Hugo
de Souza: a rare jewel
Samir Kelekar
[Hugo de Souza
died on May 21st in the Mission Hospital in Kulu, Manali in Himachal
Pradesh. He was 66, and was from Raia. I have known Hugo since I was 15,
and this is a write up about the man as I knew him]
What
to write about Hugo and what not? My father called me saying that the
Margao police station received a fax from the Mission Hospital in
Kulu-Manali, Himachal Pradesh, that Hugo de Souza had passed away and to
inform his people.
Hugo
died the way he lived. Keeping his word. Several years ago, he had
mentioned that he would go in 2003. (He kept his promise nearly to the
Tee.) Whether to take him seriously or not, was not really in our hands.
When he said something, he did it come what may. Whatever happened, he
kept his word. If he said he would be there at 8 pm, you could set your
watch by his arrival. Come rain or shine, let the heavens fall, Hugo
would satisfy his commitments and comfortably at that. A master planner,
Hugo was a top-class manager of life itself.
What was he not? Politics was his favourite subject as also history, law
and social sciences. He excelled in applying the scientific method to
the social sciences. And in what rigour? Keeping pace with him was no
mean task. And very few did even try.
In
fact, anyone would satisfy his criteria, life would be as easy as
falling off a log, he would say. And that perhaps was an understatement.
Human beings are masters of their own destiny. Hugo lived it. He was an
atheist to the core, and seeing the havoc wrought by communalist forces
in the country, he would exclaim "God is my enemy".
Hugo was born to a Christian family in Raia. They are Bhatcars (land
owners), and Hugo's father was a medical doctor. Hugo was brought up
relatively
well-off, as is evident from the fact that his father--- a friend tells
me --- was one of the first to own a car in Goa. Hugo was the third
among six siblings. Hugo remained a bachelor but he wasn't against sex
or marriage.
He believed in the power of relationships, and would go to the end of
the world to back a relationship. He fought and worked towards a world
based on relationships, as against the Western model which is solely
based on individual wants. He believed India's power lay in its
relationships.
Among many of Hugo's passions was democracy. He was a democrat and was
against every form of dictatorship and authoritarianism. He believed
that the greatest danger to tomorrow's world is authoritarianism, and
the undermining of democracies. To this end, he backed peoples'
movements.
Hugo was the biggest appreciator of personalities I knew of. He knew
that in today's world there is a trend towards people becoming
automatons rather than personalities. Knowing the odds against people
surviving as personalities, he put all his might towards people doing
acts of courage, guts and grit---in other words, acts of potency and
those that required personalities. If you had a problem and no one to
turn to in this world, you could always take a bus or a mobike to Raia
and knock at 1263, Sonarvaddo. There in the middle of the green paddy
fields, lived the greatest of philosophers in my opinion. "How are you
doing?" he would open the door with such a greeting that you would be
completely at ease. He would back you to the hilt but grill you with
very tough questions before doing it. Also, his solutions would not be
easy at all. Only the toughest could take them. His room was an
intellectual haven for me. If Socrates were reborn today, it would be in
the form such as Hugo. Hugo, however, would say that Socrates is past
and that philosophy has evolved beyond Socrates.
In a sense, Hugo was more of a man of action, rather than an armchair
philosopher. He knew the dynamics involved in putting thoughts into
action and so would root for people who were interested in living rather
than just philosophizing. However, he firmly believed in the dictum
"first philosophize then live" rather than "live first then
philosophize".
Hugo knew the power of effective communication and sitting at his home
in Raia, he tried moulding the world to his way through a typewriter and
the Indian Postal service. And what a momentous effort that was! When I
studied in the US, a letter from Hugo would make my day.
Hugo believed in taking feedback from people. Follow up was his way of
life. He also believed in the long-term, rather than just the short
term, and
strongly disagreed with the dictum that in the long-term we are all
dead. Hugo was very much interested in the world of the 21st and the
22nd century and a lot of his efforts were towards shaping the future.
What were his contributions to Goa?
Firstly, I may not be the right person to answer this question. He was
so many things to so many people. A lot of people would come to him and
pour out their problems to him. And Hugo would be there helping them
out. Not many stuck to him though; most would not be able to stick to
the tough standards he expected of others. However, if one could argue
one's position, 999 times out of 1000, Hugo would accept it. In that
sense, he was one of the few people amenable to dialogue. Also, if your
position differed completely from what was acceptable to him, then he
would part ways with you amicably. He believed in the concept of
dialogue in his deepest being.
Hugo was the editor of Divti, a Konkani daily in the 60's. Before Divti,
Hugo was a columnist for A Vida, a daily which played an important role
during the Opinion poll. He tried starting the human rights movement in
Goa.
