My parents and my brothers at my Christening. Sacred Heart Church, Santa Cruz, Bombay. 1971

Image and Narrative contributed by Wanda Naomi Rau, Mumbai

This was an image taken at my christening at the Sacred Heart Church in Santa Cruz, Bombay (now Mumbai). My father had invited 100 people to celebrate that I, a girl was born nine years after two boys. My brothers even got the day off school.

It was tradition in Goa to have at least one son carry the family name and another follow priesthood. My father José Luis Alvaro Remedios, from Saligao, Goa was to become a priest, since his older brother Hubert had moved to Bombay to pursue his Masters at St Xavier’s College. Hubert, unfortunately died of Typhoid around the 1940’s and my father had to leave the Seminary. However, The Seminary takes you through a tough academic route which covers both main stream subjects and theological studies. Perhaps his significant learning was that of Latin, which I regret I did not learn from my Father. However I think my love for history, academia and music is inextricably linked to my father’s genes.

My father moved to Bombay to look for a job. He began working with Reserve Bank of India, and held the job for 38 odd years until he retired as the Asst. Financial Controller. He met my mum, Maria Aida Bertila Silveira from St. Mathias, Goa, through a formal proposal. My Mum was 30 years old and he was 35 when they got married. They lived in Byculla for the early years and then moved to the Reserve Bank Quarters in Santa Cruz. My Mum was a home maker and raised two boys my brothers, Hubert and Ralph, and a girl, me.

My father’s best kept secret was that he was keenly interested in our own family’s past and actively pursued to construct a family tree for almost 25 years. His research was so thorough that it would have certainly gained him an M.Phil in Historical & Contextual Studies, even though everything is documented in a narrative fashion. He traced the history of our family to 1500s and found that we belonged to a community called the Goud Saraswat Brahmins; and had the family name ‘Shenoy’. It is between the 1500s-1700s that from ‘Shenoy’ the family changed its last name to ‘Tavora’ and from ‘Tavora’ they converted to Catholicism with the Portuguese last name Remedios during Portuguese India reign. My parents too were born during the Portuguese rule. Their generation and the generation that follows; of my relatives, all live in Goa, apart from the few who moved to Lisbon, Portugal. They speak impeccable Portuguese, and can be more Portuguese than Goan at times, which is amusing.

During a short posting to Delhi, my father decided to change our surname from Remedios to Rau because he was exasperated that everyone there called us either Ramdas, Ramdeo or Ramlal. He also felt that having an Indian last name would stand us in good stead in a Hindutva nation. So while I was born Wanda Noemia Remedios, he changed it to Wanda Naomi Rau. Naomi is the English name for Noemia; which is Portuguese.

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