MONDAY, APRIL 29, 2024
Sujay Gupta
Have you seen a village, wanting to stay in bed under a
quilt and yawn and stretch, and look at sudden visitors with eyes squinted?
It’s early morning by Sunday standards. The faithful have and were still going
to Church, packets of doce de grao
(traditional sweet), sannas and sorpotel were getting ready, for those picking
up early breakfasts from the Agnelo bakery. And yet, Siolim was sleepy, wanting
to tuck in for at least an hour, before it traipsed into daily life.
This village is a monastery in the middle of mayhem. A pit
stop for the surge of those injected with the eat, drink, dance and party,
serum as they move from the slowly fading Baga and Calangute belt to the
pulsating Morjim, Ashwem, Mandrem and Arambol. This is also one of the first
villages where this wandering minstrel ambled into, during his initiation into
this land, at the turn of the century, which gradually became home. Last
Sunday, it was a drive, literally, through memory lanes, if that’s what the
winding arrow paths through a canopy of ceaseless palm trees, are called.
It is now home to a family friend, a priest, who I hadn’t
met for a long while and then there my dear Siolkar buddies, almost all of them
journalists or dabblers in allied assorted creativity like illustrator and
cartoonist, Alexyz. The priest’s dwelling next to the chapel is a cradle of
calm. Large and beautifully sparse, open spaces with greenery, the chapel next
to it with a little red bench next to a tree outside. If an “idyll” needed
visual support, this would be it.
The morning stretched into the early afternoon as the
conversation meandered tough curves and turns, as we sat on the balcao of the priest’s home, overlooking
the road that runs through Gaunsavaddo.
Across the chapel on the other side of the road, is a house
with history, and yes music, called the Pinta Shapai Nivas and in the compound
of that home stands, probably the only statue of Ludwig Van Beethoven, in this
part of Asia. The music composer, regarded and described as the inspiration for
the transition between the classical and romantic eras in western art music,
was revered by the family of Diogo Caetano Pinto, who owned the house. His
great grandson, Manuel Souza-Pinto, his Russian wife Eugenia Ignatievna
Souza-Pinto (nee Napolava) and their daughter Lydia Leopoldina Souza-Pinto,
gifted the statue of Beethoven to the village.
The statue was sculptured in plaster of Paris by Cypriano
Fernandes of Porta Vaddo, Siolim, and was unveiled by Lydia on May 1, 1976, in
commemoration of the bi-centenary of the birth of Diogo Caetano Pinto, (Lydia’s
great-great grandfather) reverently addressed as 'Pinta Shapai', from where the
house gets its name.
Siolim is littered with such riches. Stories, anecdotes,
characters and a long history of consistent contribution to the village, by its
folks, are woven into the fabric of the village.
And then there are the culinary food stops. From Hotel de
Jakin, owned by the late Camilo Souza Raimundo known as Camil (now run by his
wife and children) in front of the church, a regular pit stop or a destination,
to the Chinese gado at the junction
of the road that goes towards Siolim house called Siolchin- obviously from the
imaginary merger of Siolim and China, (God bless us all), to the twin bakeries
that keep the village alive - Agnelo bakery and St Cruz bakery.
Agnelo Rodrigues and Anton Joao Noronha- of St Cruz bakery,
are the custodians of the two bakeries next to each other at the junction in
Tarchi Bhat, which leads to the Siolim-Chopdem bridge.
One of Agnelo’s several early morning visitors, last Sunday
was Alister Miranda, a vintage journalist friend and one of my enduring
associations with Siolim. Knowing yours truly’s culinary appetite, he picked up
sannas and beef croquettes. And taking no chances, he asked wife Merlyn to beef
up the breakfast with homemade sorpotel and chicken xacuti, which as we all
know, takes a life of its own the morning after its made. In his cottage next
to the chapel, with son Nathan giving us a mini percussion concert, on his
state of the art drum set, the breakfast combo of Merlyn’s preparations and
Agnelo’s snacks was wolfed down with gusto.
My Goa is made up of these experiences. This is what this
wanderer has got from this land and this is what will always be remembered,
over-shadowing a lot else, which should be forgotten, but this heart will never
forget.
On the way back, from Siolim, there was someone looking down
on us from up above, the ever-smiling chronicler of Goa’s history, customs,
traditions and cultures. A fine writer and one of Goa’s most sensitive
photographers, Joel d'Souza, who passed away in early August two years ago. He
was Goa’s asset but more importantly, Siolim’s jewel, and with him a slice of
Siolim has gone. He knew, understood, studied and wrote everything that could
even been written about his village. Siolim sans Joel is a void and will be a
permanent one.
But because of folks like Joel, Alister, another buddy Peter, Alexyz and others, Siolim stands like a rock, as a bastion of what Goa was and always should be- a place of simple people who love their land and give it their all to preserve it.
