Thomassons de Goa

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 09^th Feb. 2017]