By IANS
Panaji : Goa, from where people have been moving to other countries for generations, has had its migration issues studied and written about fairly extensively. Yet there are some aspects that are still unexplored as a new book, which looks at Goans in Myanmar, suggests.
The 289-page book, “Songs of the Survivors”, focuses on a dramatic point in history, the World War II Japanese invasion of the land once known as Burma, and the tumultuous impact this had on the lives of Goans settled there.
The book has been edited by Yvonne Vaz Ezdani, a former teacher who herself lived in Burma till the early 1980s.
Ezdani said: “In an instant (with the outbreak of World War II), the Goans’ comfortable and serene lives were shattered and they were plunged into chaos and fear.”
Many trekked back to northeastern parts of India through jungles and mountains and streams while some decided to stay on during Japanese occupation. The stories of this generation, slowly fading away with age and memory, are recorded in this book.
The book has been collaboratively written by 24 contributors, 20 of whom were born and grew up in British-ruled Burma.
Ezdani said: “This book may be about Goans in Burma, but it also seeks to record tales of determination and survival that are relevant to the human spirit everywhere.”
The years of Japanese occupation contrast drastically with the earlier enviable lifestyle lived by Goan expatriates in the “enchanting country of wide rivers, green, rain-washed paddy fields, pagodas and a thousand hills”.
Most Goans who were once settled in Burma have since migrated to other parts of the globe, including Australia, Canada and in some cases back home to Goa and other parts of India.
Goa-based author Maria Aurora Couto, who has written the bestseller “Goa: A Daughter’s Story”, said these “memoirs illuminate the pioneering spirit, humanity, courage and faith that have sustained Goa through the ages”.