How My Life Changed

By Vithai Zaraunkar

Once my professor at the Goa University said to me that I had changed a lot. “You were so

quiet, seated on the last bench in the class, afraid to be noticed by teachers. You are not the

same Vithai I met five years ago. Do you think you have changed?”

I thought for a bit and replied,‘Yes.’

Now I will tell you how it all happened.

As a child, I enjoyed my life at home. I had major fun at home rather than in the ‘outside’

environment. Within the household I was a princess of my father. My life journey started in a

very poor family in the beautiful village of Gaval Kholain Goa. My father was a mason and

my mother worked in the fields as a sharecropper. My parents had four children and there

was no major source of income, yet we lived a very happy and beautiful life. I had many

friends with whom I enjoyed a lot. At the age of six I started my schooling. At the primary

school level (from first to fourth standard) all the students were from my village and

belonged to the Velip community. Our village, Khola, which is located near the Cabo de

Rama fort, has four primary schools. Therefore at the primary level there were no students

from other communities in our class during my school days. We shared many things—games,

tiffins, studies, fights—and life was too beautiful. At the primary level I was the only student

who was actively participating in competitions such as storytelling, elocution, spelling

completion (Marathi as well as in English). Till the initial stages of high school I remained a

very active student. We have only one school in our village from fifth to tenth standards and

all the students from other primary schools come here to study. From the fifth standard
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onward I slowly started keeping away from participating in many of the events or the

activities conducted in the school curriculum. This was because of two teachers, a couple

who taught us in high school. They lived in our ward, Gaval, in a rented room as those days

there was limited transportation. The husband was our sports teacher and the wife taught us

Social Science and Science. Both started hating me as I was a bright student. This is

something I realised when I reached the eighth standard. In the eighth standard the lady

teacher (who taught us Social Science and Science) was not teaching us because she was a

middle-school teacher and hence she taught from fifth to seventh standards. But her husband

continued to be our Sports teacher. I realised why they used to hate me as I remained a

favourite student of all the teachers, except the two of them.

Whenever I, or my friends, didn’t complete our homework, the lady teacher always

commented, ‘Kulmi tumi ani kulmich urtali tumi ani kenna sudharchi naat,’ (You are kulmi

and kulmi you will remain and you will never improve). Hearing this constantly I stopped

participating in school activities. The teacher also used to hit us for silly reasons. For

example, if we didn’t answer any question, or memorise (what we call ‘by heart’ in our

education system)an answer she had given in a previous class she would throw the duster

from where she was sitting, basically from the teacher’s table to the student’s bench. I was

very feeble in ‘by hearting’ as compared to other students. I was made to believe that since I

could not memorise answers I was no good at studies. I thought to myself that my inability to

memorise was the reason she constantly said that we were Kulmi and we would never

amount to anything. We also heard similar remarks from her husband who was our Sports

teacher. Whenever he came to our class, from fifth standard till the ninth standard, instead of

teaching sports, he asked me and my friends about the sports book. We never participated in

sports, and were never asked to participate. We were never taught the games and were denied

all sports activities. Even those students from my community who took part in sports did not

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receive any training from him. These students were also made to do domestic work during

school hours such as grinding masalas, fetching water from the public tap to their room, etc.

Whenever the sports teacher came to our class he spoke about the people of my village (as he

lived in our village) in derogatory terms, saying that they were barbaric, didn’t know how to

wear clothes, or didn’t use toilets, or were defecating in open toilets. He would also highlight

the names of our elders. For example, “Shaba ponnevadyavelo sakalichya 6 varacher daily

tamyo ghevan bhair sarta ani parat yeta tenna ani tanchyakade ravpache aasana ghaani

kide khata mhan konak khabar,” (Shaba from Gaval village goes out at six in the morning

with a utensil for toilet and when they come back they smell very badly…I don’t understand

what these people eat).Other comments would be on our eating habits: Pez jevtat sakalche 6

o’ clock, ‘jungli aesole, Ranvoti,’or on our ways of dressing: They roam half naked, kashti

martat, botvo laytat (a small bag made of cotton cloth), paan-supari khatat, unclean ravtat

and on and on. For around five years we were hearing the same theme from the two teachers

with varying examples and names of our elders.

For a student at the primary level a teacher is a kind of god; for us also it was the same. I felt

whatever our teacher was saying about my village people was true—we were not developed,

we were backward educationally as well as socially, my village people didn’t know anything.

