Dear Madam,
We all fall into certain clichés (or interpretation processes) when we try to make sense of what we observe. I fall into that nostalgic and enchanted vision pertaining to the past-lovers, who try to evade certain pragmatical and economicist perceptions...and who are reasonably un-methodological in their approaches.
Therefore, answering to your suggestion, I perceived, through the window of my jesuit college, this image:
"Dear Madam,
Our ongoing research has led us to the cultural peculiarities of the East Indian Catholics, especially during the 19th cent. During the 1800s, the indo-portuguese catholics were "re-avaluated" by the british paranoia of classifying everyone into religion, caste and sub-caste. Some of these were not immediately thought of as "east indians" as had the catholics of Bombay island who worked for the british since 1665. Rather, they were thought as aboriginal and degenerate half-caste christians, neither here nor there, lost and confused souls.
They therefore noticed and registered many of these East Indians' cultural traits, especially the poorer ones of Salsete and other northern villages who had not yet flocked to Bombay island. Among the noticed peculiarities were dress, food, and so on.
However, during this same century, we see the goan priests of the padroado trying to preserve and save these catholics form re-entering Hinduism or flocking towards the vicar apostolic's jurisdiction.
The observations of both british and goans and east indians themselves might help us to establish patterns and continuities in these communities and understand better their present-day cultural values.
I hope this can be brought in towards a useful contribution for your project.
Best Regards"
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