Wendell Rodricks’ museum struggles to see the light of day

IT has been over six years since genius designer Wendell Rodricks left us. One unexpected evening in February, I would receive a text saying that Wendell had died. I had just spoken with the designer a day prior to his passing. He had also scribbled me a note and couriered it, which I would receive two days after he had passed, like a very mean joke. One month after Wendell died, the world would shut down for the Covid pandemic, it was almost as if the entire universe was in mourning.

We were very close friends, yes, but he hid his illness from many of us. He was visibly thinner, he laughed it off saying he was on a great diet. We spoke every day for years, mostly as friends and colleagues. He was also close to completing work on his dream project – a museum that would be his gift to Goa. Wendell was mere weeks away from opening the Moda Goa Museum. It would be India’s first museum of costume history, especially Goa’s. He had been collecting Goan costumes, gold jewellery pieces and artefacts from local communities for years. He often said he had “donated” his personal home, a charming Portuguese bungalow in Colvale village, to the Moda Goa Foundation trust to house the museum.

Six years later, the needle has barely moved. Friends of the museum have now received an email from Wendell’s longtime partner, Jerome Marrel, asking for potential buyers of the plot and the estate.

The email reads: “The Moda Goa Foundation is a private charitable trust established in 2016 by Wendell Rodricks and is responsible for the establishment of the Moda Goa Museum & Research Centre in Goa. Since Wendell passed away in 2020, funding for the project has been very difficult particularly with the Covid epidemic. We are looking for a prospective entity to take over the project with the necessary management team and funding resources. Till date the civil work is complete and the museum has been curated by Wendell in 2019. The prospective entity will require to take over the board of trustees as well as invest in the property (land + buildings) which is valued at 11 Crores (Eleven Crores rupees). This amount has to be paid to the property owner. We do hope this project can add value to your organisation and would like to set up a meeting with you to discuss it in details. Signed, Shreedevi Deshpande Puri, Managing Trustee, and Jerome Marrel, Honorary Founder”.

For many of us who dreamed of the museum along with Wendell (I had written the museum’s official book, researching objects and local stories along with the designer), the news is heartbreaking.

I reached out to Marrel for more information and he informed me the Rs 11 crore included the land, the building, the Moda Goa Foundation (with 10 years approvals to run the museum), as well as the museum’s collection. I asked him why someone would pay to buy an incomplete museum, spend money to complete it, and then spend money to run it. “The project can be interesting for someone who wants to own a museum in Goa,” he replied.

I certainly hope he is right. I can only assume the other option would be to sell the plot and the building for personal or commercial use. Which would spell the end of Wendell’s dream and legacy, as well as that of those who have worked on this project for friendship and love. Goa would be deprived of a wonderful cultural hot spot, one that chronicled its history in great detail.

“I would say that for someone of the stature of Wendell Rodricks, maybe the government would be interested. But today, Goa is being more exploited for real estate than culture, and I don’t see any takers. It is heartbreaking,” Abha Narain Lambah, noted conservation architect of museums, palaces and UNESCO monuments, tells me.

Deepthi Sasidharan of Eka Resources, who had worked on Wendell’s museum and had received Marrel’s email, is dismayed. “After all that hard work, I can’t believe the dream has died. I also wonder what will happen to all the donated objects – most given lovingly in friendship and for public benefit,” she says. “The building was mapped for the storyline and objects. It’s a pity Moda Goa came to an end.”

“It is sad as all of us contributed to Wendell’s vision,” says designer Ashdeen Lilaowala, who is a donor of some Parsi textiles to the museum. “We lost him just as the museum was about to open. Now to have this moment, when you know there is no salvation. Fingers crossed something comes through.”

For many of us, it is like Wendell has left twice over.