From this experience, I moved forward in my life and tried to change my identity. At first, I

started masking my identity.

The image of my people created by my school teachers embarrassed me. When I passed my

SSC and started going to Higher Secondary school I adopted a different lifestyle. I changed

my school. I joined the United Higher Secondary School in Cuncolim village where I took

admission in the Science stream. Changing the school made it a little convenient to hide my

identity. When I was a little girl I was wearing a salwar-kamiz or a frock that most girls from

my community wore, but now I switched to wearing jeans, t-shirts and tops, so-called modern
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dresses. I changed my hair style (a modern hair cut), I spoke differently, modulating my

Konkani differently from my village people. I adopted these ways basically from the eleventh

standard onwards. When I joined the higher secondary school I had made up my mind that I

would not make any friends from within my community thinking that if I did so it would

affect my development, my image, and that other students would look down upon me. Hence

all my friends at the higher secondary level were from other communities—Naik, Dessai,

Chari, etc. Also, most of the time I felt that they were not accepting me in their group. This

could have been just my feeling and it’s possible that they did not have any intention to avoid

me. All the students were from one school, Maria Bambina High School, Cuncolim and I was

the only alien to that group. Most of the time I felt lonely because the other students never

shared any joke, or tiffin with me like they shared among themselves.

I had studied in the Science stream till class 12 and I wanted to pursue a career in agriculture

science. For that I had applied for a course on Agriculture in Maharashtra. I was selected for

the course but I couldn’t pursue my career due to lack of financial support. I was completely

unaware of the facilities available for students from ST (Scheduled Tribe) such as free hostel

accommodation and other related benefits. Due to a lack of financial support and knowledge

about provisions for ST students I lost the opportunity to take up my desired career. I know I

am not the only one who has missed out on such an opportunity; there are thousands of

Vithai’s who have missed the opportunity just because they were unaware of their rights and

the benefits given them by the Constitution of India.

At the same time I lost my father. To do BSc (Bachelor of Science) I had to go to Quepem,

which was a little far from home and my family was not in a position to afford it. So I

continued my studies in Arts. I joined CES College of Arts and Commerce, Cuncolim. Here,

too, I continued with the same strategy of staying away from my community people and

hiding my tribal identity. Since I did not have a surname such as ‘Velip’or ‘Gaonkar’ that
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would give away my identity it was a little easy for me to hide my Velip roots. Many a time I

received negative comments on the dialect of Konkani that I speak, and I was being corrected

to speak the so-called upper-caste dialect.

As an example, during my college days I came across many comments on my language.

During those days I spoke my native language, that is my native Konkani which is spoken in

my village. Sometimes I managed to speak like the elite class, but I retained some words

from my native dialect. One day one of my classmates met me on the bus stand. She started

talking to me, then I asked her something about the lecture and she said “Ago bai hi ani

kasali language uloyta tu? Asalele ani nasalele mhanp asana go ashille ani nashille

mhanap” (Hey girl, what is this language you speak? Don’t say asalale, and nasalele, say

ashille and nashille). I was so disturbed hearing her, fearing that she might tell her friends and

they would start laughing at me.

Throughout college life I remained a person who was very quiet, shy, lacking

confidence, never mixing up with others, afraid to be noticed by teachers, ashamed of myself

thinking that I knew nothing. But this situation did not remain the same.

When I went to do my M.A in Sociology in Goa University, I easily got selected on

the basis of my ‘merit’ since my academic scores were good. But, I used to deliberately hide

the fact that I belonged to a tribal community. The identity or the image that a tribal has is a

negative ‘primitive’ image of humans, dressing poorly and using a distorted language, and I

didn’t yet know the actual reason behind it, that is, ‘why is it so?’ and how it is constructed.

Thus, I was careful about hiding my identity so that I could avoid theatrocities thatI had faced

during schooling which had affected me psychologically. There were discussions regarding

ST’s in our classroom but I used to keep quiet. It was in the last semester when I opted for the

course titled ‘Tourism Culture and Development’ that I disclosed my identity for the first

time, and that too confidently. In this course we were given to study the local cultural
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festivals of Goa with reference to tourism and how the tourism industry is helping to

popularise different hidden cultures. For that reason we were given an opportunity to study

the Lokutsav of Canacona taluka, a tribal festival of the Velip community. It is an annual

festival wherein the traditional way of cooking, use of traditional utensils, instruments, and

dresses are displayed for three days. In our course we were introduced to different concepts

such as Orientalism, Othering, Auto-Orientalism, Auto-Othering, Folklorisation, etc. I had

referred to my senior, Elizabeth Bara’s dissertation, Why Dance?

