(PDF attached, no link available) Moonbeams filter through the coconut palms. A young man ardently strums his guitar on a balcony, with his muse perched behind a phalanx of protective chaperones. The elders sit back and listen with glasses of port in their hands, even as the family matriarch looks on with mock disapproval. This is the archetypal Mario de Miranda illustration of his native Goan village, Loutolim.
Many of our prevailing ideas about India’s smallest state are derived from this gentle and gracious way of life (boa vida in Portuguese) that Miranda brought to life through his work. It was nurtured in the unique balcony spaces that define its old houses. The balcao (the English and Konkani spelling derives from the Portuguese “*balcão*”), or the sit-out connected to the front door, was like an open invitation to take a breather. It remains a spot where languid conversations are punctuated by laughter and song, and elaborate courtesies are exchanged with passers-by. Private yet public, both alfresco and sheltered at the same time, this space has become even more important in this Age of Contagion. During the recent lockdown with mandated social distancing, the balcao was where you could meet and talk to your neighbours—even serenade—without anyone risking your health. It was and is ever thus. Carefully controlled mingling is in the DNA of the Goan balcony. That idea has very deep roots, because unlike many other parts of the subcontinent, Goa, much like its partially-open houses, has remained open to the outside world. The Sumerians, Greeks and Arabs have all come and gone, for thousands of years. The tiny territory’s 451-year reign as the centrepiece of Portugal’s *Estado da India* (one of the longest colonial episodes in world history) further made it the hub of trade reaching across to South America, Africa, and South-East and East Asia. And all through the later centuries of that profoundly globalised experience, generations of native Goans created food, music, art and architecture that was informed by the world, but comfortably grounded in the soil, ideas and attitudes of the Konkan. By the 18th century, this unique vantage point was unprecedented, as the balance of power shifted decisively from the “rulers” to the increasingly assertive natives. For crucial periods in those years, the Goans earned and enjoyed full equality in rights of citizenship that other Indians took another century to achieve. They found their way to dominate at home and across the oceans in Macau and Mozambique. This is when social customs started to shift and the balcaos began to be built. Initially, this novel architectural feature was restricted to the homes of Catholics (most of whose families had converted from Hinduism at least two centuries previously) as the laterite-and-plaster reflection of emerging and more democratic ways of dealing with caste and class distinctions. It provided an ingenious solution to notions of purdah and “untouchables”, by creating a liminal threshold where face-to-face social intercourse could be accommodated without obtrusive discrimination. Vishvesh Kandolkar, an Associate Professor at the Goa College of Architecture, points out that because of these spaces, “women from elite families appeared in the public realm for the first time, even if within the confines of the family property.” Before the use of *balcãoes*, their lives were restricted to the house, which was their private, domestic realm. The development of this sit-out, starting in the elite palatial houses of South Goa, marks the emergence of the gender-neutral space. This space remains performative even in its 21st century use, as the ‘balcao’ becomes synonymous with casual hobnobbing, yarn-spinning and gossip. The homeowner is the lead, while select peers are established co-equals. Everyone else who stops by is a petitioner, compelled to linger at the gate until bid welcome, including the iconic poder or the baker’s delivery man, who comes by with fresh bread every day. But once inside, all distinctions are blurred, in the indulgent, exceedingly warm way that is the essence of Goan identity. In *A Place In The Sun*, his landmark 1983 Thomas Cubitt Lecture at The Royal Society of Arts in London, architect Charles Correa eloquently said, “architecture is concerned with much more than just its physical attributes. It is a multi-layered thing. Beneath and beyond the strata of function and structure, materials and texture, lies the deepest and most compelling layers of all.” Correa (whose ancestral roots are in the North Goa village of Moira) was talking about culture, and the ineffable impact of the built environment on people who inhabit it. In this regard, it’s impossible to overstate the importance of the balcao in propelling the Goan polity towards political and social emancipation far ahead the rest of India. This is what underlines the analysis of Goa University historian Parag Porobo’s insightful 2015 *India’s First Democratic Revolution*, which points out “in its very first election [Goa] surprised the country by bringing to power a government that, with the Bahujan Samaj as its political base, was the first of its kind. Long before lower castes elsewhere in the nation had recognized as a group what their numerical strength could do for them in a democracy, Goa’s Bahujan Samaj – a loose conglomeration of lower castes – rallied behind Dayanand Bandodkar, a lower caste mine owner who eventually went on to become chief minister.” *Te poder gele, ani te undde kabar zale* is the wry Konkani aphorism, which effectively means “the past cannot be recaptured”. The feudal economy and elaborate social order that originally generated the balcao will never return, but none of that is necessary to recapture the archetypical, conviviality that characterizes the classic Goa experience. All you need to do is take a seat. (note: the published version of this essay is slightly different)