Saab pakd gaye! BC ------------------------------
Dear ASI Goa, This is an open letter to your order/request to register all our antiques in private homes/collections/museums in Goa with your esteemed office. In two weeks as of Friday 13th September 2019. Two weeks? Our homes Sir/Madam are over two hundred years old and you expect us to register the entire house objects in two weeks? Do you expect us Goans to employ staff to count everything in our homes? Our great grand mother?s earrings, our great great grandfather?s toilet seat, the floor tiles 400 years old, the laterite kitchen sink, the tiles on our roofs? Yes. These are the less precious objects. What you want are antiques that can be sold, traded and valued right? If so why only private homes? What about public places? In all Government offices we see antiques. Chandeliers in the Anil Shah Palace heisted by Smart City don?t feature in this list? Why don?t you ask them all to register their antiques. For centuries (yes you read that right) the Cabo/Raj Bhavan has been looted by successive Governors of it?s antique furniture, porcelain and silver. Are Government offices above this law? Talking about law, is this a law or is this a request? What if we don?t want to declare our so called daily objects that you classify as antiques? How can private homes like the Menezes Braganza in Chandor or the Figuereido House in Loutolim register their entire homes in two weeks? Are you going to depute them staff to do the count of the objects? It will take months. Are you going to go to every church, temple, place of worship to do a registry of their antiques? Where do we start? Old Goa itself will take almost a year or mor to count it?s treasures... from books to candelabras, vestments to minuscule statues. Wendell Rodricks *
