Author's Note: This story is wholly fictional, though it does draw on the prevailing social conditions in Goa in the mid-eighteenth century
Caetano D'Costa had wooed and won the heart of Consuela de Albuquerque, but her father was an old world elitist. She had been baptised at Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Consolação in Sesimbra when her father was in Portugal and had been named in the Spanish fashion after the patron saint of the church. In his book, he was a member of the ruling Portuguese elite; a member of the prestigious imperial hierarchy that ruled Goa – a fidalgo1, with the right to rule the locals. It was another matter that he was just a middle order nobleman. His claim to eliteness was to a large extant based on the fact that he was a distant relative of Afonso de Albuquerque, the Governor of Goa.
When he came to know of the romance, the lesser of his worries was whether a commoner, especially a newly converted one, could give his daughter all the comforts and privileges that a member of the administrative services of the empire could give. But, privately, and more importantly, he dreaded the slight to his status that such a marriage would bring. He could have packed her off to Portugal, but he knew that the Europeans there would still look down upon her, as one from the colonies. There was only one way out, he decided. He would make her join the Church.
For this he chose one of the oldest nunneries. It was a very austere order and resided in a cloistered campus. The nuns lived in seclusion and had no contact with any male except their father, paternal uncles or brothers of the inmate, or the convent's doctor, in case the need arose. Even the male relatives who were allowed to visit were permitted to do so just twice in a month and under supervision.
On admission, Consuela's hair was shorn before she took up the veil. Due to her father's Portuguese ancestry, she was given the privilege of wearing a black veil, while nuns of Goan descent had to use a white one. Of course, this small concession did not spare her from the hard life that all the inmates led. Other than their time spent on prayer and activities directly linked to the convent, they spent their time making vestments, tending the extensive garden in the quadrangle and in cooking jam and other preserves. During prayers conducted by the Archbishop, once in a year, they sat in the choir loft to observe the mass without being themselves seen. The segregation was complete and absolute.
Caitu, as Caetano was commonly known, was flabbergasted at what her father had done. He knew that if he did not take necessary steps, there was no way of meeting Consuela again. He realised that becoming a doctor was one way of doing that. In Goa, a dotor2 is a well respected person and usually considered above suspicion. He was intelligent enough to qualify as a doctor as early as possible, but there was a hitch. He needed to be the doctor whom the convent consulted. There was little chance of his taking the place of the existing incumbent.
1 nobleman, in Portuguese
2 Not a typo! This Goan Konkani word for doctor comes from the Portuguese "doutor"
So he hatched a plan – he would join the church and become a doctor in the service of the Church. For this he selected to join the order that had its campus just across the road from the convent. It took him a few years to become a physician. The nunnery quickly grabbed the opportunity to take him on as their consultant doctor as he was easily accessible as compared to the previous one who had do come from the nearest city at a time of his convenience.
Soon he began regular visits to the nunnery whenever he was called to attend to one inmate or another. He was always supervised on these visits by an inmate, other than the patient,who escorted him from the door to the ailing inmate. Several months passed and it looked that Consuela never fell ill. So, he did not get an opportunity to meet her, even in the presence of another inmate.
One day, he was informed that one of the older inmates of the nunnery appeared to be in a critical condition. He hastened to the nunnery and knocked at the entrance he usually used. As the door opened, his heart took a leap, as it was opened by Consuela, who was to escort him to the bedside of her ailing senior.
Seeing him at the door, Consuela was unsure of her feelings as she led him through the building. She had taken the vows of her order, but seeing him in flesh made her doubt her own resoluteness. While he too was happy that his plan had worked, he was not quite sure what the future held for both of them. For the moment, he attended to his duties towards the patient and was let out silently. The surprise of seeing each other had stunned both Caitu and Consuela to silence.
He made several similar visits to see the same patient, but never encountered Consuela again. He was not sure if it was providence at work or whether she was avoiding him. At the end of one such visit, he was let out through the room which was used by nuns to meet their visiting relatives. Though he could not see Consuela as she was yet to arrive, he recognised her father who was waiting to meet her. Her father was shocked to see his daughter's old flame in the nunnery, that too in religious clothing and apparently having a free run of the premises.
