Have you come across
any Goan examples of Thomassons, lately? The word coined by the Japanese artist
Akasegawa Genpei denotes any architectural relic that is found in good
condition but does not serve a purpose. Today, old Goan architectural artefacts
that lay forgotten and neglected amidst the spiralling growth of new urban
developments are quickly falling into the category of Thomassons. Take for
example the chapel behind the Hotel Mandovi in Panjim, or the beautiful baroque
cross on the other side of the road from the St. Inez Church, or even the city
of Old Goa and its monuments. It can be contended that the transformation of colonial
monuments into Thomassons through wilful neglect is an attempt at erasure of
the markers of Goa’s history.
An article titled ‘The Inexplicably Fascinating Secret World of Thomasson’ (Jan. 18, 2017) on the blog Messy Nessy, narrates the interesting story behind the emergence of
the term Thomasson. The article notes that Japanese artist Asakegawa Genpei was
interested in locating useless urban artefacts in Tokyo in the 1980s and
wanted a term to label such relics. Around this time, the Japanese baseball
team Yomiuri Giants had hired an American professional player called Gary Thomasson
for a huge amount of money. However, the acquisition of this player turned out
to be disastrous to the Yomiuri Giants as he did not fit their system of play
and therefore they left him on the bench for most of the two seasons of his
contract. Genpei adopted the use of the analogy of Thomasson, an exclusive
player with a useless position on the team, for urban architectural artefacts
that are in good condition, but are functionless.
In Goa, for most casual observers, architectural
relics found in unexpected places might seem like Thomassons. Take for example
the aforementioned cross near St. Inez Church, which shares same architectural
history as the church. Today, a busy road severs the relationship of this cross
to the church and, therefore, it appears to be a misplaced artefact. However, this
cross was in fact a part of the church square, as can be gleaned from other similar
cases such as the Holy Spirit Church square in Margao. Clearly, the road in St.
Inez was introduced later. The traffic on this road has considerably increased making
it difficult to imagine this cross as an element of a larger architectural
setting that comprised the church square. What will further compound the matter
is, over time, there will emerge plans for widening this road, leading to the demolition
of this important marker of the city’s history. The Municipal Corporation needs
to identify such heritage urban spaces and restore them at the earliest. While
it might not be possible to re-route the thoroughfare in St. Inez, an urban
design effort should be made to create at least sense of a city square. This
could be achieved in multiple ways, including having common stone pavers that
would connect the disparate parts of the entire area; in effect, this would
create a platform, similar to the one at Kala Academy.
Goan monuments are undergoing a
process of Thomassoning, as evidenced by their gradual decay. Another example
of devaluing a historical structure is St. Anthony’s Chapel in Calangute, which
has been reduced to a glorified traffic island. The zooming vehicles around
this monument make it difficult for worshippers and visitors to approach it, making
it seem like a useless relic. In Goa, town planners give high priority to
roads, constantly widening them while destroying our natural and built heritage
in the process. There are many monuments, which have become Thomassons, partly because
of poor planning and misplaced priorities like road widening. The story of Old Goa is no different, especially
because the state seems to have ignored its history while constructing a massive
six-lane highway into the erstwhile capital, almost grazing and bruising the
heritage city in the process.
The neglect of old monuments by the State
is a reflection of the treatment of local Catholics whose heritage is marked by
these structures. In part, this is precisely the process of ruination Ann
Stoler refers to in the book Imperial
Debris (2013). Ruination, Stoler argues, is a political project that lays
waste to certain peoples, relations,
and things that accumulate in specific places (p. 11). The region’s colonial architecture,
as much as the Goan Catholic culture it
represents - are both portrayed to Indian
tourists as Thomassons - rendered useless and maintained merely as relics.
Despite these challenges, local Goans
continue to engage with their monuments. The magnificent buildings in Old Goa,
for instance, might appear to be abandoned relics of a bygone era to the
typical Indian tourist. These visitors fail to see how Goans use these
monuments, often marvelling only at the architecture. On the contrary, old buildings
like the Basilica of Bom Jesus are in fact living monuments. The clearest
testimony to this is the gigantic gathering of people during the decadal
Exposition of St. Francis Xavier and the yearly feast. Locals continue to
resist their invisibilization by venerating the monuments in large numbers
because they serve as symbols of Goan identity and as a reminder of the claims
of a minority on the State. Of course, national
news channels and national newspapers in India conveniently ignore the coverage
of these events because such images of large gatherings for the
veneration of a Catholic saint would invariably challenge the brahmanical-hindutva
idea of nationalism in India. Even as it is troubling that Goans are reduced to
being Thomassons in their own homeland, they continue to resist.
[This article was first published on
The
Goan on 09th Feb. 2017]
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