This installment of Panjim Promenade puts the spotlight on Tobacco Square (Largo do Estanco in Portuguese).

The Tobacco Square is bounded by the General Post Office, the São Tomé chapel and Casa da Moeda. What is now the General Post Office originally started out as a depot for trading tobacco whence the name of the Square. The premises then went on to serve as the Police Headquarters for some time. Finally it became the centre of operations of the city’s postal services (Repartição dos Correios).

Within the perimeter of the Tobacco Square was the notorious pillory. It was here that the Portuguese executed the plotters of the Pinto Conspiracy.

Panjim was conceived by Portuguese designers and that vision was brought to fruition by Goa‘s master craftsmen and masons. What emerged over time was a beautiful city unlike any other in India, pleasing to the eye, with the whole in harmony with its parts. That Panjim is now being dismantled and rubbished (read Indianized), the beauty of the old structures supplanted with ugly, low-quality concrete ratholes. It is as if a different species has taken over.

This image of the General Post Office was shot from the location of the aforementioned pillory.

General Post Office, Panjim
5D Mark II, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP

Around 1900
(From: Postais Antigos do Estado da Portuguese Índia)

Capela de São Tomé was built in 1849 and received a substantial makeover in 1902.

Capela de São Tomé and Hugo Menezes house (19th C)
5D Mark II, TS-E 24L II

São Tomé chapel c. 1910
© Souza & Paul (Central Library Archives)

Morning mass at São Tomé
5D Mark II, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP

Velho building (19th C)
5D Mark II, TS-E 24L II

Torre de Belém (1920s) and Hotel Imperial (1940s)
5D Mark II, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP

All the posts in the Panjim Promenade series may be accessed here.

The village of Reis Magos in Goa‘s Bardez taluka is exquisitely located on the waterline across the bay from Panjim, and is named after the three biblical Magi Kings. Among its treasures are the eponymous church and fort.

The beautiful Church of Reis Magos, built in 1555, is among Goa‘s oldest. Symbols in bas relief around the steps leading up reveal the existence of an earlier Hindu temple at the site. The handsome east-facing façade must be seen in the warm glow of the rising sun (first image below). The annual feast at the church in the first week of January is an important event in the Goan calendar.

The Reis Magos Fort was built by the Portuguese in 1551 soon after their conquest of Bardez and later revitalized in 1703. When the Marathas took over Bardez in 1739, the Portuguese used the redoubts of Reis Magos and Aguada to barely hold on.

The archival photo adduced below discloses the glorious setting. Too bad the barbarians are now at the door, shovels in hand and trucks of concrete in tow.

Church of Reis Magos, Goa
5D, 35L

Seen from Reis Magos fort
5D, 24-105L

Devotion
5D, 24-105L

Reis Magos Fort - first rays of the sun
5D, 24-105L

Art by Mario Miranda
Reproduced with permission of the Mario Gallery

Reis Magos Church and Fort c. 1900
© Souza & Paul (Central Library Archives)

Legend has it that a group of sages on the island of Divar in Goa undertook penance to propitiate Shiva. It took seven crore (sapta-kot) years for the Great Yogi to take notice of their exertions. When He finally showed up, the sages petitioned Him to take up residence in the village of Naroa (also called Narve). Thus came about the great temple of Saptakoteshwar in Naroa-Divar, one that enjoys a special place in the Goan psyche for its singular role in our land’s turbulent history.

Saptakoteshwar weathered intrusions first by the Bahmani sultans, and later by the Portuguese who destroyed it. The first mass conversion of Goan Hindus to Christianity took place here on August 15, 1560, cleverly engineered by the Portuguese on the day of Gokulashtami, traditionally the most important celebration at the temple. The provenance of one of Goa‘s popular folk tunes, Hanv Saiba poltodi vaita, can be traced to this event.

At the original temple site in Naroa-Divar today stands the Chapel of Our Lady of Candelaria, and nearby lie the remains of the temple tank. The ancient linga has its own tale of woes to tell, even serving as a pulley for a nearby well. Finally it made its way across the river to be reinstalled at a new site which came to be known as New Naroa, today’s Narve in Bicholim taluka. The temple was restored by Shivaji in 1668.

