HOUSE BY THE SEA

Capturing Goa's delightful buildings for posterity

HOUSES OF GOA
Text: Heta Pandit & A Mascarenhas
Photos: A Koshy
Price: Rs 1,450
Pages: 188


Review by Joel Rai


THINK OF GOA AND IT'S SUN 'N' sand that springs to mind. If not,
it's the laid back existence filled with dance and music. The
Goans themselves have a word for the life they lead: susegad,
which, shorn of much of its local flavour, would mean "lazy".

But 'sesegad' has been fast receding into the background. Caught
up in the 20th century rat-race, many Goans have left their
littoral paradise, and history is dying a gentle death.

Nothing is more symbolic of this than the houses left in neglect
by migrating owners and landlords who would put their estates to
more lucrative use. The structures -- a grand amalgamation of
diverse styles and elements -- once represented Goan
sensibilities.

A simple, mud-house dwelling people who, under Portuguese
influence, learnt to admire the decorative in architecture. The
pursuit fitted in with their aspirations to live like their
colonial masters.

*Houses of Goa*, a labour of love for the trio of journalist Heta
Pandit, architect Annabel Mascarenhas and photographer Ashok
Koshy, record the electic style of the dying Goan tradition of
house-building.

Using the locally available laterite and abundant wood, Goans
came up with spacious buildings, extravagently embellished with
carved corbels, fluted columns, arched windows and intricate
railings. Typical of this style was the *balcao*, the patio-like
space at the front entrance, where people could sit and talk to
the cool of the evenings.

A project of well-known architect Gerard Da Cunha and his
Architect Autonomous, the book took over five years to research.
The material also forms part of an exhibition, currently in
Porto, Portugal, and scheduled to visit Lisbon in September,
Mumbai in December and Delhi after that.

*Houses of Goa*, however, is not only about stones and sticks. It
has engaging chapters on life before the Portuguese stepped on
the sandy beaches in the 1500s and on cultural norms and social
mores during a colonial era: a harkening back to a genteel era
that some families, like cartoonist Mario Miranda's, are still
trying to perpetuate.

The book, above all, is an admirable attempt to document the
unique features of Goan houses before time's relentless march
robs architecture of a unique style.

Courtesy INDIA TODAY forwarded by Frederick Noronha