Catholic Mangalore

It is with great pride that I often let people know that I am a Catholic Mangalorean. Which Catholic Mangalorean doesn’t? My rendezvous with the city though, have only been over summer holidays and thanks to numerous cousins’ weddings. But having lived with my Mangalore-bred grandmother, my understanding of its customs and idiosyncrasies has come to me through an unquestionably reliable channel of second-hand information. (Mangaloreans have a flare for oral tradition - A good helping of freshly brewed gossip is as much of a must with every meal as is a delicious serving of top-quality meat)

Picture a laid-back hilly beach town with expansive single-storeyed houses. Roofs, tiled and held in place over teak runners, floors, cool by virtue of their red cement compositions. Picture banana trees in the back yard and bougainvilleas decorating the porch out front. Add a cashew plant and bread fruit tree to the kitchen garden; garnish them with a few inch-long red ants called hoomblios. A kennel for the Alsatians, a coop for the chickens. Now walk up to the richly stocked store room, grab yourself a bowl of thukdios, and come sit in the hall for storytime. Look up and you’ll be staring into the eyes of Jesus. Keep looking around and you’ll come face to face with statues of Catholic saints and a box filled with a rosaries collected over decades.

Outside, thunder. Then lightning. And the rain begins. At first it’s all pitter patter, and then grows into a pounding as the winds pick up and the beat of every heavy drop resonates through the tiled roof above. Windows on ancient hinges rattle; curtains get caught in mad gusts of wind. Outside, water gurgles along the open gutters; inside, cousins get creative, reinventing familial ghost stories. (60% of older Mangaloreans have seen ghosts. The younger ones choose not to voice their disbelief.)

At 8 pm, the focus must shift from evil spirits to the good ones - it’s rosary time. Prayers begin -HailMaryfullofgracetheLordiswithyoublessedareyouamongstwomenandblesssedisthefruitofthywombJESUS (there shall be no pause for breath). 5 decades later (each set of 10 Hail Mary’s constitutes a decade. But to the kids seated around her, it feels like 50 years later), 5 decades later, dinner is served.

15 years back, the description above would hold true for a majority of Mangalore’s Catholic family houses. And it is that Mangalore that my generation and those before me fondly remember. Today, the scenery is less green as Mangalore has grown from town to city. Acres-wide ancestral properties have mutated into compounds for sky scrapers and malls. BPOs have set up massive shops around the city whose economy is growing at a steady rise.

As Mangalore transitions from town to city, there are numerous opportunities for people to get creative. While fashionably stocked malls are becoming neighborhood features, respectable bars are few, recreation zones, fewer. But the current generation of Mangaloreans is all set bring about a revolution. It’s every Mangalore-born child’s dream to complete a college education far, far away from home. Most migrate to Manipal or Bangalore to enjoy the springtime of their lives. And then they return, brimming with ideas of how to take Mangalore forward. The lack of established competition gives first movers a good advantage.

But there are some things about Catholic Mangalore that have remained rooted. Like the way we look at wedding and funerals, the way we celebrate Christmas and New Year. And that’s probably because of the composition of a strong Mangalorean Family.
In my parents’ generation, 8 was the average number of siblings one had to share their life with. Go a generation further back and the expanse of the roots of a Mangalorean family tree can sometimes astound you: In a case of extremes, my grandfather was one of 17 + an adopted 5. Which leaves me, at 22, with scores of uncles and aunts, hundreds of second cousins, and in the future, what can total up to nearly a thousand nieces and nephews.

Many Mangalorean families have that one uncle who was born and died with a bottle in his mouth, an aunt who makes to-die-for wedding cake and wine, a master fabric cut-work artist, a cookbook writer. Then there are the aunts from America who are a safer bet than Santa Claus and that one child who has been sacrificed to the church to lead a life of celibacy and to intercede for the rest of the Brady bunch. And it’s this fantastic mix of people that ensures that whether at a wedding or a funeral, tears and laughter are inevitable.

Catholic Mangalorean wedding celebrations begin with The Roce. The girl usually wears her mother’s Sadow, (wedding reception saree) as a sarong. Then she is seated in the center of a line of her unmarried girl cousins. And the Voyos begin: In the past, aunts would get together and sing in a manner that, in my opinion, can be likened to the cry of a wounded animal. Only the lyrics of their song would talk about the to-be-wed’s accomplishments and her family’s background, never missing the opportunity to crack a joke at their expense while singing. This peculiar ceremony was meant to induce a trip down memory lane so that eyes would be all cried out the day before the wedding. Today, professionals can be hired to croon instead. While the Voyos drone on in the background, members of the family in descending age order come forward to bless the bride by tracing a cross of coconut oil, and then coconut milk on her forehead. It’s about the same procedure for a groom. And if the to-be-weds could have a say in it, the matter would end there. But the Roce has for generations, been an acceptable occasion of pay-back time. Cousins concoct deadly mixtures of rotten tomatoes, left-over alcohol, milk, water, eggs and sometimes even throwing in soap powder for good measure. The to-be–wed is then caught off guard and then unceremoniously drenched with it. Eggs fly, abuses fly and a careless spectator is most likely to get caught in the cross fire.

