The universal law of impermanence spares nothing. Should we expect houses to form attachments?
—Yvonne Vaz Ezdani
By Yvonne Vaz Ezdani
The sun has just waved a glorious goodbye, leaving lingering light for my path. I latch the gate behind me as I step out on my evening walk. Clusters of crimson bougainvillea slipping over our white-washed garden wall make me stop to let the beauty soak in. More warmth, as passersby smile and friendly neighbours wave from balcões as I walk on.
Today, it's not people but houses that are telling me something. A beautiful ochre coloured house with translucent shells adorning white windows. It's elegant. A happy home for a loving family. Next door is a different story—a forlorn house. I remember the kind, old man who died there alone, a few months ago. His only son had gone via a Portuguese passport to the UK and had just got a job. He couldn't return for the funeral. Across, another old empty house with peeling paint—its once white walls now stained mouldy grey—shells fallen out of windows making gaping spaces for ghosts to peep out.
It is ironical how there are so many vacant houses in the neighbourhood when the population of India is increasing exponentially. Twenty years ago, all the houses here were homes, most of the residents were of my father’s generation. In the evenings they would be sitting in each other's balcões, chatting, exchanging gossip, discussing aches and pains. One by one they departed, about twenty of them, including younger neighbours.
There were many children here too. Where have they gone? There was a time when their laughter and noisy games filled the dusty lanes. They gathered together in any space they could find and had fun. They ran back home before the Angelus bell rang; the grandparents couldn’t be disobeyed. They returned with red mud clinging to their bodies and their clothes. All of them grown up now, are in foreign lands or in other parts of Goa. I hope they remember that they were once happy children as they dust, vacuum and mop their already clean foreign homes.
I digress. The past keeps creeping into my present moments.
Further along on my walk, something smells divine—Goan sausages cooking for dinner. The house is quiet but someone lives here. More smells of woodfires—a familiar fragrant smell wafting around. Perhaps someone has boiled paddy which they have spread on mats to dry. A few folks still heat bath water, in a large modki (copper pot) over open fire places.
Another house down the lane stands silent and lonely. Its owners, the old lady died and the husband is in a care-home. He’s got dementia. Is there an image of this house still in his mind? Does he still feel an affinity to this once safe haven or to his favourite rocking chair?
Turning a bend, I see a small white chapel, more shrine than chapel. Atop, is a cross, a lone light bulb in its centre. Balanced on the iron-grill door below is a bright red hibiscus—someone’s offering. The interiors are cool and dim, the built-up altar hardly visible, the statues, the cross, the two candle stands waiting for the once-a-year feast mass to be celebrated, boiled gram and snacks to follow. Candles are lit when people gather to say evening novena rosary in May and October. Some traditions live on.
A small bridge over the storm drain (sad to see so much garbage in the vao) and a meandering, shaded road invites me on. Immersed in quietude, nestled between tall trees, houses dot the scene; some recently built by newcomers, some old with an air of belonging, a few empty but well maintained. One, has said goodbye to both its owners. The heirs live abroad—they come sometimes to visit, to open windows, to clean, but live in hotels by the beach. I once heard sad music coming from this house. It sounded like a lament of the diaspora. Or was it the dirge of a lonesome house?
An iconic big house on the slope is still called Vodlem Ghor although it has larger houses built around it now. It has weathered many monsoons but stands intact and strong, just very worn. The land it was built on is huge—turns green in the rains—browns in the summer. Would-be buyers have been inquiring, but no one seems to know who owns it after the spinster sisters who lived there, died.
A caretaker lives in one of the houses nearby. It doesn’t seem taken care of. The late owner loved her flowers and crotons. Now the garden looks sad and neglected. But it brings me a moment of joy to see bunches of wild pink ice-cream flowers trailing up a window, almost reaching the roof.
The lovely old couple that lived here were story- tellers. They told me many tales of people from our village.The stories I heard have made me realise that houses don’t only have owners, they have histories too—unique interesting pasts, especially the big, grand ones.
Some Africa-returnees came back to their ancestral village with substantial wealth. One businessman acquired his money from a successful grocery store which he branched out to various places along the railway line as it was being built in East Africa. He returned home and built a double-storey house on his ancestral property, among the humble cottages around. The verandah ran all along the upper-storey, boasting of the grandeur within, the ornate carved items and other valuables that filled the rooms. Everyone looked on in awe and envy. A few years later his beautiful wife left him to go and live in London. As all mortals must, he too left this earth and his property. One grown up son, a sensitive kind man, became unbalanced in his mind and wandered around homeless after one of his siblings sold the house to a business man from Mapusa. It belongs to this family now, so begins a different history.
Another house began the same way. A villager returned from Africa, built a mansion with many rooms. “So all my children can live together and be with me in my old age,” he had planned. His children grew up and migrated; they all have their own houses in Europe or America, no one wants the ‘Goa house’. The last owner of this ancestral house was the priest-son who did the best thing under the circumstances. He donated it to an order of nuns who have started a novitiate there. An Archbishop did something similar with his ancestral house. He bequeathed it to the Society of St Vincent de Paul to be used for charitable works. The houses are serving purposes that their last owners wanted. Did previous owners ever dream this? Do houses have stars ruling over their fate too?
The stars do seem to favour some houses. In December most present-day owners in the vaddo start a flurry of activities, scraping away the dross of the monsoon rains from walls, choosing favourite colours of paint and colour washes, hiring painters with ladders and various sized paint brushes and in a few days the newly-painted houses and garden walls are transformed, clean and spruced up for Christmas. In contrast the orphan houses look even more desolate.
Old or new, painted or neglected, clean or dusty, all houses have been homes. Although they could not shield against loneliness or domestic abuse, they provided shelter and security and comfort.They hold many secrets too and they are witness to the joy, the tears, the fears, the dreams, the quarrels and the kisses. Words, prayers, music, laughter all reverberate silently and remain in them long after the inhabitants have gone. That’s what I like to believe, that the past is not entirely wiped away. But houses too will eventually crumble and fall apart. The universal law of impermanence spares nothing. Should we expect houses to form attachments?
Should they care who comes or goes, who lives or dies?
The house featured in the banner picture was built in Velsao by C. R. de Souza who headed a retail empire in Zanzibar in the mid-1800s. The house has been beautifully restored and is open to the public by appointment.
Yvonne Vaz Ezdani lives part of the year in Goa and the rest of the time in Brisbane, Australia. She grew up in Burma/Myanmar and has many memories of the beautiful land. She has authored two books, Songs of the Survivors (Goa1556, 2007) and New Songs of the Survivors (Speaking Tiger, 2015). After fulfilling careers as a teacher and later as a school counsellor, she now devotes her time to writing and taking care of her grandchildren. She still finds time to nourish her soul with reading, music, and gardening.