The premiere art and culture centre Kala Academy, is in danger.
After remaining closed for over two years on account of renovation works, Kala Academy, the State’s premier arts centre, was finally thrown open to the public in November last year by the State government, after spending around Rs 56 crore on its renovation.
While inaugurating the renovated building, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant had said that the renovated structure would stand strong for the next 50 years. Leave alone 50 years, it hasn’t been able to stand for even 50 weeks.
Even before the reopening of this iconic art and culture centre of Goa, the stage roof of the open air auditorium of Kala Academy collapsed in July last year. In December 2023, the mirrors in the green room, a crucial space for artistes to prepare and unwind, came crashing down, a month after it was reopened.
Again this year on April 22, the false ceiling inside the Kala Academy came down crumbling in bits and pieces following sudden torrential rains. As per reports, there was a sign of water leakage which made the false ceiling weak and fell down. The entire corridor’s false ceiling was filled with water and was on the verge of collapsing. The surface of the ceiling was uneven as it had absorbed most of the leaked water making it soft.
These incidents have raised speculation amongst the public on the inadequate work done for the renovation of Kala Academy. With just a month away from monsoons, people are now worried about the safety and durability of this renovated structure. Before that on July 17, 2023, the roof of the open auditorium of the Kala Academy had collapsed.
In fact, such has been the impact of shoddy renovation work that it forced the collective of artistes ‘Kala Rakhonn Mandd’ to protest in front of the iconic Kala Academy complex to kick start their State-wide protest to seek accountability over the controversial repairs and restore the art and cultural space to its former glory. The recently formed group also submitted a petition to the Tiswadi mamlatdar demanding that a white paper be presented on the entire repair project.
The Kala Academy as an institution has always been iconic in more ways than one. Every city has a cultural pride of place and the Kala Academy commands similar reputation in Goa. It has always been compared to the great institutions across the country. But the incidents that have occurred in the recent past, is fast diminishing Kala Academy’s reputation as a centre of excellence for art and culture of Goa.
What has now happened, which has really saddened our artistes in Goa, is the fact that the so-called new Kala Academy born out of restructuring and redesigning it, has according to them, led to creation of a new avatar of that great institution, which has led them to feel slighted primarily, because the facilities and the manner in which the renovation was done, did not retain the basic facilities that were
earlier there, thus hampering their performance on stage.
It is rather unfortunate to see the condition of this premiere facility getting sacrificed at the altar of ego battles that have been going on and the slighting of the Charles Correa Foundation, which has been the spirit behind keeping up this institution.
Francis Coelho, theatrical production specialist reacting to the Kala Academy’s deteriorating condition, said, “All across the country, we've got auditoriums that have facilitated different art forms. For example, there is the Natya Gruha in Dadar, there is the Balgandharva Rang Mandir in Pune, and there is the Kala Mandir in Kolkata. All of these auditoriums are available for a very nominal price like Rs 25,000-30,000. Kala Academy is available for about Rs 20,000, in which you've got all the facilities – lighting, sound and backstage equipment.”
“You’ve got everything here. So, even a small artiste from rural Nagpur or Satara in Maharashtra can come to Mumbai or Pune and put up their production. That’s what helps keep culture alive,” Coelho said.
“What happened after Kala Academy reopened is that, we saw artistes like Rajdeep Naik being told to bring their own sound systems. We run an academy where we teach kids performing arts. We did annual show over there and we weren't given enough stage monitors. The lighting was completely missing. We realised that suddenly the auditorium available to us is now not there anymore and the artistes are suffering because of it,” he said.
“So with the facilities that were available, you could come there and stage an entire performance. Now, you can go to another auditorium like the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) in Mumbai. The Jamshed Bhabha theatre at NCPA is available for Rs 3 lakh for a four-hour session, compared to that of Natya Gruha, which is available for Rs 30,000. It's one-tenth of the cost. So, what this does is, it allows the smallest of the small artistes to come there and perform,” Coelho said.
According to him, this what has troubled most of the Goan artistes.
“We said, this is not happening at all. You can't really take an auditorium that was so well furnished and furbished for our performances, but now completely messed up - from the air conditioning to the carpeting, to the staging, to the sound, to the lights, to the acoustics – every little facility is malfunctioning,” he said.
“I have published papers on it. I have spoken about it. Whoever wants to debate on this, I can give them intricate minute details about what and how they have messed up. Now when you do something like this, it affects the art and culture of Goa directly. You’ve taken the biggest institution and completely
destroyed it,” the theatrical production
specialist said.