(https://hanvkonn.wordpress.com/2019/07/26/why-dance/), where she mentions her

experience in college. One of her friends said to her: ‘You do not look like a tribal.’ This

statement of her’s touched me a lot and also disturbed me. It made me think about the

experience of my life. Several questions arose in my mind: Can we recognise a tribal just by

looking at them? How do they look? Who created this type of image? Why am I running

away from ‘myself’? What are the factors that are responsible for the same? Why can’t I live

a normal life like others? Why do such problems occur? Many questions emerged in my mind

for which I did not have any answers. It is not just the dressing style or the use of a ‘distorted’

language, but people expect tribals to be different in particular ways. After reading different

concepts like ‘Othering’, ‘Orientalism’ etc. and relating them to the ‘Lokutsav’, and

discussions in the classroom I realised how reality is constructed and certain cultures are

made inferior. The introduction to these concepts stimulated me and I learnt why I was

ashamed of my culture, why I was running away from it, and I also came to know why my

school teacher and my classmates had passed negative comments about me and my

community. It made me realise that I was nowhere. I tried to become so-called ‘modern’ but I

couldn’t achieve that and in reality I am not fully modern and neither completely traditional.

When I made the classroom presentation on Lokutsav I presented it as ‘our culture’.

It made me feel proud. That was the first time that I represented myself with reference to my

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community in front of my classmates. Some of them were not able to accept the fact that I

belonged to a tribal community. Perhaps they never expected a person from a tribal

community to be in their class (this is what I gathered from their expressions). The ‘markers’

for tribals are totally different from my appearance. Even today people believe that tribal

people live in jungles, wear few clothes and lead a primitive way of life. This might be the

reason why people did not expect me at the post-graduate level.

It was during the second year of MA that we were exposed to the studies of

Authenticity. It refers to something genuine or real. Within this study we had a reading on

Orientalism—what does Orientalism mean? According to Edward Said, Orientalism is the

description or depiction of the eastern cultures in the west. This view is being continued from

the colonial times. It has divided the world into two parts—‘ours’ and ‘theirs’. Orientalists

linked the western cultures to the eastern cultures through which eastern people were seen as

uncivilized beings. The image of eastern cultures was represented in a stigmatised way and it

continues till today. A combination of authenticity and oriental writing made me understand

that whatever is contained in the writings of orientalists is not authentic or real, rather it was

the image through which the western cultures were represented in a superior manner.

Through this I come to know that backwardness is something that is created through

oriental literature and imposed on the people who were not in power to show the difference

between what is to be called ‘high’ status and ‘low’ status. From this I understood that my

culture, the language we speak, the dressing style of my community is nothing to do with

backwardness as supposed by my two school teachers. My culture is very rich and beautiful.

When I saw the celebration of Velip traditions, traditional songs, dance, food, traditional ways

of cooking, medicinal practices, equipments, utensils, etc, at the Lokutsav in Canacona, I

understood that I am not ‘I’ what I say I am, but I am ‘I’ what others say I am. This realisation

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acted as a turning point in my life. I started developing myself. I read more on orientalism

and oriental literature and decided that I’m ‘I’ what I say I am.

I undertook a project entitled Old Songs, New Stories: The Tales From Velips of Goa.

The project was sanctioned by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, as part of the

preservation of intangible cultural heritage. This project gave me courage and the means to

collect the stories of my community. While collecting and recording the stories I visited many

tribal villages of Canancona, came across distinct lifestyles, encountered a great culture and

great people who never say no to anyone, who are happy to help, but are handicapped to help

themselves. Through this project I developed an intense feeling for my culture and learnt that

it’s very rich and beautiful and realised that the people whom I interviewed are very

enlightened people. While doing this project I come across many difficulties—I was unable

to understand the language of my elders; while transcribing I could not get the meaning of

many words. I used to sit with them for hours to just understand the meaning and write it in

my own words.

