ABSTRACT
At the end of a long, bone-jarring taxi-ride from Panaji, the modern capital of the state of Goa in western India, there is a small, secluded, white building. During the monsoon rains it is surrounded by exuberant greenery, lush and overwhelming, and the salute of a hundred croaking frogs greets visitors as they dash from the road to shelter under the building’s covered portico. This is the site of the seminary at Rachol, one of the earliest training colleges for Jesuit missionaries in Asia, established in the late sixteenth century to aid their efforts to convert the inhabitants of Portuguese-held Goa and the larger Portuguese empire in the Indies. It is still an active seminary, though no longer run by the Jesuits. In the late sixteenth century, Tomás Estevão or Padre Estevam was a familiar presence among its corridors and courtyards, first as its rector, and then as the principal Jesuit priest in charge of the local province of Salsette. Much of his proficiency in the local languages was likely to have been cultivated here, from the fluid, poetic verses of classical Marathi, to the salty, fishy, musical rhythms of Konkani, the colloquial language of Goa’s markets and ports, teeming with locals and travellers, the fishermen on their boats, and the women at home.
