues says he remembers almost all the incidents and experiences that he went
through at Curdi. He says there was no enmity there, even if there was a feud between
two people they would resolve it and be friends again.
“Water was fresh and in plenty. People were free to grow anything in the open space.”

“There was a lot of open space,” Augustine Furtado says. “Water was fresh and in
plenty. People were free to grow anything in the open space.” Maria D’Souza
remembers her ward, the palm huts and the fields. She tells me they had to work
ceaselessly in all seasons. They would harvest paddy twice a year, and in their backyard
they grew vegetables and fruits, especially bananas, throughout the year. “Most of the
houses were made of mud,” she told me. “Others were made of palm leaves and a few
were made of sticks. Each family built three units— the house proper, where the
family lived, a cowshed, and a hut to store firewood.”
Remetina Fernandes recalls that in Curdi all the women used to work together,
whether it was to collect water from the village well, to wash clothes at the spring, or
to work in the fields. At night, after finishing all their work, the women used to sit in
the courtyard and chat. But in the new place there were new neighbours and there
was not as much interaction as in Curdi. Remetina says that now that they each have
tap water in their own house, this is what happens: “tum asa tughe nollakode, hanv
asa mughe nollakode, sogllim ghorakode.” (You work by your tap at home, I work by
my tap at my home, and hence everybody stays inside their respective houses).

Curdi and its people resurface

All the interviewees told me they talk about Curdi with their families. They share their
experiences and memories with their children. But the interest the children take in
Curdi varies. While some are keen to know more about Curdi, some shrug the topic off
saying that it’s past and not of any use now. However, even the children are keen to
visit Curdi when the land resurfaces in summer.

Alex Pereira says he misses Curdi, but he has revisited the place only four or five times
since it was submerged. Even though he feels like going there, work and time
constraints do not allow it. Jacob Rodrigues says he cannot go to Curdi very often, due
to his age and his fragile health, but he makes it a point to visit it along with other
villagers when they go to Curdi to say the Litany of the Cross.

“There is nothing left in Curdi now,” says Rosario Dias. “However, the chapel and the
school site are not submerged. And there’s the cemetery where we have our dear
ones.” He cannot visit his house which was in Xetodi, because that part of the village
does not dry up. But other people visit their house sites, the chapel, the cemetery, the
school site and the temple. He tells me that in order to remember the site of the
cemetery, where nothing was left as all the bricks were taken away; they installed a
pillar with a cross.
For Augustine Furtado, Curdi has now become a family picnic spot. Why does he go to
Curdi and see his house and the chapel? “Just to see what has happened to it now.”

Litany in the broken chapel of Curdi

Every year the villagers from Vaddem visit Curdi and sing and pray a litany in the
chapel there. Rosario Dias says the practice of saying the litany started two years after
Curdi was submerged. Young people and middle-aged men from the village would go
to Curdi to picnic in the summer and stay there overnight. At one such picnic they
decided to fix a day for the litany and gather all the people together once again. At first
the attendance was very low but it gradually increased. Now the younger generation is
taking an interest and the youth who are working abroad sponsor snacks and other
costs. The litany is held in the chapel at Curdi at 4 o’clock in the evening; following the
litany, they pray for the departed souls in the cemetery.

Remains of the chapel in Curdi. 2009

The few Catholic families from Curdi now living in Valkinim do not join the Vaddem
villagers for the litany, because the Vaddem people never inform them of the date, nor
do the Valkinim people take the initiative to go with them; instead, they visit their old
land individually.

Similarity and difference between Curdi and the colonies

Rosario Dias says he never thought about the differences or similarities between the
two places, and thinks this may be “because we are now doing what we were doing in
Curdi. We are harvesting this land and are now settled here.” He says that now his
interest is in Vaddem but Curdi will always be lovingly remembered. Augustine Furtado
says that there was lot of free space around his house in Curdi but at Valkinim there is
very little.
Maria D’Souza says that now they have water supply and electricity, things they did
not have in Curdi. However, in Curdi the houses were at a distance from each other,
but in the resettlement colonies they are all close to each other. In Curdi there were
separate wards for Kristanvs (Catholics), Konknnes (Hindus), and Gawda people; now
they are all mixed. People are still engaged in agriculture and grow vegetables and
fruits as before. “We used to work hard there and produce, but it was under the
authority of the landlord; now this is our own.”
Remetina Fernandes says that although she misses the friendly social atmosphere of
Curdi, life is better now because they have better amenities. Her life revolves around
the household chores that she used to do in Curdi, collecting firewood, washing
clothes, growing vegetables in the backyard, and toiling in the sugarcane and paddy
fields. So nothing much has changed in terms of work.

Attachment towards Curdi

I got a mixed response when I asked my interviewees whether their attachment to

their new place is the same as it was at Curdi. Alex Pereira says “In Curdi there was
enthusiasm among the people and also co-operation. A participatory spirit prevailed
among all the villagers. We used to come together for any work; for instance, we
youngsters had built our football ground. Now life has become mechanical. I’m not as
attached to this place as I am attached to Curdi. I say I am originally from Curdi.”

