Chayanika Saikia
A Sanctum for Hundred Years of Family Ritual in Canacona
Dīptaṁ dīpaṁ sthitā devatāḥ śāntaṁ ca manorṇavam — Lamp shines, the Deity rests in peaceful quietness. Divine rays of morning illuminate the sacred green of Tulsi and a sea breeze caressingly grazes hundreds of vivid prayer flags. The camera captures a pious aura of piety. The portrayed house of the Gaonkar family, once a living space, is now a sanctum for the family rituals and cultural festivities, sublimed by spirituality.
In contrast to the plain façade outside, the element that immediately grabs attention when one steps inside the house is a profound sense of reverence, nestled in the tranquillity of a bygone time. It blends finely with the calmness of the idyllic village of Agonda, Taluka Canacona, endowed with bountiful nature along a pristine sandy beach in South Goa. The village is dotted with quaint Konkani houses, column after column of coconut trees stretching towards the azure sky, sparkling water bodies and a hay-brown patchwork of paddy fields framing the horizon.
The Gaonkars are one of the prominent families of Canacona, with a bloodline that can be traced back to the battle of Someshvara in 1265 CE, where six brothers of the family fought for the army of the last Shilahara dynasty of North Konkan, Someshvara, against the Yadavas, but were defeated. As the story passed on in the family, four of the brothers died in the war and two were forced to flee. One of the brothers went to Kashi (Diver Island), and another found solace in the scenic village of Agonda who started a life by occupying a vast fertile land for cultivation. With time, the Gaonkar family rose as the prominent landlords of the Agonda village, sub-leasing their land to hundreds of tenants and securing an influential social status in the area.
The house was built around the year 1900 by Bhoja Shaba Gaonkar and later, his son Narayan Naik Gaonkar, grandson Kashinath Naik Gaonkar and their descendants lived and thrived under its roof. Originally raised as a double-storied structure over a hillock at the heart of the village, the house carries the traditional Goan Hindu architectural signatures that typically differ from the local Portuguese style. The main entrance of the house passes through a balcao, or traditional outdoor porch, with built-in concrete seats — an integral part of Goan homes — where residents relax and interact, chat with the neighbours, or enjoy the winding roads outside. The entrance leading to the inner courtyard is regarded as a sacred passage and one has to show respect by walking barefoot through it.
There are eight rooms at ground level. Inner walls are painted in calming white, the long verandah or chowki with built-in sittings has red-oxidized flooring and runs along an inner yard in L-shape. The wooden roof has the installation of traditional Mangalore clay tiles.
Due to the elevated ground, the house creates a mosaic of plain space and levels within it, offering a terrace-style architectural aesthetic.
The inner courtyard, traditionally known as Rajangan, has a podium with holy plant Tulsi (Tulasi Vrundavan) as its focal point, painted in white with dazzling shades of red, blue and yellow. The virid leaves glistening in the golden sun infuse an air of holiness in the house.
The first room from the entrance is the prayer hall where the family celebrates Ganesh Chaturthi every year. In another prayer room, traditionally called Deva Kood, the daily prayer is being offered. A series of steps next to Deva Kood leads to an elevated ground that opens into a backyard with an old well and the memorial headstones of the ancestors.
The giant well, now hiding a forest of ferns and mosses within it, used to be the primary source of water for the joint household of the Gaonkar family. A concrete staircase on the northern side leads to the upper-floor rooms with an overhead slanted roof. Other rooms on the ground floor were once used as private rooms by family members.
“In architecture, a house built on a higher ground carries unique aesthetic appeal. The multi-layered design elements with different levels create dynamism in the space,” Dipti Parashar, a fifth-generation descendant of the family, shares. “Forefathers had strategically chosen to build the house here to demonstrate the social hierarchy and power the family used to hold in the village.” An architect planner by profession, Dipti shares a special bond with her ancestral house that dwells upon her childhood memories.
The elevated position of the house also aligns with religious and cultural significance: the higher the ground, the purer and closer it is to divine energy. That brings the statuesque of the house as the “Adobe of God” with notable culturo-religious importance in the area during the celebration of the spring festival Shigmo or Shigmotsav. The Gaonkar family house is the only place designated by priests and holy workers in the entire Agonda to emplace the Deity brought from the regional temple of Bhaktawar, Canacona during the rituals. The idol is seated in the specified room, Deva Kood, and offerings of coconuts are made and later distributed as prasad.
For the celebration of Ganesh Chaturthi in the house, every year, one of the prevailing families takes turns to host the ceremony. Traditional savoury dishes like khatkhate, moong gati, varan, puri, etc. are served with other delicacies of the festival like ukdiche modak, nevri, etc.Local rituals of the Goan Hindu community like Divja, Tulasi Pujan, etc. are also celebrated in the house with splendour.
To celebrate Divja, a procession is made by the women of the village carrying Divjam (diya) from the village temple to the temple of the house, and prayers are offered to the Deity. During Tulsi Pujan, the Tulsi podium is decorated with banana bark and diyas are lighted around it by village women. The door of the house is open to all during every festival and food is served to all the villagers sitting in rows on the verandahor in the inner yard.
On a calm morning like the one captured here, when the house slips into a ruminative phase of solitude, the core of the place still echoes the spirit of the festivals celebrated here; the vibrant prayer flags reflect the same energy uplifting the visitors’ hearts. Indeed, the prayer house of the Gaonkar family is embedded in an aura that touches the soul.
Dr Chayanika Saikia is a bilingual writer and the winner of the Glass House Poetry Award 2024. Her work has appeared or will appear in The Aleph Review, Yearbook of Indian Poetry 2022, The Bangalore Review, Muse India, Petrichor, Piker Press, Scent of Rain anthology, Usawa Literary Review, Setu, EKL Review, hākārā, The Wise Owl, Cafe Dissensus, Parcham, The Little Journal of NE India, and others. Chayanika works as a Geoscientist for a National Oil Company in New Delhi. Find her on Facebook and X.
