A GPS DEFYING CAFÉ ON UCCASSAIM HILL & OTHER JOURNEYS

It was a quick languid drive along the backwaters, on a weekday afternoon. We took paths seldom caressed, through turns and hills, past foliage and forests, with the water constantly by our side. The villages of Uccassaim, Aldona, Pomburpa and Brittona are nestled in a Goa which is fast vanishing, shielded thankfully by other forms of devastation our land is facing. Yours truly was purely in reverse gear. Of time that is. It’s been six years since the home in Moira was given up and other more urbane settlements happened. But Moira and its adjoining villages of Quitla, Uccassaim, Nachinola were regulars on the journey map once upon that time. The destination last week was a relatively new café buried deep in the woods of Uccassaim, on a hill top overlooking the mountains and fields of Aldona. Finding Whispering Café, and it’s obvious how the name didn’t take too much thought, is GPS- and Google-map-defying. It’s one of those places which gives Google a complex. These are indeed little victories, where we pin happiness to discoveries made after getting lost. GPS takes out the romance of not knowing where you are and then finding a place you can then come back to, even in your sleep. Beyond Moira there is a little blink-and-you-miss village, Nachinola, arguably Goa’s tiniest village on the way to Aldona. A little after the Andron restaurant (which has been recalled and written in these columns), there’s a junction, with roads going to Uccasaim and Quitla. After many twists and turns past gorgeous backroads of the villages, through which cars just about pass, there’s a steep winding road literally up the hill with nothing in sight. As you climb the valley below, the hillside above comes in the picture. Keep climbing till you find the only house on the hill, in solitary laid back splendour- Whispering Cafe! Local information has it that during early morning, there’s whiff of mist which covers the café. There’s nothing around except the hillsides, the woods and the little villages deep down below. So when Mrittika Mukherjee decided to move out of her life in Bombay (spelt deliberately my way, the right way) and soak in life through a detergent called Goa, she came to this place- a friend’s, and realised that this would be her Goa nest. So the living room of an old Goa house was converted to a store of clothes, curios and artefacts and the balcao became the café with a nice lawn a level below, where the home dog lies in permanent slumber, the birds nest and rest and other assorted creatures dart in and out. Reaching there on a mid week afternoon was an exercise. The Google map had to be jettisoned as one wrong turn too many upset the fine balance and logic the software of these maps have and the old chat at the village store, which led to the store guy cycling ahead through narrow village paths pointing us to the Cafe, worked. (Old jungle saying- “Listen to the sound of the winds on the leaves, and you will find your way”) Mrittika has kept it simple at this café. Get the freshest of ingredients and make wholesome food. The menu changes according to availability and all written up on a blackboard that rests in the balcao. The pulled pork sandwhich is almost always there while a pre order of chicken steak with creamy basil sauce with tomatoes and freshly made bread is always useful. The grilled fish with parsley butter sauce served with home baked bread and sautéed spinach is believed to be on the best 20 something list of continental fish dishes, in this part of the country. But let’s put this in perspective. Folks do not travel to Whispering Café because it’s the last lighthouse on the citadel of good food. They go there to take a sip of life well lived; they go there because it is the journey that makes the destination; they go there because once you start switching that phone off and begin talking to yourself through the medium of nature, you realise that social media is ultimately about connecting to real people, in a real world. As Mukherjee says, “The biggest piece of news here would be the spotting of a snake, or something like that, and I love it.” I get thatt otally since in my Loutolim, angry snakes popping up to register their protest at getting troubled is a weekly occurrence and when that gets boring, leopards turn up and get caught and the entire weekday routine of offices and schools is surrendered at the altar of the great captured beast. The journey back was through the old river route and not the yawningly boring one on the main highway, past Mapusa and Tivim. The river route slopes and bends its way through the back lanes of Aldona through Uccassaim, the village of Pomburpa, with its beautiful church (one of Goa’s very best), past the wide fields and the river everywhere, before a sharp turn to the left and a drive through the narrowest of roads past the Casa Brittona and the Brittona Church, brings you to the urbane hurly burly of Porvorim and the Mandovi bridge. If we had used our backwaters well, as modes of transport, this route could easily have been a boat ride all the way from Aldona to the Betim jetty. So what do you call an afternoon like this? Just this- “Touching base”- a new age phrase with an old age comfort.