As soon as Consuela's father left the premises, he went straight to the former palace of Adil Shah, the erstwhile ruler of the area before the Portuguese colonisation. The palace was now re-purposed as the head-quarters of the dreaded Holy Inquisition in Goa. He announced his name and asked for the Inquisitor. The Albuquerque in his name got him an immediate audience.
He informed the Inquisitor that he had learnt that Caetano D'Costa, a convert who had been ordained as a priest, continued to carry on the practices of his erstwhile religion. In those days, a mere complaint was enough to start inquisition proceedings, and the burden of innocence was on the accused. Caitu was picked up by the Inquistion and taken to the notorious Big House3, as the palace was euphemistically known.
3 'VhoDle Ghor' or 'Orlem Ghor', in Konkani, as it was called in whispered horror
Caitu was subjected to various kinds of torture to make him confess. However, he resisted the urge to make a false confession, knowing very well that a confession would certainly lead to dire consequences. When Consuela's father heard that a confession was not forthcoming, he decided to get rid of Caetano once and for all. He put in a suggestion that the accused be pronounced guilty and subjected to an auto-da-fe, a public execution by burning. He was willing to do anything to that end and managed to achieve his objective by pulling appropriate strings.
Post-script: The last auto da fé in Goa was held in 1773 and the Inquisition was disbanded in 1820.
Caetano D'Costa had wooed and won the heart of Consuela de Albuquerque, but her father was an old world elitist. She had been baptised at Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Consolação in Sesimbra when her father was in Portugal and had been named in the Spanish fashion after the patron saint of the church. In his book, he was a member of the ruling Portuguese elite; a member of the prestigious imperial hierarchy that ruled Goa – a fidalgo1, with the right to rule the locals. It was another matter that he was just a middle order nobleman. His claim to eliteness was to a large extant based on the fact that he was a distant relative of Afonso de Albuquerque, the Governor of Goa.
When he came to know of the romance, the lesser of his worries was whether a commoner, especially a newly converted one, could give his daughter all the comforts and privileges that a member of the administrative services of the empire could give. But, privately, and more importantly, he dreaded the slight to his status that such a marriage would bring. He could have packed her off to Portugal, but he knew that the Europeans there would still look down upon her, as one from the colonies. There was only one way out, he decided. He would make her join the Church.
For this he chose one of the oldest nunneries. It was a very austere order and resided in a cloistered campus. The nuns lived in seclusion and had no contact with any male except their father, paternal uncles or brothers of the inmate, or the convent's doctor, in case the need arose. Even the male relatives who were allowed to visit were permitted to do so just twice in a month and under supervision.
On admission, Consuela's hair was shorn before she took up the veil. Due to her father's Portuguese ancestry, she was given the privilege of wearing a black veil, while nuns of Goan descent had to use a white one. Of course, this small concession did not spare her from the hard life that all the inmates led. Other than their time spent on prayer and activities directly linked to the convent, they spent their time making vestments, tending the extensive garden in the quadrangle and in cooking jam and other preserves. During prayers conducted by the Archbishop, once in a year, they sat in the choir loft to observe the mass without being themselves seen. The segregation was complete and absolute.
Caitu, as Caetano was commonly known, was flabbergasted at what her father had done. He knew that if he did not take necessary steps, there was no way of meeting Consuela again. He realised that becoming a doctor was one way of doing that. In Goa, a dotor2 is a well respected person and usually considered above suspicion. He was intelligent enough to qualify as a doctor as early as possible, but there was a hitch. He needed to be the doctor whom the convent consulted. There was little chance of his taking the place of the existing incumbent.