Jacob Rodrigues says “No matter how much you get here but of Curdi it will be always
bigger. But this is for those who have toiled there. And it may not necessarily be for
our kids”. He says although he is in Vaddem his consciousness is always in Curdi.

However, for Rosario Dias, the attachment to Curdi is slowly diminishing perhaps
because “now we are settled here and what we were doing there we are doing here.”
He says the topic of Curdi comes only with those people who have lived there. He
further says, “Memories are shared and lived better among the known ones.”

Augustine Furtado says he now identifies himself as a villager of Valkinim. “I used to

like Curdi when I was living there. Now when I go back there I just start locating
things.” He says he can’t remember much at the first instance, some effort is needed
to remember. “This can be perhaps because we are now set in Valkinim. Initially there
were many feelings towards Curdi but with time and development Curdicher visor
podla (forgetfulness has befallen Curdi).”
Maria D’Souza says that while she was a child, and also as a grown-up, she had a wish
to grow crops, vegetables, and fruits, as her parents had done. “I have done it here at
my present place. I have done what I wanted to do hence I’m quite attached to this
place and comfortable as well.” She says that Curdi will always remain a home but
since she has lived here at her present place for many years now, she feels this village
is her own.

Dreams

Curdi is also present in people’s dreams. They see it and virtually visit it in their
dreams, meet old neighbours, etc. People dream about the places they frequented the
most or about people to whom they were much attached. Jacob dreams of his parents;
those who are dead come into his dreams. He also dreams about the fields, his
coconut grove, and cows. He says many of his fellow villagers get dreams of Curdi,
which they share, saying “Arre! ratim hanv Curdi vochun ailom!” (Man! Last night I
went to Curdi and have returned!).

Conclusion

Our life is not dependent on material things alone but on something much deeper at
the spiritual and the cultural level. Perhaps this is why the people of Curdi visit their
old village and fondly remember it, even though they are materially better off in their
new homes. The villagers of Curdi are now engaged with their present place, which is
now their home. However they do take a break when their beloved land re-emerges
from the water, and visit it. Once back in their old village, what do they do? They start
locating things, and memory helps those things come to life again. Every year this
repeats itself, and the memories live on…

Curdi is associated with the life that they lived there and hence it cannot be separated
from them. Our memories are grounded in the place where they actually took place.
We can’t separate memories, neither from the place nor from the people and things
associated with them. Simple things like furniture and farming implements that people
brought from the old village to their new place keep Curdi alive.

Another way that keeps the memory of Curdi alive is the annual litany that is held in
the Curdi chapel. Even the people who are working abroad and cannot attend the
litany in person, make their presence felt by sponsoring the snacks and thus they keep
the spirit of belonging alive through symbolic means.

“Because the place is there, God is there and prayers are said in his remembrance.”

Candles are burned in the broken chapel which now has neither religious statues nor
an altar. As Fernandes puts it, “because the place is there, God is there and prayers are
said in his remembrance.” This means that symbols, even if moved physically, can
leave their presence behind. John Agnew affirms that “To be a person is not merely to
be embodied but also to inhabit a public place.” It perpetuates collective memory.
Curdi is especially remembered to fill in the void left by the present place and
circumstances. Past memories are the reflections of something absent in the present.
For example, people said that there was no problem of water in Curdi as compared to
their new village. The villagers remember Curdi as a place of communal harmony,
brotherliness and of close knit neighbourhoods. No doubt there must have been feuds
in the families and neighbourhoods but people choose to remember Curdi as a place of
harmony.

I have noted many contradictions in the way people answered. One interviewee said
she feels Curdi is her home and her current residence is like a rented place, whereas
while answering another query she said that with the passage of time she has
accepted her current village as her own. Perhaps such contradictions only help people
to remain faithful to both the sites―the old and the new.

Almost all the people from Curdi have dreams of their submerged village. The nature
of their dreams is similar, regardless of social status, religion, and gender. Perhaps an
intense dream-analysis would be very rewarding and help policymakers in future
developmental projects.

Physical rehabilitation is much easier than mental adjustment, but if the physical
rehabilitation is haphazard then mental rehabilitation becomes tougher and
sometimes quite traumatic. In Curdi’s case, the Goa Government played a crucial role
in easing the burden on the displaced people. Although there were some shortfalls and
lapses, the compensation deal was reasonable. When those who are displaced do not
have to worry about their finances and are given land for cultivation and other
facilities, their struggle with life becomes much easier.

In today’s fast moving world, frequent changes of habitat are the norm, and people do
it without feeling disturbed or disoriented. It has to be borne in mind, however, that
the people of Curdi lived in a close-knit society, with dependence on the natural
environment.

It is our interaction with our land and the bond that we share with it that makes us
long for that land or draws us to go back to it even many years after physically moving
away from it. That’s because the place is inscribed in our body and the body feels at
ease when it is in a familiar environment. It is the memory that binds the body to
place.