While the cousins shower up, the band or the DJ kicks in, the bar opens for business and the dancing begins. Traditionally, the dinner after a Roce is supposed to be a strictly vegetarian meal consisting of seven special preparations of vegetables. This is one rule that nobody objects to bending.

D-day begins with the bride’s side decorating the church and the reception venue, after crafting center table arrangements. The wedding is a regular Catholic affair. Its highlights are the Grand March, the home-made sweet wine, the Toast, the fondant iced fruit cake, the tossing of the bouquet and the signature Mangalorean dance - the bailas. The Birdy dance, the Mexican Hat dance and Do the Boogie Woogie are also a guarantee. ’Harry’s Band’ may also make an appearance if booked sufficiently in advance. A brass band ‘suited and booted’ in red and black, their Indianized and army-like renditions of popular classic English songs are uniquely amusing. If not drunk and happy by the end of the night, everybody’s at least heavier by a few ounces thanks to delicious roasted suckling, sannas and pork sorpathel. The night then ends for everyone who isn’t the bride and groom with mammoth efforts poured in to getting the humongous family together to pose for a family photo. Panorama is now the preferred method of achieving this feat.

Christmas and New Year’s are characterized by Balls that end post breakfast the next day. The festive season begins with the contributions of the altos, sopranos and tenors in the family to add grace to the family’s carol singing efforts. Though it’s a less common sight these days, the season traditionally ends with the creation of “The Old Man” for New Year’s. Everybody gets together to craft a scarecrow. He’s dressed up in old clothes and his pockets are stuffed with fire crackers. Drive around the streets an hour before midnight and you’ll be surprised by how creative some families will get with their “Old Men”. Just before midnight, the family gathers around him. The volume on the system playing the weathered Boney M. Christmas tape goes up and Auld Lang Syne begins to play. Hand in hand, moving in a merry drunk circle around the old man, a bottle of spirit passes from mouth to mouth, a lit match flies in the direction of the kerosene doused scare-crow and the Old Man goes up in a blaze of glory. And thus, one year of celebration ends. And another begins.

Funerals are no less eventful. After they give their loved ones a fitting farewell and the wells of their eyes have been cried dry, the famished Catholic Mangalorean family gathers at one spot and story time begins. Fond remembrances of the deceased sometimes give way to scandalous stories being leaked. Grandchildren hear things about their grandparents that make them go pink in the ears, and stories are recollected that will leave you rolling on the floor laughing. The beauty of this un-prescribed ceremony is that it reminds you in the gentlest way possible that a life was lived well and lives on through the memories in everybody’s minds.

Apart from the ceremonies, here are a few facts about Mangalore that the encyclopedia will reiterate: Mangalore is a name derived from the Hindu Goddess Mangaladevi. The Catholic Mangalorean fondly calls the city Kodial and his mother tongue is Konkani. It’s a mix of Kannada, Tulu, Hindi, Marathi, Persian, Gujarati, Sanskrit, and Portuguese, just like Mangalorean song and dance. Konkani was a dialect that until recently borrowed scripts. Now, it has its own alphabets to be proud of. Mangalore is India’s ninth largest port and Wikipedia will tell you that it handles three-fourths of the country’s coffee exports. What it won’t tell you is that a view of its artificial harbour from certain spots on its beaches is spectacular. The sun sets over the sea in Mangalore. And a view of the Ullal Bridge at sunset is nothing short of poetic.

But my favourite anecdotes about Mangalore, I’ve saved for last. Like how everybody in Mangalore could be a cross-country racer. Most streets in the city are narrow, long and winding. And the right side to drive on the road is the wrong side. The community is also famous for giving birth to the queerest nicknames. A poor uncle of mine was fondly called “pussy” in his youth by his loving mother. Enough said. And the community also has its share of superheroes. Take for instance a certain high-up police officer who tried high jacking a plane with a toy pistol to prove to government officials just how easy it is to orchestrate the whole process.

To sum it up, Catholic Mang-ys are in general, loud in action and soft at heart. Most take pride in their ability to hold their liquor. And they generally take it upon themselves to show an outsider a good time. And with fair warning, outsider, don’t be too afraid if you walk into a room filled with Mang-ys busy trying to figure out who is related to whom (because the affair can get quite loud and noisy). Just know that somewhere in that room, there’s one Mangy who’s more afraid than you because he probably just found out that he’s his own grandpa.