1 nobleman, in Portuguese
2 Not a typo! This Goan Konkani word for doctor comes from the Portuguese "doutor"
**
So he hatched a plan – he would join the church and become a doctor in the service of the Church. For this he selected to join the order that had its campus just across the road from the convent. It took him a few years to become a physician. The nunnery quickly grabbed the opportunity to take him on as their consultant doctor as he was easily accessible as compared to the previous one who had do come from the nearest city at a time of his convenience.
Soon he began regular visits to the nunnery whenever he was called to attend to one inmate or another. He was always supervised on these visits by an inmate, other than the patient,who escorted him from the door to the ailing inmate. Several months passed and it looked that Consuela never fell ill. So, he did not get an opportunity to meet her, even in the presence of another inmate.
One day, he was informed that one of the older inmates of the nunnery appeared to be in a critical condition. He hastened to the nunnery and knocked at the entrance he usually used. As the door opened, his heart took a leap, as it was opened by Consuela, who was to escort him to the bedside of her ailing senior.
**
Seeing him at the door, Consuela was unsure of her feelings as she led him through the building. She had taken the vows of her order, but seeing him in flesh made her doubt her own resoluteness. While he too was happy that his plan had worked, he was not quite sure what the future held for both of them. For the moment, he attended to his duties towards the patient and was let out silently. The surprise of seeing each other had stunned both Caitu and Consuela to silence.
**
He made several similar visits to see the same patient, but never encountered Consuela again. He was not sure if it was providence at work or whether she was avoiding him. At the end of one such visit, he was let out through the room which was used by nuns to meet their visiting relatives. Though he could not see Consuela as she was yet to arrive, he recognised her father who was waiting to meet her. Her father was shocked to see his daughter's old flame in the nunnery, that too in religious clothing and apparently having a free run of the premises.
**
As soon as Consuela's father left the premises, he went straight to the former palace of Adil Shah, the erstwhile ruler of the area before the Portuguese colonisation. The palace was now re-purposed as the head-quarters of the dreaded Holy Inquisition in Goa. He announced his name and asked for the Inquisitor. The Albuquerque in his name got him an immediate audience.
He informed the Inquisitor that he had learnt that Caetano D'Costa, a convert who had been ordained as a priest, continued to carry on the practices of his erstwhile religion. In those days, a mere complaint was enough to start inquisition proceedings, and the burden of innocence was on the accused. Caitu was picked up by the Inquistion and taken to the notorious Big House3, as the palace was euphemistically known.
3 'VhoDle Ghor' or 'Orlem Ghor', in Konkani, as it was called in whispered horror
**
Caitu was subjected to various kinds of torture to make him confess. However, he resisted the urge to make a false confession, knowing very well that a confession would certainly lead to dire consequences. When Consuela's father heard that a confession was not forthcoming, he decided to get rid of Caetano once and for all. He put in a suggestion that the accused be pronounced guilty and subjected to an auto-da-fe, a public execution by burning. He was willing to do anything to that end and managed to achieve his objective by pulling appropriate strings.
**
**
Caetano D'Costa was burnt in the public square as ordered by the Inquistion. The flames consumed his body turning it to ashes that fell to the ground in the praça.
A few days later, wholly unaware of what had happened to Caitu, Consuela took part in the rites that marked the commencement of Lent. On Ash Wednesday, ashes obtained from burning palm leaves consecrated in the previous year's Palm Sunday celebrations, were applied to her forehead, amidst chants of "Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris", reminding her that humankind was dust and to dust it would return. Some people paraphrase it 'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust'.
She never saw Caitu again. Little did she know that her old flame had been extinguished by another flame.
She never saw Caitu again. Little did she know that her old flame had been extinguished by another flame.
4 Bahadur Shah Zafar says the same, "Main vo ek musht-e-gubaar hoon" in his poem "Na kisi kee aankh ka noor hoon". Listen to Mohd. Rafi's poignant rendition in the movie Lal Quila here.
***
Post-script: The last auto da fé in Goa was held in 1773 and the Inquisition was disbanded in 1820.
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What a poignant heart breaking tale. Tight writing!
ReplyDeleteThanks, doc!
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