The barn

Here is the story to the pic JP posted... 15 minutes...not exactly but somewhat.


“Oh ,once you get used to it, its not so bad” she said sipping chamomile tea, “Makes the neighbourhood more interesting you know.”

“So like him, anyway, to leave a thing like that. Deliberate, wanting to shock, wanting to set tongues moving , I can almost see his smirk, the gleeful rubbing of his hands , his sure confidence in making people squirm in disgust as they pass by. Must be stemming from his childhood dear…these kind of things stick on. Fixation, Freud called it. Some unfulfilled desire from childhood.”

“Speaking of which” she continued , “How is that mother fixation of his. Still tells you that you cannot make beds as nicely as mommy dear?”

“If it was just that”, she sighed deeply, “ It is always my mother said this , she made Sunday lunches like that, you do not seem to care for her feelings, the last time you spoke to her you hurt her, but even she, it seems cannot make him get rid of this horrible fixture”.

“Wont he even paint it? I mean a lot can be done with a splotch of paint. At least it wont look so terrible. You poor dear…having to look at that each time you sit down for tea” And she took a long sip from her hand painted china teacup.


The half demolished barn stood defiantly surrounded by the villas of the rich. Mocking them it seemed, by the sheer challenge it gave them by just being there.

Every thing has its story and the barn had one too. Not that anyone believes in these stories these days, much easier to think that such things are the indulgence of eccentrics.

Long before the villas came up, he had visited this site. Once long ago it was a 100 acre farm with a rambling house, outhouses, barns, animals, songs of farm workers, mooing of cows, snoozing of cats, bleating of sheep, barking of dogs, the smell of fresh baked bread and all that is farm.

When he saw it, it was overrun with creepers that had claimed all of the buildings; angry undergrowth tripped him as he walked, no matter how careful he was. Sunlight dared not creep thorough the broken tiles in the barns and the windows in the house were boarded up.

This is it, he thought happily. My dream. I will build at least 50 villas here. Develop the area and then retire. She always wanted a Villa, tired of city life she says. Well here she has her desire. Make a good bargain with the estate agent and get going, he thought as he kicked at the dust in the moss and creeper caked barn he had just entered.

What he thought was probably an animal turned out to be a man sleeping on a pile of discarded wood, rubble and other odds and ends. Some drunk he thought and began to walk out of the barn. “Oh you must be the one who has come to buy the farm” said a voice. Startled he looked to see the man awake. “Well, yes” he said. “It is a good farm, this one”, continued the man. “Has all a man can want. Once you see it, you want it”. “My feelings exactly,” he replied.

“Been empty a while I am told, nearly 20 years? Owner made a bad investment and lost all? Had to leave? Could not afford to run the place? No buyers at his price?”.

“He did not leave.” said the man. “He stayed right on. Oh yes they did not allow him to stay, family begged him to come along. Then they left him. Mad the called him. Mad. Is a man who wants to save his home mad? Is a man who does not want to leave what he created mad? But he stayed on. Taken over by the bank they told him. They could not get him out could they? Oh no they could not. Oh no no they could not.”.

“Why here I am. Twenty years on am I not? Old farmer Briganza. Mad farmer Briganza.
The mad old man of Goa. Why here I am fresh as I was always. I have lived in this barn twenty years because they locked the house. Could not lock a broken wall could they? Am I mad? Do I look mad? Tell me tell me.”

He stumbled out into the daylight leaving the ranting man to his sorrow.

‘Touch of the Goa sun and Bibinca sir, Maybe you are not well, old farmer Briganza has been dead 30 years.” Said the estate agent. “Don’t believe what those village folk tell you. No ghosts, sir, he committed suicide, yes, he will answer his God, but you don’t lose such a good deal.”

“No, that barn will not be taken down” he told his architect. “It lends a certain old charm and anyway these outlandish things always attract buyers.”