But
most important, he was a guide to young guys like me. Like Athens
gathering to listen to Socrates, I was one of the privileged few who was
puzzled by this man. Hugo was different. He could synthesize both Marx
and Western individualism to you, he could talk to you on the material
plane as well as the spiritual plane, he could talk both on the
professional and the personal, both the rational as the extra-rational,
both the philosophical as well as the psychological. You could hear from
him discourses on the positive aspects of Western medicine as well as
the worth of Ayurveda and Homeopathy. No field of human endeavour was
not just untouched by him, but also many fields were mastered by him to
a level that even most masters won't venture into.
Creativity was his hallmark and knowing the risks involved in any
creative endeavour, he would do more than his bit for any creative guy
and gal who visited him. He believed that geniuses are not born, but are
made. He liked to understand and mould the dynamics of society so that
the society throws up more geniuses.
His
concept of dialectic thinking ----the concept that most concepts have a
dual---was a novel one, and I haven't read it elsewhere the way he put
it. His range of comprehension was enormous, something beyond my wildest
imagination.
I first met Hugo when I was 15. For the 12 Std then, we used to have
something called Internal assessment. Internal assessment was a system
where 30% of the marks in the final board exam would be given by your
college. We being in Chowgule's, which was one of the top colleges in
Goa, we thought we would be disadvantaged against say a Higher secondary
school in a small town as we would be judged at a much higher standard.
Also, there was a possibility that the smaller schools would dole out
marks freely so as to prop up their own students, something that was
unlikely to happen at colleges such as Chowgule's and Dhempe's. This was
in 1978. The students of Chowgule's and Dhempe's got together and
fought for the removal of this Internal assessment system. In a
momentous decision---at least for me personally given the stakes I had
in my career---we boycotted one of the mid term exams, an exam whose
marks were to count towards the Internal assessment. Hugo was the man
who was writing our memorandum, a document that was presented to the
authorities citing the injustice that was happening and mentioning the
list of demands to right the wrongs. Here was an older man helping us
and writing our memorandum in a sophisticated language. We were awed, to
put it mildly. We won the Internal Assessment battle, and the Goa Board
scrapped the Internal assessment system.
Right through then onto IIT, Telco Pune and the US, Hugo remained a
friend, and a guide. And a tough one at that. And to give myself some
credit, perhaps no one put his theories to such a fiercest test as I
did. In the process, the course of my life changed. Some of the things
that were Hugo's hallmark: sticking on when the situation went the
toughest. Of course, Hugo would anticipate this and plan for it before
hand, and be all ready for it, rather than get into a situation in a
foolhardy manner.
Also, he would stick to logic in a given situation. Further, before
venturing into something, he would test out the venture on a small and
pilot level. There would be an objective criteria decided apriori to
judge the success or failure of a test; only if the test succeeded he
would go ahead with the venture.
Hugo was also a master bridge player, who played for Goa. He believed
that the dynamics of bridge---the communication between bridge partners
that takes place---is something extraordinary.
What about Hugo's work? The master planner that he was, Hugo should have
taken care of what to do about his work past his death. We have to wait
and see.
Vision papers and blueprints used to come out of Hugo often. And each
one of high quality. After every meeting, one would get a detailed
letter of the
minutes, the points discussed, the action items to be followed up on.
One wouldn't be surprised if years later Hugo mentioned something that
you wrote years back to remind you of some promise or some past
conviction of yours, which you were now trying to avoid. In that sense,
Hugo was a repository of what you were, unless of course you took the
extra care of keeping your own repository just to make sure Hugo did not
take advantage of the fact otherwise.
What was Hugo's vision for Goa? Hugo believed that Goa could be a good
place for more relaxed intellectual dialogue rather than a production
center for companies or a venue of hectic board meetings. Goa for
instance could be the preferred venue for international seminars and
getaways. At the same time, Goa could concentrate on sports such as
football, on music and art. He would know as he lived close to the real
Goa. Many of my visits to Raia included a brief stop by the side of the
Raia football ground watching the young football talent of Raia
displaying their wares in a hotly contested football match.
No discussion of Hugo can be complete without a critique of Hugo. Hugo
had many critics. The main criticism was that he came out too strong and
too heavy for most people. He did not make much effort to explain his
theories in ways that a lay person could understand, would say his
critics. Secondly, he failed to influence society, specifically he
failed to influence group behaviour, they would say. He worked mostly at
an individual level. Also, he did not emote. He worked more at an
intellectual level, and critics would argue that he looked at every
problem intellectually. There is some truth of course in these
criticisms, but I would think you can't expect a person to be
everything. It wouldn't be Hugo if, for instance, he behaved like
Shahrukh Khan.
Hugo may be dead; his body might be cremated but the power that this man
generated is in the air. It will empower this earth for eons to come.