People say they feel good when they visit Curdi. The people of Curdi were basically
agriculturists. Casey Edwards insists that “The body not only goes out to reach places,
it also bears the traces of the places it has known.” A body that has toiled in the fields
of Curdi will certainly be at home there. Though this may not be true of the younger
generation, I yet felt at peace even when I visited Curdi for the very first time. To quote
Edwards again, “Places come into us lastingly; once having been in a particular place
for any considerable time, or even briefly, if our experience there has been intense, we
are forever marked by that place.”

But since I had never been to Curdi before, did Curdi have the power to enter the body
through generations? Perhaps yes. My father visited Curdi only once after its
submersion; although he was not interested, I felt a strong desire to see that village, of
which I had heard such intriguing stories. My father used to tell me equally enthralling
stories about the Gulf where he worked, but though I had visited the Gulf once, I never
felt at home there. But after visiting Curdi I could hear my soul telling me, “This is my
village. I belong here.”

For my father, Curdi was like a young bride, fully decked up in her heyday. But for me
she is like an old lady on her deathbed.

Although I don’t get dreams like other Curdikars, I feel strongly for it. I don’t have any
personal memories of Curdi; all I have is the present image, which fascinates me. Am I
a part of a subconscious group, the people who are affiliated to Curdi through their
dreams, or am I a derivative trying to fit into my father’s place? I know one thing: for
my father, Curdi was like a young bride, fully decked up in her heyday. But for me she
is like an old lady on her deathbed. For him there’s nothing left in Curdi now, possibly
because he has seen that village once full of life, but for me whatever is remaining is of
great importance because whatever is remaining now will also be lost with time.
We can’t preserve it but we can capture it for posterity, through pictures and videos
and through oral history. I am glad I am contributing to it through this study. Perhaps
in a way I am becoming a member of the past of a place, which had already vanished
even before I was born.

In a powerful way, Curdi is also the symbol of my bonding with my father. Place can be
the glue that bonds people—the villagers of yesteryear or a father and his daughter—
even though some of them may have never lived in the place together, or even seen it
in its prime.

References

 Agnew, John. 2005. “Space: Place.” In Spaces of Geographical Thought. Delhi.

Sage Publications, pp.81-98.
 Basso, Keith. 1996. “Wisdom Sits in Places” in Senses of Place. Santa Fe,. NM:
School of American Research Press. pp. 53-90.
 Baviskar, Amita. 1997. In the Belly of the River: Tribal conflicts over
development in the Narmada Valley. New Delhi. Oxford University Press.
 Campbell, Christopher. n.d. The material and ideational elements of place:
place as cultural
enterprise. http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p.1055335_index.html. Browsed on
July 23, 2009.
 Cernea, Michael M. 1996. “Public policy responses to development-induced
population displacements.” nn Economic and Political Weekly. Volume 24, Special
issue, pp. 1515-23.
 Cox, Holmes. 2000. “Loss, healing and the power of place.” In Human Studies.
Volume 23, Number 1, pp. 63-78.
 Casey, Edward. 2001. “Between Geography and Philosophy: What Does It Mean
to Be in the Place-World?” In Annals of the Association of American
Geographers. Volume 91, Number 4, pp. 683-93. 
 Foster, Jonathan K. 2009. Memory: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford
University Press.
 Gieryn, Thomas F. 2000. “A space for place in sociology.” In Annual Review of
Sociology. Volume 26, pp. 463-96.
 History and Memory.
n.d. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/history_and_memory/ Browsed on June 9, 2009 
 Kothari, Smitu. 1996. “Whose nation? The displaced as victims of
development.” Economic and Political Weekly. Volume 24, Special issue, pp. 1476-
85.
 Lavabre, Marie-Claire. For a Sociology of Collective
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Browsed on October 20, 2009.
 Malcolm, Norman. 1977. Memory and Mind. New York: Cornell University
Press.
 Mangalekar, Ramesh S. 2006. Development, displacement and rehabilitation (a
sociological case study of Sea Bird project, Karwar). Goa: Goa University.
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Resource Department, Pajimol, Sanguem, Goa.
 Salauli Irrigation Project. 2007. Water Resource Department, Pajimol, Sanguem,
Goa.
 Schwartz, Barry. Collective
memory. http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/beos_collective. Browsed on
October 20, 2009.
 Sense of Place. http://www.wikipedia.sense_of_place/  Browsed on July 27,
2009. Thukral, Enakshi Ganguly. 1996.“Development, displacement and
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Venisha Fernandes, Assistant Professor in Sociology, is a romantic soul, traveling being
her passion. Environment, culture and feminism are themes that interest her and she
brings them into her poetry. Writing and acting pops up in between. The classroom is
her ‘workshop’ and making students speak up (find their voice) her achievement.
Determined to bring about a change, she encourages her students to take an interest
in their own surroundings.

Attribution

Remembering the Past: Place and Memory After Displacement, Venisha Fernandes.
2010. An edited version of the master’s dissertation project at the Department of
Sociology, Goa University. The work is licensed under the Creative Commons, copyright
with individual author. Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0
International License.