Saptakoteshwar Temple at Narve, Goa
5D, 24-105L

Saptakoteshwar
5D, 24-105L

Saptakoteshwar Temple by Mario Miranda
(Reproduced with permission of the Mario Gallery)

Temple musician Dattaram Ramkrishna Narvekar
5D, 24-105L

The Church of Nossa Senhora de Saúde (Our Lady of Health) in the village of Sancoale, Goa, was built in 1606 and destroyed in a fire in 1834. All that remains today is the shell of its façade. It enjoys a delightful setting by the Zuari river, and the ruins provide clues to what must have been a magnificent edifice.

I photographed the site several times over a number of years. The first image below was taken handheld on a dark monsoon morning from the bridge across the Zuari river.

Nossa Senhora de Saúde at Sancoale, Goa
5D, 300L f/4 IS

First rays of the rising sun
5D, 300L f/4 IS

The remains
5D Mark II, TS-E 24L II

Ruins of Nossa Senhora de Saúde
5D Mark II, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP

Frontispiece
5D, 24-105L

One of the very few surviving structures of Goa‘s Muslim era, the Safa Shahouri mosque in the town of Ponda was built in 1560 during the reign of Ibrahim Adilshah, sultan of Bijapur. The photograph below was shot on a serene winter morning in 2007. Notice the Goan touch, such as the tiled roof and the laterite masonry at the base and around the tank.

Safa Shahouri Mosque (1560) in Ponda, Goa
5D, 24-105L

Although I hadn’t seen it at the time the photo was taken, I thought the marvelous sketch of the mosque made by the recently departed Mario Miranda provides an interesting point of artistic interpretation. It is taken from the book Inside Goa (1982) by Manohar Malgonkar with illustrations by Mario, and reproduced here with permission of the Mario Gallery. Mario’s work may be purchased online at http://www.mariodemiranda.com.

Illustration by Mario Miranda from 'Inside Goa'
(Reproduced with permission of the publisher)

Arabó is a tiny ward of the village of Dhargal on River Chapora in north Goa. The name, a Goanized form referring to “Arab,” furnishes a clue to its past. Arab merchants sailed here in their dhows in mediæval times trading goods with the locals. It is a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of place, a sleepy outlier not yet (thankfully!) listed on any map or travel brochure.

Arabó piques contemporary interest on at least two counts. One is the subject of this post – the Desai House, unique in the state. Arabó is also the birthplace of the great music composer, the late N. Datta (Datta Naik), whose collaboration with the poet Sahir Ludhianvi gave us many enduring film melodies (see the end of this post).

The Desais are among the earliest Gaud Saraswat Brahmin families of Goa, and were for some time feudatories to the Bhonsales of Sawantwadi. The Desai House presents an incongruous sight with its striking exterior of exposed laterite and turrets on either flank. The original house belonged to a Muslim merchant who sold it to the Desais. The structure seen today dates back to around 1890 when the Desais gave the house a makeover.

These photographs were taken over a span of several years. During the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi in 2007, I was invited by the Desais for a private tour of their home.

Desai House in Arabó, Goa
5D Mark II, TS-E 17L

Notice the holes punched in the laterite to accommodate gun barrels.

Facet of the laterite exterior
5D Mark II, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP

Balcony in the foyer
5D, 24-105L

The interior layout hews to a traditional Goan Hindu design with its characteristic Rajangan (quadrangle).

Rajangan - the central courtyard
5D, 24-105L

To this day the Desais accord space and reverence to the Islamic flagpole left behind by the earlier Muslim owner. Every year on the occasion of the Moharram festival, the local Muslims are guests of the Desai family.

Islamic flagpole
5D, 24-105L

Inside one of the turrets
5D, 24-105L

Top view
5D, 24-105L

This sketch, reproduced in Ethnography of Goa, Daman and Diu by A.B. de Bragança Pereira (Penguin Group, 2008), depicts the original house. The tree is still there (see first image above).

Sketch of Desai House

PS: Selections of N. Datta here and here.

This is the third and final installment in the Taj Mahal sequence.