“In these circumstances, how does a small artiste comes to stage their shows over there?
“The damage started in 2004. But post renovation, it has gone completely to the dogs. An artiste like Rajdeep sells his tickets for Rs 100, Rs 200 and Rs 300. On August 9, there's a show where there's a stand-up comedian coming from Delhi. The ticket price starts at Rs 500. So they can bring in a sound system, they can bring in the lighting that they want. They can do whatever they want because they're generating that kind of revenue,” he said.
“But an artiste like Rajdeep, even after selling out the auditorium, he’s still struggling to make the ends meet. Now, he depends on that sound system, the lighting system and there would be many like him,” Coelho said.
Veteran actress, Meenacshi Martins, who has seen the glorious days of Kala Academy more than most people, said, “When I attended this press conference where we all met the previous time, then they formed a sort of committee and protested. These things were discussed because these are alien topics. A theatre without an acoustic system, without good sitting arrangements or the carpets or the lights changing on their own - are unheard of. I mean scandalous. So apparently, homework was missing, experts were missing and nobody, who had some kind of an idea about the stage system or the acoustics, was taken into confidence.”
“I was on the Advisory board for two terms. In fact, after Charles Correa set up the Academy, I was made the guide to explain the nooks and corners of the facility, with the technical knowhow of the whole thing to all the dignitaries who came, because that time it was like a tourist stop. It was a big attraction,” Martins said.
“People came to just see the Kala Academy and how it functioned, the acoustics in the black room. I had to explain all those in details and if the sound system is missing anywhere in the theatre, it is detrimental to the well-being of every actor and musician. That is very sad because I feel sad at the whole thing,” she said.
“Obviously we are here not to point fingers, but to now to find a solution to the best of our knowledge,” she added.
The point that earlier raised was very important regarding where does the small-time artiste or the theatre director go, because Academy was seen as one place where he
or she could go and economically benefit
from the art.
“That is the only place you can go. We have Ravindra Bhavans, but they are also having issues, which are almost similar. So, holistically when we are looking at art and culture of Goa and artistes, whether they are tiatrists or musicians - Indian and Western music - then we have to know the things that we need to be put in place,” she added.
Speaking on the impact that is happening on artistes due to the decline of Kala Academy’s infrastructure quality, architect Tahir Noronha said, “Kala Academy had an excellent reputation of being the home for artistes. It is a unique institution just in the way that it was the first school that had Indian and Western classical music, dance and Performing Arts. I mean, it was very much built for this type of unique blend of Indian and Western culture and performance that comes out of Goa.”
“In some way also, its first Managing Committee seemed to reflect that, with great dignitaries from both sides. Yet, despite it being a first-of its-kind world famous structure, its costs have always been affordable for the local Goan performer. Its spaces have been designed to make the local performer feel at home, feel comfortable,” Noronha said.
“Just looking at Kala Academy from as a non-artiste, I think that its ethos needs to be preserved, no matter what form. That's the only way you keep it hospitable for every artiste,” Noronha said.
What has happened, it is being felt that The Art and Culture department is for some reasons, pointing fingers at the Charles Correa Foundation for its original infrastructure or the original manner in which it was designed, to try and kind of sweep a lot of other criticism under the carpet. Even as late as July 30, it was mentioned in the House that even the Charles Correa Foundation and his team were not able to provide solutions to the problems of Kala Academy, which has been built on sand dunes just 2.5 m away from the tideline.
Reacting to the government’s attempts to belittle the Charles Correa Foundation, Arminio Ribeiro, senior architect, Charles Correa Foundation, said, “Number one issue is that the Charles Correa Foundation got involved in this after they announced that they were planning to demolish a part of the Kala Academy. It’s not like the Charles Correa Foundation would jump at any small news or thing that comes about Kala Academy.”
“In 2004, when the Charles Correa Foundation was planning to do the renovation, that time we didn't have a Charles Correa Foundation at that point of time. It's much more recent. The thing is that our objective has been very clear. We just want to keep that the Kala Academy alive. We wanted to serve the public the way Tahir has described it more most appropriately. Because it’s such a wide spectrum of people that get supported through the Kala Academy, we have absolutely no interest of targeting anybody, except that we want to make sure that at the end of the day, artistes have their ecosystem,” Ribeiro said.
