The Silva House

It is not for nothing that the house of Eurico Santana de Silva is called The house with seven gables. Even with four out of the original seven gables demolished you can still see them in your mind's eye as you look up. And look up you have to do for Eurico Santana de Silva is also known as The Judge. "I had to demolish those four gables because maintenance costs were coming to much more than we could bear. in any case, we had toilets built on the old system located in the back. Our children live outside Goa. Why would we need such a big place? Those trees that have taken over the backyard now? Aren't they adequate replacements? You cannot imagine the peace and quiet that was once there in this part of Margao. Borda was never considered part of the City. Now it's on the main road going to a major bus terminus, a school and of all the things a supermarket.

Entrance Door"We keep all the doors and windows shut all day and all night. In the old days there was hardly a car to be seen... perhaps one in the whole day. There was no soot to be dusted off the mother-of-pearl shell windows." It is no use opening the windows, you agree. Besides, you don't need to. The treasures that lie within are so many and so impressive.

The house is as if it is riding high. The three remaining gables kiss Borda's azure skies as the house built to the contour lines climbs on its own steam from one level to another with an ease that beguiles its mass. The main entrance sports Baroque features over its door head and the simplicity of the front facade of the house introduces you to what lies within. A wide open staircase takes you up to and into the family chapel that is perhaps one of the finest examples of Baroque and Rococo art executed in the late phase. A Phase when the dark days of the Inquisition were over. And a proclamation by the marquis de Pombal declaring all subjects of the Crown to be equal irrespective of their colour, caste or country of origin had given an impetus to an emerging Goan identity. It must have given this house renewed vigour.

For how else can one describe the vitality, the robustness and the emphasis in the structure itself? How else can one describe the buoyancy, the piety and the loyalty that is reflected in the rooms of the house?

The reception sala is filled with Baroque furniture carved by Goan craftsmen. But, surprise of surprises - the wall paper effect done with stencils on the wall has been done not more than a few years ago.

"I trained a local boy to do this stencil work. He was so good! I have a challenge for you... here! Take a look around! Spot the error he's made and you'll get a prize!"

InteriorSeveral hard looks around and it still looks perfect. You are told you have have lost the prize. But then, have you? For what you take away in your mind's eye will last you longer than one lifetime. For a lifetime is simply not enough to look back and think about the several generations of family members who have walked up those stairs;sought succour in their hours of need at the family chapel; been ordained as priests and come back to their own homes to celebrate Mass; or had their babies on warm beds comforted by the sound of the westerly sea breezes that wafted through the narrow balconies perched on corbels.

Clearly, these features must come from another place if not another time altogether? Corbels belong to the churches and religious buildings of The Early Phase, a Phase when all domestic architecture stemmed from the religious buildings at Velha Goa. Narrow balconies also came from that same place and period and found a way into domestic architecture. A strange case of hangover from the religio-dominated days of old.

Reception HallWhy did they have these narrow balconies in the first place, one asks. And then finds the answer in the history pages of the Old City. To those who had come from overseas to colonize a land that refused to be colonized bringing only a sensible realization that windows had to be kept open and not shut and breezes let in and let out.

Narrow balconies were then created to allow for the fresh sea breeze to bring in their health-giving properties. To allow members of a household the freedom to take the air without once stirring out of their houses. To allow an inward-looking society to change, gradually and surely, into an outward-looking one. And then again we wonder why the Italiante style, the Baroque and the Rococo, won hands down over the British style which was, paradoxically, taking all of Europe by storm at around the same time. Perhaps the British architectural style did not suit Goa's climate? Perhaps it did not suit the Goan temperament? Who knows?.

BedroomDoes the carpenter who went up the seven gables of the Silva house have the answer? Does the mason who struck creative gold while creating the corbels that support the balconies on the upper floors of the house know? Do the carpenter and the cabinet maker who memorised the design of a cabinet they had seen many moons ago as it arrived on a sea-weary ship have the last piece of the puzzle? Was it just a practical mind that set about making these pieces and these works of art and then remembered that he also has a heart in it? The architecture-historian who thinks she knows everything just when she is about to be proved wrong? Oh, we know... the next time she goes to Borda she is going to get it out of the house..

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