The Taj is seen at its refulgent best in the moments immediately after sunrise and preceding sundown when the marble glows in the honeyed light of the sun. Outside of these two fleeting windows, the exterior of the monument takes on a flat, white patina that is less interesting to the photographer. A monochromatic treatment is appropriate to the first image below, taken mid-morning from the balcony of the Amarvilas hotel.

Taj Mahal
5D, 300L f/4 IS

Thou shalt not clean or spellcheck the sign outside the entrance to the mausoleum.

Photography Prohibted (sic)
5D, 17-40L

First rays of the sun
5D, 35L

PS: The muck at the bottom of the pool, the obscene sidewalk, and the uninspiring shrubbery brought to you by the boors of the Indian government (Archaeological Survey of India).

The Taj Mahal in Agra, India.

In thrall
5D, 17-40L

This is Part 2 of the conspectus on the cafés of Panjim. The first installment outlined the city’s café culture and covered the iconic Café Central. Here we survey the pioneering houses of the genre that are still active and thriving.

The menu at all these cafés has much in common. They distinguish themselves by their house specialties and through variations on familiar dishes. Panjimites are deadly serious about their cafés and brand loyalty is fierce, with affiliations carrying seamlessly over generations within families.

A few of the older cafés have now adopted a two-tier seating (and pricing) arrangement by adding an air-conditioned annexe. The comfort it provides in the summer months is welcome, but to those of us weaned on the originals, the new upgrades have diminished some of the spirit and character of an earlier era.

As mentioned in the earlier post, Café Central no longer supports a sit-down setting. Café Tato is today the top dog, located only a few steps away from the old Café Central site. It was founded in 1913 by Keshav Govind Dhuri from the village of Nerul, and is the oldest of the surviving cafés. It began as Hindu Upahar Griha, which was later dropped in favour of “Tato,” the founder’s cognomen. Today the enterprise is run by the grandson, Pradip Govind Dhuri.

Café Tato is internationally known for its bhaji-puri. See this and drool. (Note: the t’s in Tato are soft, the ‘a’ is long, and the second syllable ‘to’ is phonetically similar to the Engish ‘raw’.)

Breakfast of the Gods - Café Tato
5D Mark II, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP

Pradip Dhuri, proprietor
5D Mark II, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP

Café Aram – earlier known as Café Remanso – came online c. 1945. It is the birthplace of the world’s greatest batata-vada. I’m sorry to say that, all the hoopla notwithstanding, the vada-pão from Bombay is a thundering flop. The ability to tell a good batata-vada from a great batata-vada is what separates the men from the boys. The key to the batata-vada is encrypted not in the filling (as is commonly and mistakenly imagined) but in its shell. The herbs & spices, thickness, consistency, coefficient of porosity, and the overall softness of the coat taken together are vital to the success of a batata-vada. My research has shown that only Café Aram meets the highest parametric standards in this regard. The Bombay batata-vada with its thin, wimpy shell stands no chance against the genuine Goan article.

Café Remanso (Aram)
5D Mark II, 24-105L

Café Aram
5D Mark II, 24-105L

All the Goodness
5D Mark II, 24-105L

Mother of all batata-vadas - Café Aram
5D Mark II, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP

Café Prakash was founded in 1955 by Vasudev B. Sakhalkar, and named after his son Prakash who is now in charge. This is the watering hole of Goan journalists (known locally as patracars) who divide their time between the café and work (95% café, 5% work).

Prakash Sakhalkar, proprietor of Café Prakash
5D Mark II, 24-105L

Café Bhonsle was established in 1920 by Rama Bhonsle. The family legacy is today handled by his grandsons. Specialties here include mix-bhaji with chapati, and the piquant mirsang (batter fried hot chili pepper).

Mix-bhaji - Café Bhonsle
5D Mark II, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP

Café Bhonsle
5D Mark II, 24-105L

Chao (tea)
5D Mark II, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP

The final pick is Café Real (the Portuguese ‘Real,’ meaning royal), founded in 1946 by Gajanan Shirodkar, and celebrated for its exceptional bhaji-puri.

Café Real
5D Mark II, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP