Khazan Clay Chronicles

Identity, as a child, even today, you make a child draw, draw, like you know, a school kid, with a sketch, go up. What will come in the sketch? Expectedly, there will be coconut trees, there will be fields, there will be water, yeah? There will be some boats, maybe, yeah? There will be some hills. And typically, this is what the child will be.

So, it's already in his system, the cousins are already in his system. The whole ambience is the ambience of the cousin. The man-made, man-made value addition was to cultivate and get food from it.

The value addition was to that extent. So, historically, if you see, yes, they were culturally relevant then, they are culturally relevant today, because culture is something that a child can say, any other elderly generation can say, even the grand generation can say, that is culture, because that is something common, and our food, and our style, and our ambience, all this is part of culture. So, if we say landscape is our cultural identity, this is the landscape.

If you say food is our cultural identity, this is the food we get from the cousin, and that's why we eat shitpuri. Shitpuri is for cousin, no? Both fish also, and the rice also, and the coconut also, all of that are ingredients of cousin. So, and as I told you, if a child is told to just draw the visual, that is the landscape of Goa.

That is the cultural landscape of Goa. Because there were coconut trees, it could have been the trigger of the songs. Because there were coconut trees, we had so many types of dishes.

Because there was rice, the typical dishes in the kitchen of Goa and Patli are to learn. Because there was cousin, and there was a working process, there were the songs. Because of the cousin, there were customs, and the whole life processes were built around customs, festivals, you know.

This is culture. Now, you imagine this in a perfect situation then. Today, we still see that, see it.

A lot of it is still there, and that's why we celebrate harvest festival. Yes, during that time, we may be disturbed with a crop, we don't have a crop, we have a hold in our hand, but yes, harvest festival is there. And there are so many fish related festivals, rice related festivals, salt related festivals, you know.

Actually, basically, any community that reveres nature, they are connected with nature and all their customs, festivals also are connected with nature. And therefore, if a particular region followed a particular process for their food and their sustainable living, festivals would have been built into it. And these are not religion centric festivals.

They are process centric festivals. They are people centric festivals. So, if you see harvest festival, you would look at similar kind of reveration in Christian, in Hindu, some customs would be coming which are needing the crop, the first crop.

Yes, it's of that nature. That is because festivals were built around the processes of the people, not in the religion of the people. The religion took that and revered it and put it next level because I think our ancestors were very holy, very spiritual, you know, much more spiritual than what we are today.

And therefore, they created a good balance for them. I think more than, you know, what we are teaching ourselves sustainable living, we should learn from our traditional knowledge what is sustainable living.

My name is Eduardo Vaz. I have a sluice gate, a nice big one and two farming fields. I have another field in Ilha De Rachol. Now I'm talking from Rachol. One in Ilha De Rachol and one in Rachol. In Rachol I have a big sluice gate and a farming field too. It's become cold now and we don't grow currently, because the expenditure is too much. And the one I have in Ilha De Rachol, that's also quite big. How many yards? I don't know. I have the survey number of both. That's also closed because of family problems. So I have not started growing again. Next year I will grow.

That time I had my family. I did not buy this. I did not buy this. It was my father’s. I have seen a few changes, but it's mostly like this. We have not made any changes there. Because every year we used to grow, our family was there. We were all busy at work. Everyone would work and my missus, my wife used to do it.

My mother had died and all that and I continued but then my missus died and then I stopped growing for the last three years.

Here (Rachol) there must be some problems or the other. Here in Rachol, some changes must have happened. I don't know what their plan is. I don't know.

The panchayat, I don't know, he also has a field over there, the sarpanch. But his name is not on the survey. He’s the sarpanch. Sarpanch means he has the power. He also stopped because he doesn't have anyone to care for the fields. 

It's called “Azgo” (rice). That's what we grow. It's good for health. We don't use fertiliser or anything on it. It just grows. Now there's less man-power, so that's the problem.

And we can't use machines. And last time, three years back, two years back, I think, my wife's two sisters, I spent rs. 15,000 and give it to them to maintain it.

Now I am 56 years old, those things are there just like that only, how it was before. It's still the same. Why should I sell it? Why do I need the money? My son, you know what he tells me? He's in the Grand Cayman Islands, he went when he was 18 years old. He says “clean the house. What used to be there, throw out!” Why should I throw it out? It grows food, which we dry, cook and eat. It’s about Rs.71 per kg now. 

