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.

This is a continuation of the Monsoon in Goa – 2010 Edition theme.

These photographs were shot over two consecutive rain-soaked days in the idyll that is the island of Chorão, also known as Chodna or Chodan. My forbears came from this part of Goa, and were impelled to move out after the sacking of the village and the Hindu temples by the Portuguese in the 16th C.

The final photograph in the series below was taken in the face of an intense rainstorm advancing in my direction. Seconds later I had to dive into my car. These are moments to live for.

St Bartholomew church, Chorão (1569)
5D Mark II, 24-105L

The lone sentinel on a dark monsoon morning
5D Mark II, 70-100L f/2.8 IS II

Nossa Senhora de Saude chapel
5D Mark II, TS-E 24L II

Mae de Deus church of Pomburpa seen from Chorão
5D Mark II, 70-200L f/2.8 IS II

Advancing rainstorm (Pomburpa church is seen to the left)
5D Mark II, 24-105L

When Afonso de Albuquerque first tried to claim Goa in 1510, his men encountered fierce resistance from Adil Shah’s forces from their vantage point atop a hillock in Old Goa. Stunned by the intensity of the opposition Albuquerque was forced to retreat. But he was to return in a few months and dislodge Adil Shah. Albuquerque did not forget the high ground from where he had been barraged. After his triumph, he erected a hermitage on the hillock in honour of Mary which later morphed into a chapel known to us now as the Chapel of Our Lady of the Mount. This was the site of an old Hindu temple that had been destroyed, probably by the Muslims; Albuquerque was known to have sought cooperation of the Hindus in his fight against the Muslims.

From its perch there are sweeping vistas to be enjoyed. The island of Divar to the north across River Mandovi is a picture of serenity, and to the west are the monuments of Old Goa. The chapel recently underwent restoration with funding from Fundação Oriente.

I dig this locale for its vistas and for the solitude it provides for quiet contemplation. But it won’t remain that way for long. The adjacent forest at the foot of the hillock has been depleted and is being primed for construction. Shame on Goans!

The final image in this series is a photograph of a photograph from the archives collection of Central Library in Panjim.

Chapel of Our Lady of the Mount seen from Divar
5D, 300L f/4

Chapel of Our Lady of the Mount during the monsoon
5D, 24-105L

Chapel of Our Lady of the Mount after the monsoon
5D II, 24-105L

Chapel of Our Lady of the Mount c. 1925 (© Souza and Paul)

In the middle of November I made several pre-dawn sorties to Old Goa hoping to frame the Church of St. Cajetan against the early morning sky, only to be foiled by dull, cloudy skies wrought by a lingering unseasonal storm system. On the verge of calling off the effort, I settled on one final attempt. And what a morning it turned out to be! The sky behind St. Cajetan lit up in a spectacle seldom seen in these parts.

St. Cajetan Church in Old Goa at sunrise
5D Mark II, TS-E 17L

As soon as I had this scene locked in, I rushed up the hill to the Chapel of Mount Mary hoping to catch the monuments bathed in the first light of the rising sun. I was in for yet another pleasant surprise – a sunrise rainbow arcing across from Divar island.

Knowing the ephemeral nature of these conditions, I did not wait to set up my tripod. With the TS-E 17L lens already glued to my camera, I fired off several frames handheld. In the photograph below, both the Sé Cathedral (1533) and the Church of St. Cajetan (1665) are seen in the distance.

Sunrise rainbow from Mount Mary Chapel in Old Goa
5D Mark II, TS-E 17L

Check out this link for an early morning shot of St. Cajetan Church taken in 2008 from the same hill.