Heta Pandit has made preserving Goan heritage her life-goal
Heta Pandit is a writer, heritage activist and architectural historian. Her work took her to many interesting domains – from advertising to feature writing, from a tea estate in Kerala to researching Goa’s traditional home building. But her biggest contribution has been to make people of Goa aware about the value of their built heritage.
An acclaimed published author. she has written Houses of Goa, Hidden Hands, Walking in Goa, In and Around Old Goa, Dust and other stories, There is More to Life than a House in Goa.
Heta became interested in preservation of built heritage when she was working for Dr Jane Goodall in East Africa, Tanzania. “I suddenly saw that there were no bomas – traditional houses of the African chiefs and his family – to be seen. Everywhere one looked all you saw was what had been built by the British. I began to wonder where the traditional houses were and that is when I realized the importance of architecture as evidence of history. That to me was the turning point.”
She states that, “You can spend crores on preserving the Taj Mahal, the palaces and forts and colonial monuments but what about the houses of the people? Where is the architectural evidence of the ordinary and extraordinary people? That has to be preserved too. Their histories are equally if not more important.”
Hence, following her newly found interest, she moved up to becoming the co-founder of the Goa Heritage Action Group. She along with architects Raya Shankhwalker and Poonam Verma Mascarenhas thought of forming a preservation group to create awareness for Goan heritage – both tangible and intangible. With the core group, the first challenge was to get more people to join. At first, they did not even have 8 people to form a committee for GHAG! They begged their friends to join. Dr Jorson Fernandes was their first chairman and today they have over 100 members, all of them individually and jointly engaged in preserving our legacies and our inheritance. Cezar Pinto is currently the chairman of the Group with Ar. Raya Shankhwalker as the Honorary Secretary. They are fortunate that the core group of 19 years ago is still the active core group today.
With the support of the government agencies, business houses and the Delegation of the Fundação Oriénte in Goa they held the famed Fontainhas Festival of the Arts where artists, writers, speakers and heritage home owners interacted with one another and members of the public enjoyed the display of art in the heritage precincts of Panaji. Besides giving Goan artists a platform to show their art, the Fontainhas Festivals also gave the public a peek into what the value of their legacy was. Suddenly, the small houses and winding lanes that they were whizzing past every day took on a new meaning.
“There were other highly visible campaigns… saving the Old Goa Medical College building, preparing heritage lists of the four major towns in Goa and the satellite villages around these towns, lectures, articles in the local press, personal interactions and conversations with the powers that be…all this would not have been possible but for the effort of our members, all the office bearers of the GHAG and their personal commitment to the cause and of course the stakeholders themselves, the owners and custodians of these treasures,” says Heta.
She mentions, that, “Amidst all the ups and downs, if there is anything that keeps us going, it is the reward we get from stakeholders who preserve their own properties, sometimes in consultation with us and sometimes on their own. After all these years we can safely say that the word “heritage” has become a household word in Goa.”
She used the 9th edition of the Goa Art & Literature Festival (GALF) held in December 2018, as an opportunity to launch her book, Grinding Stories: Songs from Goa – which is a translation of 26 oviyos or songs sung over the grinding stone.
The ancient Goan art of kaavi had fascinated her since 1998 when she was working on the book Houses of Goa (with co-writer Annabel Mascarenhas Lopes) but did not really pay much time to its study.
However, she had completely dedicated the past few years to this Konkan art form that originated in Goa and has travelled to Karnataka and Maharashtra.
“On one such research trip, we saw a rich stock of kaavi art at the Shri Mauli temple in the forest village of Zholambe in neighbouring Maharashtra. The temple has one of the finest pieces of untouched and pristine kaavi on its walls. A lot of the segments are narrative in nature,” narrates Heta.
Dr Rajendra Kerkar, who had guided the team to the temple, then began to recite the Goa version of the legend. The story was as intriguing as the art. That is when Dr Kerkar introduced her to oviyos, songs sung over the grinding stone. Some of these oviyos are well-known legends, like the Bhujang story and some are passionate songs that come straight from the heart of the storytellers. She tweaked the original in the translation. My Garuda is a female eagle! Thus, beginning her fascination for the songs sung over the grinding stone. The collections in this book are songs are dedicated to the love between brother and sister. She has used kaavi from the walls of temples and homes and turned them into illustrations for each of the songs.
Heta Pandit has definitely had an inspiring and colourful journey. Along the way she has also made some wonderful memories to think about for years to come. According to her Gerard da Cunha asking her to submit a proposal for the book Houses of Goa; receiving the Homi Bhabha Fellowship to research the contribution of the artists and artisans who have built the houses of Goa; and buying an old Goan house and then restoring it to make it a home are some of the most cherished moments of her life.
In the end she tosses a thought for the coming generations to ponder about, “We are all the sons and daughters of these extraordinary artists. What is to stop us from learning the art or any art or craft for that matter? Just because there are no traditional artists and artisans should we allow the art to die?”