Khazan lands are everywhere, even in, if you go to this thing where I, Malwan and all, if they have also not like, you know, they have also chalked up the flow of the water, there also it would have been like, you know, they must have messed up. But here are the agricultural practices which is unique to Goa, you know, and Goan culture. If agricultural practices of Khazan… Of that particular rice, which is only available in Goa, you won't be able to get that rice anywhere else.

Because in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Kerala, same as Khazans… No, no, Khazans are there, but the Kormundicho Tanur, this is a specific Tanur only of Goa. So, on that basis, we can get the, we can put this in UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Because you know what, there was one site, I don't know, it is an intangible layer or wherever, in Portugal, some country I have seen, they had no rock, their geographical features were all rock, rock around, you know, and they came up with a distinctive, you know, agricultural cultivation practice for cultivation of grapes.

And they are, you know, in that rocks, you know, there are like, you know, cracks, in that the water seeps in during the rain and through that they are doing a grape cultivation. And because of that, that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site now. And you know what, the UNESCO, the grant that I got, Living Waters Museum is one of UNESCO's water museums.

Okay, so this is for, as regards grapes, when I was actually understanding grapes, I was like, okay, then we have Goa's Khazans. Because Khazan also is a typical Kormundicho Tanur and the community lifestyle, the way the whole community set up and everything, you know, as I know it in a very beautiful way, how the set up was. But that's why I am saying that, that can give a different identity to Goa, you know.

Because we have the churches, we have temples, but that's secondary. But this is like a natural heritage, you know. And if we can map it and revive back, Goa will be back into place in terms of food habits.

Yeah. And it's a revival of heritage, you know. Even the food habits are also a cultural heritage resource.

What do you say? Yeah. There is something like that, people we saw planting. No, even if you are saying Kerala there are Khazans.

No, no. What is the peculiarity? The rice in Goa itself. Different.

In, you know, where in Charao side, Charao side. People don't know also what is going on. That's another thing.

People don't do it. That's the thing. And what happened is, when this feast culture came, you know, Vagi concept, they said with the Vagi they were getting more money.

So, they said why we have to cultivate Nandu, it's that way. Money. Money.

Capitalism. Yeah. But overall it's very important.

See, similarly we have done the same thing in the sarees. If you see now Kumbhi sarees, they have revived. But they were very much, you know, cotton fabric of Goa, which is unique to this place.

Now, what I am saying is, we have started accepting jeans. But what happens is, the moment you practice the culture, you know, that remains. If you don't practice, it goes out.

And then, even the same thing happened when I was documenting what, you know, I have done my MR study on Kavi. Kavi is an original mural painting of Goa. Okay, Kavi art.

So, I went to the extent that if you see, that's a peculiar, you know, mural painting style only of Goa. So, I went, what happens is, it's like, you know, if you practice, there was a culture that my grandfather tells me something and it remains to me. Now, I don't have a knowledgeable grandfather only to tell me the stories.

So, this has happened and there, there is a, you know, cut into the narrations, narratives, you know, of these intricacies. And then you lose on to that. We have actually damaged our food, culture, everything.

Because that thing, one generation trying to go towards modernity, the actual intricacies of what are in cuisines, maybe in anything, we have lost it. And then we are crying one day that we don't have this. So, that's why, you know, I have started now wearing sarees.

I will always tell you, I was not ready to do it. But it's like when we wear it, it's like we are promoting that. If you don't do it, who is going to do it? Yeah.

So, we have to give a second thought even to our lifestyle, to what we are going to do and what you want to, like, you know, portray you as. Because you are also, like, you are also going to leave. And if I am living for 10 years, 10 years is a time, right? So, instead of wearing jeans, you give a different, you know, outlook to the society so that you help them in different ways.

You know, Riya and I noticed this. It's a very generational difference. And if you ask these any, like, it's just the elderly that is holding on to all the knowledge of the culture and the thing that makes us earth.

Yeah. And if this is not passed on in the right spirit, it's gone. So, family, you know, what you call, family ethics, how the families have been brought up and all, they are very important concepts.

Because if these things are not there in the woman, you lose on to the heritage connections. Everything is deteriorated in women.