For an address that has remained the same for more than three and a half centuries, Braganza House is a bit difficult to find. Traveling further south from Panjim, leaving the bustling city behind on the way to the road leading to Mangalore, the trip to Braganza House can turn into a journey through lush green countryside depending on the wrong turns you take. Maps, travel guides, GPS and the classic asking for directions can tend to differ almost like chalk and cheese and it takes some time to get to Chador, a small town 15 kms south of Madgaon in Goa.
More about Casa Braganza
Occupying an entire side of Chandor, Casa Braganza is a silent witness to times that are no longer the same. Once upon a time, it would have been the greatest address in all of Goa; today it’s just a relic. Spread over an acre, Casa Braganza is divided into two equal wings. Inherited by two sisters of the family who named the wings in honor of their husbands, the west wing belongs to the Menenzes-Braganza tree, while the east wing is home to the Braganza-Pereira family. This segregation occurred generations after the death of AFS Braganza Pereria, the man to whom the King of Portugal gifted this piece of land.
One of the last remaining vestiges of a dying Goa-Portuguese style of architecture, Casa Braganza is not what Aida de Menezes is; the ninety-four-year-old matriarch of the Menezes-Braganza family remembers him as. She sits quietly in one of the 28 first-floor balcony windows. While some days she takes care of her son, who stayed in Brazil for a few years and visits her regularly; most days she sits there waiting for visitors who call her and perhaps they are on their way to visit her home. Offering a piece of her family’s history, Aida’s house allows a walk through the centuries for visitors whose contributions sustain the dying heritage.
The history of Braganzas reflects the rise and fall of Portuguese Goa. They arose after a wealthy Hindu family in the area converted following the advent of the Jesuit mission in Goa in the mid-16th century. The next three hundred saw the family prosper to unprecedented heights. Francis Xavier Braganza, Aida’s great-grandfather, was knighted by King Ferdinand II in 1848 and also received a service to the royal house.
Clinging to memories and the almost invisible pride of the family, Aida rarely speaks, but times have forced her to show her family history. With the help of Judith, who never mentioned her relationship with Aida, as you walk through the rooms and corridors, the echoes of the glorious past still manage to impress. Silenced for centuries, the artifacts seem abandoned and lost, but once they must have been illuminated.
The Braganza House grew to become the greatest address in Chandor. At 110 meters long, Francis Xavier Braganza’s house was built in three stages and has artifacts from around the world. A majestic ballroom, a dining room that seats an entire city, Goa’s largest private library with more than 5000 books (many of them rare first editions) each room has a distinctive character. Fine carved rosewood and teak wood furniture, some of them centuries old, Portuguese tiles, crystal chandeliers from Belgium, windows adorned with stained glass from Italy and oyster shells … nothing could go wrong.
Dark years of the Braganza house
Francis Xavier left everything to Luis de Menezes Braganza, his grandson, since he had no heirs. A man of words, Luis took his maternal surname and bravely opposed the Portuguese. At the beginning of the 19th century, Luis started Goa’s first Portuguese newspaper called O Heraldo, which was followed by four more publications. His vehement opposition from the Portuguese provoked the ire of the Salazars who arrested the press and also subjected the family to pain.
Product of the Portuguese rule in Goa, Braganza became disillusioned with the mother country. Luis now wanted the autonomy of Goa and, after his death in 1938, the family rooted for the liberation of India. But from 1947 until Liberation, the family was forced to leave Goa to avoid the Portuguese. The time they spent away from the house turned out to be too much for the grand mansion and it sank into a decline from which it never really recovered.
Judith, teary-eyed, looks over her shoulder at Aida, who is sitting in the sun, reflecting. Aida remembers the years after the turbulent times when they tried to restore the glory of Braganza House. After liberation, they depended on income from their land, but that was also lost as a result of the Agrarian Reforms of 1962.
Aida took a few years to settle her children and, in the early 1980s, she decided to recover the beauty and ornaments of her ancestral home. Today, the two family members occupy both wings and both rely on visitors to help maintain the house. It is sad to see a hatch between the two wings to attract the attention of tourists and tourists.
It is sadder to say no to the other when leaving.
Address of Casa Braganza
Casa Menezes Braganza, near Chruch, Chandor, Goa. Ph no. 0832-2784201
The author was on tour in Goa in September 2010.