Letter to Salman Rushdie (Part 1)

Porto, 12th May, 2005

To: Mr. Salman Rushdie
From: Sidh Daniel Losa Mendiratta


Dear Sir,

Recently, I’ve become somewhat obsessed with the mixed blessing of having a thoroughly “mixed breed” family background. I consider myself to be “Indo-Portuguese”, although I haven’t been able to decipher this adjective (a task in which I feel a bit lonely). I’m not Goan although I consider Goa to be one of the most wonderful and interesting places on Earth and I have the good luck of being a frequent visitor.
Basically, my father is a Hindu Punjabi and my mother was Portuguese. And my maternal grandmother is a German Jew. And…
Well, besides the natural feelings of “homelessness”, “uprooted”, “culturally divided”, etc, I feel very fortunate. But I also feel ill at ease with all my ghosts, deceased or not.
Somehow, I feel that if I could put everything in writing, I would be able to see a pattern, find the crucial and romantic moments, discover the bonds, and make sense of my family’s history. This would probably help to balance my inner self.
As crazy as this might seem, I boldly (and humbly) ask you for the briefest words of advice on how to start this task.

Please allow me to introduce to you the main characters of this almost bursting to come out story.


The Paternal Grandfather of my Mother: José Gonçalves Losa,
Was born into a family of small landowners in the northwest of Portugal. He was drifted into a military career and eventually became a captain. Around 1910 he was sent to Angola. There, I suspect he had a near-death experience, since he was extremely sick. His cure probably owed much to traditional African medicine. He developed a keen interest in all affairs of natural medicine and, during his rough times of campaign against the occasional native revolt, his sole source of happiness was his garden and medicinal plants. Later, he was called to fight the Germans in North Moçambique (fortunately, he wrote a diary, parts of which I have with me).
When he came back to Portugal, he was a classical misfit. His interest in African traditional culture was not understood and he quickly passed on to the army reserve. He was also one of the first people in Portugal to warn and preach against the damaging effects on health of smoking. He was still alive when the colonial wars erupted in 1961 and would never back down from the “Angola é nossa!” conviction.
The name “Losa” is very rare in Portugal and it seems that the clan originated from an Italian or Spanish migration sometime in the 14th century.

My Maternal Grandfather: Arménio Taveira Losa,
Was born in 1908 and, unlike his father, was a heavy smoker. He was able to join the Painting course at the Fine Arts school in Porto. He then changed to Architecture as a compromise to the family wishes. At an early date, he developed strong left wing ideas, as opposed to most of the clan, which had a solid conservative stand. In 1934, when he met my grandmother, he was beginning his successful practice and became one of the leading modernist architects in Portugal, absorbing with open heart the lessons of the masters Guisseppe Terragni and Le Corbusier. His association with the Communist party (although I don’t think he was a member) debarred him from teaching.
In the late sixties, his office started to specialize in Urbanism. On the aftermath of the “Spring of Prague”, he rejected the Communist Party and was eventually one of the founding members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (Trotskyst).
When the revolution erupted in Portugal in 1974, my grandfather was invited to be the interim mayor of Porto, a post he refused because of his unwillingness to “purge” the city council of its conservative cadre.
However, his office did elaborate most of the urban developing plans for the cities of the north of Portugal.
He died in 1988 after prolonged illness. He was methodical in everything and had the admiration of positively everyone who was close to him, except, in the later days, of my grandmother.

(End of Part 1)