Photo Blog by Rajan Parrikar » Old Goa

Sé Cathedral

Rajan P. Parrikar — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 19:42:31 +0000

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December is a festive time in the historic village of Old Goa, now a World Heritage site. Sé Cathedral was elevated to the rank of a cathedral in 1533, and the final structure was completed in 1619. It is the largest church in India.

The second image below was taken from the hill at the Chapel of Mount Mary overlooking the Mandovi river. To the left of the frame is the Church of St Francis of Assisi.

Sé Cathedral, Old Goa
5D Mark II, TS-E 17L

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

Ferry, Barge, Sunset

Rajan P. Parrikar — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 16:08:16 +0000

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Sights from our ferry on River Mandovi connecting Old Goa to Divar in the beautiful, golden moments a little before sundown today.

Old Goa to Divar ferry
5D Mark II, Zeiss ZE 50mm f/2 Makro Planar

On its way to Divar island
5D Mark II, Zeiss ZE 50mm f/2 Makro Planar

Ferry, Barge, Sunset
5D Mark II, Zeiss ZE 50mm f/2 Makro Planar

Basilica of Bom Jesus

Rajan P. Parrikar — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 07:01:19 +0000

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The Basilica of Bom Jesus (1594-1605) in Old Goa, 6 miles east of the Goa’s capital Panjim, occupies a very special place in the consciousness of the Goan Catholic community.

Deliberate photography of this structure is not an easy undertaking. During the day there is a steady stream of pilgrims and tourists milling around the campus. But a more daunting impediment is the proscription on tripods within the complex, one of the countless boneheaded absurdities of the Indian bureaucracy. Luckily, the resident honcho chose not to pull rank and made allowance for my tripod outside of visiting hours. Another ‘permission’ layer had to be overcome to photograph the altar inside, one instituted by the local religious custodians, but the Lord cleared the way for this Hindu on that count, too.

The history and architecture of the Basilica have been treated in Churches of Goa by José Pereira (Oxford University Press, 2003, Monumental Legacy series).

The Jesuit church of Bom Jesus (‘The Good Jesus’)…is perhaps the best example in Goa of an aesthetic phenomenon common in the Iberian world, which we can describe as fachadoretabulism, a term derived from the Portuguese words for ‘façade’ (fachada) and ‘retable’ (retábulo): the aesthetic power of the building is concentrated on those two points; all other aspects of the structure are ignored.

Bom Jesus [...] has three doors in its frontispiece, but open on to a single undivided nave. It appears that Bom Jesus is one of the first, if not the first, responsible for this innovation – of a single nave entered by three doors, a practice that became so widespread in Goa that occasionally even chapels adopted it…

Indian Neo-Roman façades vary their flat surfaces in a manner analogous to the variations introduced into the modes (or ragas) of the monophonic Indian classical music. A raga is a musical formula having a prescribed melodic shape, rhythm, and ornamentation. This formula creates a framework for improvisation: the melodic shapes are formed by a fixed set of notes, involving specific intervals of scale, with some of its degrees accented above the others, but neither the melodic shapes nor their sequences are fixed precisely. Similarly, in the Indian Neo-Roman façade the members of the order constitute the framework for the improvisation, realized through peculiar combinations of the members (or parts of them). Intervals are constantly varied but there is little or no modulation of volumes, at least in the architectonic Baroque manner…

Dominating the interior is the high altar…dedicated to the Good Jesus (Bom Jesus), portrayed as the Christ Child on the base of the pedestal bearing the huge figure of Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order…The Goan retable seems to have been erected around 1699…The Bom Jesus altar is framed by the arch of the sanctuary, which is surrounded by decorated woodwork, and flanked by two smaller retables resting against the wall that supports the sanctuary arch, forming the typically Portuguese composition of the retable triad.

Basilica of Bom Jesus at Old Goa
5D Mark II, 24-105L

Façade
5D Mark II, TS-E 17L

Altar
5D Mark II, TS-E 17L

Chapel on the Hill

Rajan P. Parrikar — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 08:41:24 +0000

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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)

Barges

Rajan P. Parrikar — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:14:39 +0000

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The flotilla of barges plying in Goa‘s rivers presents a charming diversion to the tourist, but this picture postcard scene masks a dark and ominous reality.

Goa is being mined to death, with devastating consequences, some of them not yet upon us. Forests have been flattened, and beautiful villages trashed, muddied, their air rendered unbreathable with toxic particulates. Health problems among villagers are on the rise. The rapid spread of groundwater pollution has imperiled Goa’s water supply. Left unchallenged, the miners will bring about Goa’s demise long before the effects of climate change kick in.

Enabling and profiteering from this destructive effort are Goa’s criminal Chief Minister Digambar Kamat – himself a beneficiary of the scores of new mining leases sanctioned (by him) – and his cronies. As the most venal man ever to be elected to the state’s top political office (that takes some doing given the superlative standards of corruption attained to by Goan politicians) Digambar Kamat‘s rightful place is behind bars. But India is not a nation governed by the rule of law.

These days on the River Mandovi there is a virtual traffic jam of barges pregnant with iron ore. The Chinese are paying top dollar and the mining mafia along with their political bedfellows are raking in the moolah, environment and people be damned.

Although these images make a political statement (fine with me) I shot them because I saw photographic merit in the compositions. The first three were taken from the Mandovi bridge in Panjim soon after sunrise, the last from the ferry in Old Goa on a stormy afternoon.

Ore-laden barge in River Mandovi in Panjim, Goa
5D Mark II, 14L II

Barge, River Mandovi, and the city of Panjim
5D Mark II, 24-105L

Barge in RIver Mandovi in Panjim, Goa
5D Mark II, 14L II

Barges at the pier in Old Goa
5D Mark II, 85L II

Sunrise in Old Goa

Rajan P. Parrikar — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:34:49 +0000

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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.