Later, the film Ami Kon, made by Gasper D Souza which highlights my life

experience, brought about an immense change in me. In 2016 when I screened that film at a

workshop at Ponda I found the courage to disclose my experience. This had never happened

earlier. I wasn’t afraid to highlight the reality. Initially I was very reluctant to screen that film

because once, my professor Alito Siqueira, screened that film for our juniors at the University

and one of my friendsmessaged me saying that ‘the film was very nice but your room is very

messy.’ Then I telephoned Sir and told him to stop screening the film if that was the message

being communicated to people. Later, I received many positive comments on the film, for

example when it was screened at the Ponda Workshop. Sometimes I felt that I should not

screen that film because of feelings of stigmatisation but at other times I also felt like

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screening the film just to look at the reaction of the audience. This film brought about

positive as well as negative comments, and through all that I became a stronger person.

After finishing the project I applied for the B.Ed (Bachelor of Education) course. I

was first in the list of ST category applicants for the Social Science seat. When I went to the

Directorate of Higher Education for admission somebody else’s name was announced instead

of mine. I asked the Director how that had happened. The Director showed me another list.

The selection list had been changed overnight. I got a chance to fight and challenge the

system highlighting that whatever they had done while filling up the B.Ed seat was through

incorrect procedures. After challenging the system I got a seat for the B.Ed course. This

experience, in turn, taught me a lesson that if I remained quiet I would miss all the

opportunities in my life and I would have to suffer just like my forefathers. This is how my

life took a turn towards empowerment. The denial of my rights has strengthened me. My

experience has also provided me with courage and made me look responsibly towards the

development of my community.

In 2017-18 my first teaching experience was at the Balram Higher Secondary College

where 90 percent of the students were from the ST community. I was appointed on a lecture

basis and was alloted many other duties—conducting weekly morning assemblies, class

teachership, member of different committees. Since it was my first job I was not aware of the

workload for a lecture-basis teacher. After a few days I realised that we were being harassed

by the principal. Attending evening events was made compulsory, as was attending all the

other programmes. However many of us wanted to leave the job because we were given extra

duties without being compensated for them. The salary came late somewhere in August 2018

and I was totally exhausted in terms of resources and was ashamed of asking my family for

money. The worst experience was the principal telling ST category students, ‘For how long

are you going to take the help of reservation?’ In a way the principal was telling students that

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if they abstain from taking reserved posts every person in this society would magically

become equal. This struck me hard as I was well aware of the hardships that the students of

this community had to face, and how the marginalised communities are ill-treated and forced

to hide their identity which begins during the process of education itself. I was about to quit

the job; I had even submitted my resignation but it was not accepted. I was really suffocating

and it was painful to see the students being misguided about reservation and being made to

feel ashamed of utilising their right. Whenever there was a discussion in class about

reservations, I would highlight the importance of reservations and tell the students why it was

introduced in the Constitution. I conveyed to the students that reservation was not charity but

a constitutional right.

Another incident which strengthened my will to challenge others occurred at my job

in Mallikarjune College, Canacona. I had to fight to get this job, too. I was the only qualified

candidate with SET (a minimum qualification for assistant professors at college level), but I

was not appointed for the job. Instead someone who was not qualified was being appointed

for the post. I raised the issue with the Directorate of Higher Education and was subsequently

offered the job.

The day I joined the College, the principal called me to his office. Two other persons

were present in the office: the Head of Department of Sociology and the Head Clerk. The

principal started talking about the importance of college discipline. This included: ‘You

cannot make friends with students. You may know most of the students as they belong to your

community, but you can't talk to them in a friendly way. I will not entertain such behaviour.’

He also said, ‘You may be having a good social network but I don't want it within my college

campus. You may do anything outside the campus. Are you getting my point? We have built

up this institution with our sweat. Seventy percent students come from the ST community and

we are catering to all the needs of these students. We are doing a lot for their development.’

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He also informed me that ‘other than lecture you will be having many other responsibilities

(which he did not specify). Beside 12 lectures a week you have to do other activities. You

should work for 20 lectures.’ I did not say a word. Then he said, ‘You may go now.’

I felt so lonely. I felt like giving away the job. When the Principal spoke to me I could

feel his anger towards me. I felt that I was being harassed by the Principal because he

resented the fact that I was appointed on the intervention of the Directorate of Higher

Education and he was suggesting that such ‘networks’ should be kept out of the College

Campus. I was being harassed and insulted on the very first day at the workplace! Many other

things were done to suggest that I was not capable of teaching at the college level.

It is a battle I will have to fight. Fortunately, I have developed courage through the

help and support of Professor Alito Siqueira and my friends. Thanks to my life experience,

today I am confident, and want people to notice me for who I am. I am not afraid of anyone,

and certainly not ashamed of my culture. Rather, I am proud of my heritage and this gives me

strength to move forward in life.

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