Da Cunha in Absurdistan

by V. M. de Malar
vmingoa at gmail.com



Imagine that you've won a prestigious national prize from the government, but 
no one notifies you or returns your letters or pays any attention to your 
inquiries. Imagine having to pose a question in Parliament in order to get 
official notification, or filing suit in court just to finally get your hands 
on it. It's an absurd scenario, right? It's Goa's own Gerard da Cunha's 
reality; he protested the indignities and ridiculous delay by wearing a 
child's cartoonish mask while posing for photographs with the Minister for 
Urban Development when the prize was finally awarded last week, an 
unconscionable six years too late.

The great G. K. Chesterton wrote, "in a world where everything is ridiculous, 
nothing can be ridiculed." And so we must start by noting that India's urban 
planning is scandalously incoherent across the board; our urban spaces are 
notoriously among the worst in the world. Even as India's economy surges 
unstoppably, as architects and developers become ever more grandiose, we find 
our cities in a terrible mess. India is not handling urbanization well, there 
is precious little we can point to with pride in terms of urban planning and 
design.

So, this award is, on paper, an excellent idea. The plan was to provide a 
national spotlight to large scale projects, to reward innovative architects 
and provide incentive for more good work, to create a culture of peer-reviewed 
excellence in urban design. The trouble came, as it so often does, when this 
fine idea was dropped into the lap of the babus and the stultifying 
bureaucracy that lives off patronage and crude power equations.

And so da Cunha's surreal experience, which started with his team's eager 
application in the "Implemented Urban Planning and Design Projects" category 
of the 1998 ?99 Prime Minister's National Award for Excellence in Urban 
Planning and Design for their project in Bellary for Jindal Vijaynagar Steel 
Limited. The whole process was already late; competition was opened only in 
2001, the high-profile jury met at the end of 2002. There were inexplicable 
shenanigans from the then-Minister of Urban Development, Ananth Kumar, from 
the beginning; he wanted his crony to get the award and refused to properly 
endorse the unanimous declaration awarding da Cunha the prize.

Then the nonsense began in earnest, the file for this prestigious national 
prize stopped dead. It took an official question in Parliament from Goa's then 
Rajya Sabha member, Eduardo Faleiro, to get some movement. One day before the 
question had to be answered, on 15th March, 2003, the bureaucracy was forced 
to release the results. But a scheduled ceremony in Delhi was cancelled, and 
sheer inertia took over again. Finally, the now-irate architect filed suit in 
a Panjim court.

It required a response by 10th February of this year, but this final 
embarrassment was averted by a hasty ceremony last week, where the proceedings 
were enlivened by the architect's silent, whimsical, protest (check the photo 
at www.goanet.org).

There's a well-developed theatre tradition of absurdism, into which our 
architect's subversive mask fits quite suitably, that's been carefully 
delineated by greats like Stoppard and Beckett, following the much older 
Commedia dell'Arte. The Theatre of the Absurd offers its audience an 
existentialist view of the outside world and forces them to consider the 
meaning of their existence when there appears to be no true order or meaning. 
It's a form of expose, you understand far more about life when you highlight 
the ridiculousness to which we're regularly subjected.

"In India," says da Cunha, "where our towns and cities are deteriorating at 
such a rapid rate, an award of this sort makes good sense, creating role 
models which others can follow. It is the duty of the Ministry to be fair and 
give the award on time." He continues, "the award was presented after a delay 
of six years. I felt it was my duty to protest." In doing so, he artfully 
turned a commonplace photo opportunity into something far more interesting, he 
imbibed the shabby last-minute event with unexpected meaning. Chesterton, 
rather inscrutably, said "you cannot unmask a mask," but that's just what the 
man wearing the Tigger mask did last week. Congratulations on the award, 
Gerard da Cunha, and good show at the ceremony. (ENDS)

More articles at:

http://www.goanet.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=index&catid=9

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: VM is an early Goanetter, who put his money where his mouth 
is and returned to settle-down in Goa in late 2004, while in his thirties. VM 
regularly writes for the Goa and Mumbai media.

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