Vasco Da Gama

Born in the Portuguese Catholic colony of Goa, there are parallels which may be drawn between Souza and famed Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama. In Vasco de Gama the artist may have created his own portrait through the guise of da Gama as alter ego. Tenuously united by geography and perennial 'wander lust' both men trod individual trails, initiating pathways of international diplomacy hundreds of years apart. Active during the European Age of Discovery, da Gama was a successful trader and commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India. In referring to his own early cultural identity Souza noted: "I myself read, write and think in a language alien to me: English, a language not my mother tongue but spoken to me by my mother since my childhood. But the difficulty arose from the very start to express myself ... The Portuguese too, on the other hand, had colonised Goa and had converted its inhabitants to Christianity, and this also again divided my tongue and minced my words.
(F. N. Souza, Words and Lines, London, 1959, p. 14).