More than a quarter of a century ago, in the fields of
Parra, a little boy ran after the sprightly fowl because it was fair game. The
foul ran as fast as it could and this young lad, having entered his teens gave
it a robust chase. That was lunch. The fowl was soon conquered, cleaned and
cooked.
In those uncomplicated days in these villages in Goa, life
was a straight line. If you wanted the best on the lunch or dinner table, you
would go and get it.
The little boy now has Goa’s most famous handle bar
moustache on which sits lightly and snugly the tag of – with very little debate
– being the magnet of mirth and entertainment, at least on the Baga strip. So
much so that Cavala, his and our cradle of joy is known and recognised more
than Marius Monteiro, who has taken his dad Lino Jose Monteiro’s passionate,
happy and modest beginnings in Goa, after giving up on the bustling Bombay,
into creating a nest for most of us.
On a long bright afternoon last week, we managed to extract
Marius out of his nest and plonk him in another one, which too has been the
subject of so many tales of wanderlust in these columns for over decade – the
House of Lloyds.
Both of these are not discoveries but reassertions that in
some places in Goa, all is well. It was an agenda less, impromptu luncheon
among friends who have connected for years and didn’t need a reason to meet.
Lloyd, has extended his large home in Saipem into a restaurant of recall that
his place has become. And on that table was another couple who have moved from
Bombay and live the Goa life in its simplest form, celebrity hair stylists
Ranjit and Ruchi Pais, with Ranjit pursuing his love for music by getting
musicians together to test their originals and jam.
And it is on that table that tales of Goa, seldom spoken,
stories of simple joys of the past and the complicated present, stories of
clarity of the past and the chaos of the present, tales of running after
chickens and pigs of those days , and running away from the choking traffic
these days, were told. As Marius said poignantly, speaking about the Goa of
today leads to a descending lull, like a ball of sadness.
And in the middle of the conversation, he stopped to go to
his car and bring back, the nicest gifts of this season. A series of six
sketches contrasting the Goa of then and the Goa of now, made into a lovely
desk top calendar. The series, if yours truly had a choice, should have been
called “smiles and tears”, with the sketch of the Goa of old bringing a smile
and the new Goa, a tear. Let’s pick three of the six sketches.
The first set is of a moonlit night with hippies dancing
round a fire place and second of a modern day Goa of techno, trance party with
a limerick “Moonlight rhythm and bohemian trips, (to) techno trance and selfie
sticks” With each sketch if you mentally add the word ‘to’, you separate the
old and the new.
Another very apt one had an empty clean beach juxtaposed
with a crazy crowded one (what Baga has become) with these lines “Silent spaces
and endless coasts, (to) ‘Happening’ crowds and Facebook posts”.
And this one drives the story home, literally. This has a
sketch of a ferry arriving on the banks of a village in the Goa of old, with an
accompanying sketch of the ongoing construction of the new Mandovi bridge, with
the lines, “Ferry tales and conversations (to) google maps and traffic traps”.
For over a year Marius literally waited for Godot, the
artist. Godot, a rare Goan talent, we are told, is a delightful sketch master
of lines, but not quite the king of deadlines, but this is a project of the
heart and the soul, and that is indeed timeless. And unlike Samuel Beckett’s
play Waiting for Godot where Godot never arrives, our Goan Godot, as we can
see, indeed did arrive to create this masterpiece of a calendar, which will sit
on people’s tables and hearts long after the year is gone.
And as always in Lloyd’s place, the food is the showstopper,
though the sketches and Marius’ tales did compete for space. Lloyd’s wifey
Nerissa cooked up a light delicious mutton curry and amidst a sea of food where
we ran through all the eats and sea food, the grilled pork chops arrived, which
should have actually been called the ‘bliss sleeping pill’. Well some things do
not change.
The chops at Lloyd’s little place in Candolim years ago, has
the same effect of bliss and sleep as the one’s at House of Lloyd’s, now.
As yours truly drove back along the banks of the Mandovi,
the sketches of old Goa remained and Panjim was reached with a smile. That’s
what old friends can do in these new times.
