Articles on Mangalore

Here's an article on Mangalore in the Time Magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501060619/mangalore.html

Tracing my roots

India is a country with a blend of many religions and communities. The country is divided by languages, casts and sects. India has 23 official languages; hundreds of casts and sects divide us; but the spirit of India unites us all. This blog is to give a flavor of the history of my community, the Goud Saraswat Brahmins (GSB) whose population is about 0.3 Million.

Saraswats are people of Aryan descent who had settled down on the banks of the Saraswati River and were the followers of the Saraswat Muni. The river Saraswati eventually dried up (1000 BC) and this led to the migration of the Saraswats to the plains of northern India. Though the exact dates of this migration are unknown, the Rig Veda eulogies the river Saraswati was huge.

During this exodus, the brahmins spread in 3 directions. One group moved to the North and East into Punjab and Kashmir. The second group moved to the East towards Bihar while the third group went down south west towards Gujrat. Our ancestors were with the group that moved over to Bihar.

Around 1000 AD, they moved again this time to Goa, where the land was fertile and trading was begining. It is believed that Lord Parshuram, a Brahmin, also counted as an avatar of Lord Vishnu brought the Saraswats from the northern Indian plains to Goa for the purpose of religious functions.

Between 10th and 13th century the trading community spread across through the sea ports and established bases in Bombay, Thane, Kalyan, Honnavar, Mangalore, Cochin etc.. while the muslim rulers attacked Goa (then Gomantak), some people started migrating to Kudal desh (Ratnagiri) to the north; the Vijayanagar kingdom in Dharwad/ Belgaum to the East; The Kanara to the South; and some down to Travancore in Kerala.

As narrated over the history; Those who migrated to Kashmir called themselves as Kashmiri Pandits, Sind-Sind Saraswats, Kutch-Kutchi Saraswats, Rajapur-Rajapur Saraswats, Punjab-Punjab Saraswats, Rajasthan-Rajasthan Saraswats and Chitrapur-Chitrapur Saraswats.

This in a nutshell is the mythological and historical background of the Gowda Saraswat Brahmins popularly known as GSBs.


References
http://www.gsbkonkani.net
Wikipedia
Kamath.com
http://www.gsbkerala.com/gsbhistory.htm

Konkani - My Mother Tongue

Konkani, my mother tongue is not a very well known language. It got the official status in the Indian constitution in 1992. Hence, I thought of publishing some facts and figures around this.

The language is spoken all along the Konkan coast spanning the coasts of Maharastra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala. There are about 7.6 million konkani speakers covering all major religions i.e Hindus, Christians and Muslims. Each region has its own dialect, tone, vocab and grammatical differences.

As the Indian culture, the Konkani language has gone thr' a lot of transformation and localization. The Konkani community has Aryan roots (wait for my next blog on my community GSB's), the community came into India and were in the north on the banks of River Saraswat (600BC). A drought there forced them into Goa. During the Porutguese colonialization was the time when the community was forced to fled from Goa for the fear of conversion to Christianity and the community spread to differnt parts especially along the western coast thr' the sea ports of Goa. The communities started at this time (15th century) started gettting local accents and words into the Konkani languages and hence resulted in the various dialects that exist today.

Konkani is a language having its roots from Sauraseni Prakrit which is also the root for Bengali and Assamese.
If one has to see the diversity of today's Konkani language, one should travel the Indian west coast. In Bombay, they speak in Marathi accent whereas in Konkan, they stretch the words so that no outsider can understand!. The Hindus of Goa liberally use the Portuguese words whereas the Christians use it as if it's a Portuguese dialect. In Karwar and Ankola (locate), they emphasize the syllables, and in Kumta-Honavar, they use consonants in abundance. The Konkani spoken by Nawayatis of Bhatkal is very melodious with smearing of Persian. People of South Kanara do not distinguish between nouns of Kannada and Konkani, and have developed a very business practical language. They sometimes add Tulu words also. The Konkani of Kerala is drenched with Malayalam, and the Konkanis of north Karnataka add Kannada verbs to Konkani grammar. The city-bred use a plenty of English. To write Konkani, Kannada, Nagari, Roman, Arabic, and Malayalam scripts are used and this way, Konkanis declare themselves as members of world family (Vishwakutumbi). There is no other language with a possible exception of Sanskrit that a language is written in so many scripts.


The communities that speak konkania are:
Hindus
Marathas
Bhandaris
Gaud Saraswat Brahmins
Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmins
Daivadnya Brahmins
Konkani Lower Castes
Muslims
Kokani Muslims (Costal Maharashtra)
Navayath Muslims (Bhatkal, Karnataka)
Christians
Goan Catholics
Roman Catholics (Mangalore/Canarite)
Others
Janjira Siddis
Yellapur Siddis

References
Wikipedia
Kamath.com
http://www.gsbkonkani.net/