Group links Indians to past, culture REGION

Jonathan Rifkin/Staff Writer
13 February 2003
Asbury Park Press
(c) Copyright 2003, Asbury Park Press. All Rights Reserved.

NILKANT Kamat, 55, describes his native homeland of Goa, on the southwestern coast of India, as a place where the weather is warm, life slows down and people always are hospitable.

"In India, Goa is thought of like the South is in America," said Kamat, a 22-year resident of Englishtown.

Kamat said he misses his native home, but thanks to a steady stream of immigrants from Goa settling in the area, he said a small piece of his heritage has come to him. Kamat and his family are several of approximately 200 Goans living in the tri-state area, about 50 of which reside in the towns of Marlboro, Manalapan and Englishtown.

"We come to offer our children a better education," he said. "That is first and most important to us. We were all over the country, but some of us ended up here, and the rest followed."

Together the families have created the Goan Association, an originally informal group that recently has grown in both numbers and structure. Kamat said the association began as a group of Goans having dinner at each other's homes in the 1970s. Today he said the Goan Association has at least 150 members and is a link to a homeland miles away.

Equally important, he said, it serves as a vehicle for his American-born children to acquaint themselves with their culture.

He said the association also is at the core of social activity for many Goans in the area. In 2001-02, Kamat served as president of the association, overseeing biannual reunions for hundreds of Goans.

With the help of his daughter, Anuya, 22, he has brought the Goan Association onto the Internet, thus creating a way for Goans from all over the region to communicate regularly. Anuya Kamat said after she created a Web page, active members in the organization increased from about 60 to 150. The Web site can be accessed at www.goanchemi.com, which translates to "We are Goan," from the Goan language of Konkani.

"We create closeness through technology," Nilkant Kamat said. "It really has been my daughter. I just let the young people get enthused about it."

Mohan Hede, 67, a Goan native who has lived in Manalapan since 1977, has served as president of the association and was one of its original founders. When he compares the "tight-knit family" the Goan Association is today to his first years in America, he said the true value of the group reveals itself.

Hede said one of the first things he did when he arrived in America in 1962 was send a telegram to his father telling him he wanted to come home.

He recalls the bitter cold of an American February in Detroit, the city in which he would practice chemical engineering, and the loneliness he felt living in a country where he only knew one person.

"We miss Goa, there's no doubt about that," he said. "But we have a community now. It's very close-knit, and we feel secure."

As the children of the the original Goan immigrants have grown, so has the nature of the Goan Association. Both Kamat and Hede acknowledge the young people have become the driving force behind the group.

Anuya Kamat said constantly interacting with fellow Goans has shaped the person she is today. A graduate of The College of New Jersey, Ewing, and a graduate student at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, she said while the essence of being Goan has been conveyed to her, she has assimilated somewhat into American culture.

In Goa, arranged marriages are common and usually are heavily based on horoscope readings. Anuya said she will be leaving that Goan tradition by the wayside, and her parents have supported her decision.

"As parents, we must give in and mold our traditions," Nilkant Kamat said.

As the children of first-generation Goan immigrants mature and begin their own lives, Nilkant Kamat and Hede both said they have contemplated going back to India. Although the prospect is appealing, the two say that staying in America seems the Goan thing to do.

"We came for the children and now they are attached and have homes here," Hede said.

Nilkant said he is aware in America, he always will be detached from the beautiful beaches, wonderful food and slow pace of Goa. Yet, he said he has come to love this country and takes solace in knowing the truly important aspects of his tradition have followed him here, embodied in his family, the Goan Association.