IClear, crystal
and not cacophonic. The streets were still wet with some puddles throwing back
water from their crevices like a dysfunctional flush. If this was in the
sixties, there would still be someone up in one of the homes playing the flute,
the piano or the guitar, in this heart of a town which has been home for a decade-
Panjim.
As Business with Pleasure
re-groups, it invariably traces itself back to where it always belonged- in the
labyrinths of lanes, eating houses and people. And all three, including people
have one value that doesn’t cease with time- Heritage value. One such card
holder of this unique species is ZitoGouveiaPinto, the good looking tall dude
who worked for an airline all his life, but has walked the talk in Panjim. A
charmer who was permanently seated at Clube Vasco when the Alvares
boys,Vasquito and Ernesto ran it,Zito ambled along to the new place the
brothers ran post their exit from Clube Vasco, called Ernestos at Mala.
Then came the time when long languid Saturday afternoons were spent over
a diet which was largely liquid and has stuff like frozen Bimbli
cocktails and chicken breast stuffed with sausage and served with kasundi,
a yellow mustard sauce made in Bengali homes by women as fiery as the sauce. I
did manage, methinks, to get a bottle or two from the old place to
contribute at the altar of culinary excellence. Anyway, those afternoons
were laced with gossip and conversation adding rapidly to the running encyclopaedia
of people and their quirks that is never short of new content. Of course these
have their not so desired after affects. Five out of ten folks you meet on your
Panjim walks, – when you do take them- become characters from one of the
Ernesto afternoon stories. You knew them, knew about them, and their loved and
now not so loved ones, their food and other habits that may not be appropriate
for a family paper such as ours and so on and so forth. If you get the drift,
we can move on but not without recounting other characters who dot or dotted
the Panjim canvas.
There was and is, Gabru, the one-time journalist who one time worked for
a local daily and remembered every habit of his editor and once narrated them
with such finery, weaving threads around each narrative that was thoroughly
enjoyable. As long as this trend doesn’t catch on with yours truly being a
subject of some such narrative which we are sure are plentiful and enough for
many feasts.
And then there was the dear departed Dinito. Brother, friend, part
landlord and my culinary guru who made friends with spices and chillies and
introduced them to me. Dinito was a part of the woodwork and furnishings of
Clube Vasco and then Ernesto and contributed substantially to the consumption
of gallons of white rum with lemon juice and 20 cubes of ice, all the
while telling us food interns “you know nothing”. On a good day, after a half
brilliant take on a spice or a dish, based on Dinitos earlier inputs, he would
say “You are not too bad”. Good guys don’t last as much as you want them to and
as he fell into my arms and took his last breath two years ago in the middle of
a heated friendly chat about the texture of a particular red wine, each of us
holding a glass, a piece of my life in Panjim went away, extricated from the
sea of mirth.
Others live to keep the legacy on. A month ago the phone rang and it was
Zito on the line. A shower of friendly and choicest abuses is his ring
tone and after sustaining those he summoned me to ClubeNacional to sample
choris and feni. As it’s happening a lot these days, I couldn’t make it that
evening.
Back to that inky night when the rain
drops made the best music on Panjim’s empty streets. Up above was
ClubeNacional, its verandah empty but grand in the dark of the night. The
narrow entrance through which kings and commoners have passed for years, up the
dark winding steps on whichwe are sure the spirit of so many revellers
linger, and through the big wooden door into the main hall. It was dark
with the glow of the television showing the World Cup game. A friend was
waiting, but behind the counter stood a man with the most lovable grin. He said
‘I’ll go in and heat your choris paos. His staff had gone but
the beverage was kept cold and the food freshly prepared, steaming hot.
Napoleon is not just the man who looks after ClubeNacional, he nurtures
many of our souls, makes us believe in the romance and friendship of Panjim.
Napoleon and his brothers, Michael who runs Avanti in Sao Tome and the
third,Patricio, who lives and cooks in Bhatti Village, Nerul, the village where
the brothers come from, are unsung ambassadors of Goan food with Napoleon easily
the best chorispao maker to the east of the Suez canal. Correction, his wife
actually because Napolean just sources the pork, his wife makes the sausages,
three times a week, served daily at Nacional.
As the night grew longer, Napoleon left, leaving me behind to just
stretch in that dark hall. The mind’s eye turned the lights on to see a
Christmas Dance, a carnival Red and BlackBall with Tony Dias the President of
the club leading his partner with a gentle embrace.
As I walked down to the empty streets, the beauty of Panjim was enhanced
by its silence. And in this quiet, the laughter and love of friends
reverberated louder than that solitary rain drop that made so much noise.