“We are happy to see that the Kala Academy is functioning the way that it was originally proposed to meet the demands and the needs of the growing community of artistes. You know the Kala Academy by itself is such an important structure in the urban context of Panjim. It beautifully fits and you know it has such a wonderful connection. All these things about sand dunes, I really don't know,” he said.
“But the other accusation being levelled on us is that the Foundation hasn’t provided any support. The fact is that we’ve been offering to handhold. We definitely do not want to be consultant. We want to handhold the process. We know how it was built. We can bring in new consultants. We don't want to be part of the business of it. We can handhold the whole thing. We can support you at every stage. We’ve ourselves brought in consultants, who could come and do evaluation of what is the condition of the building and we can say okay, from this point onwards we will get these people involved and they’ll show you how it can be done. So, I think that getting involved with the Kala Academy in a way was like stepping on the minister’s toes,” he said.
“He wanted to have it his own way and we didn't agree at all with that,” Ribeiro said.
Couple of significant events have happened in recent times, which of course alarmed a lot of people. Even before the reopening, the stage roof of the open air auditorium collapsed in July last year. Then in December 2023, mirrors in the Green Room came crashing. Then on April 22 this year, false ceiling inside the Kala Academy came down crumbling. These are three or four incidents that have happened. Then on July 17, 2023 the roof again collapsed.
Now the issue here is that, when all this happened, in a report tabled in the State Assembly, it was said that the sudden collapse of the roof of the open air auditorium was caused by corroded steel in the structure itself. And of course, there was another certification saying that IIT Mumbai has already certified the whole thing.
Reacting to all these developments, Noronha said, “So when I looked at the work order that was issued in May 2021, if I’m not mistaken, it said ‘structural strengthening’ of the entire building. Now what the structural strengthening means? We all know that there were portions of steel, especially the slabs and beams that were rusted quite badly. For structural strengthening, the contractor was supposed to go and replace those corroded members, that is basic engineering sense.”
“Now, the sheer fact that this roof over the open air auditorium came down and the report of so many experts has said that it's due to corroded steel, I don't know if they hadn't reached that portion yet or what, but from the pictures, it seems to be that there was a fresh coat of waterproofing laid on top of that. This to me is immediately flag it. You normally first repair the structure and then you treat it, so that no more water comes in. Until the time we get a clear report, looking at the timeline, it seems all of these reports were made in a rush because this fell during the Assembly session,” the noted architect said.
“I’m still waiting for the government to put forward a proper White Paper. Maybe, their three-member committee will do that. That's the only way we’ll really get to know what happened. But prima face, this is what I see,” Noronha said.
One of the paragraphs in the report states that “the composite structures were under corrosion attack for over 43 years, resulting in a sudden collapse of the structural steel members or the RCVC slab. Although the CM said that all those structural repairs or strengthening of the open air auditorium was not carried out, 40 cm average thickness of old waterproofing was removed and a new layer having thickness of 20-30 cm, including chemical waterproofing, was completed”.
“See, now this doesn't make sense,” said Noronha. “To me, you always repair first, then you treat. This is basics. I mean think as if a surgeon is going to cut someone open. You fix the problem, then only you stitch them up. What it seems is that they stitched it up before fixing the problem on the inside and that that's what this report sounds like to me from the architecture engineering perspective,” he added.
Coming back to the involvement of artistes and the Charles Correa Foundation, the artistes at every stage are having the feeling that this was an isolated project, beyond the realms of any kind of “interference of the artistic community” and others. This would be built and handed over without any involvement of the people who are there and are the end users. Isn’t there a problem here and what can be done towards fixing this?
Responding to it, Meenacshi Matins said, “I don’t see a problem here. But I think from their perspective, they were just repairing a structure, without understanding its soul. We are connected to the heart and the soul of the Kala Academy. They are connected with the physical aspect of it. So, they were trying to repair that without paying attention to what it is the meaning of the institution called Academy, of which we are the product.”
“So we feel very strongly about it and I think now that they have said that they going to set up an artistes’ committee to help them understand the issue, I hope they know that experts who use the modern technology, are used to the equipment, the layout and the knowledge of the artistic requirements, those artistes should get involved with how things are going to move ahead,” Martins said.
“Also at the same time, one feels that the basic need of every artiste is to stage a production properly and professionally. And the artiste should not have the whole burden of organising sound equipment because the artiste is involved in so many other things. So it is extremely important that they should get a readymade facility to go and do what they want,” she said.