Van Gogh's Yellow House revisited

Vincent Van Gogh went through his yellow phase, and it seems as if village painters are going through something similar these days.

Yellow is the colour this season. Bright egg-yolk yellow. Jaundiced yellow. You-name-it lurid yellow.

And just as Van Gogh was so obsessed by yellow he even asked that the house he rented in Arles be painted that colour, village painters are telling house owners: Try yellow. Maybe they've seen Van Gogh's famous painting, Yellow House. Maybe they all admire Van Gogh.

In the beginning there was only one yellow house here. It was such a shock to the eyes that it quickly became a landmark. Take the first turn after the Yellow House, people used to say.

Now I can count at least three. And they're not even the colour of Van Gogh's yellow House, which is a soft buttery yellow.

It's weird, but when it comes to painting their houses something happens to people in Goa. It's as if they've suddenly discovered colour, and like children with a box of paints they simply go wild trying out everything.

So far, this village has been safe from the colour mania. But now every time someone builds a house here I wonder what bizarre colour they'll paint it. Will it be the colour of hot fresh blood? A lurid dark purple, maybe? Shocking pink with all the windows edged in green? Turquoise blue? A pretty peach?

But no, Van Gogh's yellow is the favoured colour still.

I wish the village painters would realise that Van Gogh chopped off his ear while in his Yellow House, and was dispatched for a while to live in a mental asylum.