As 2017
begins on a Sunday, the charm of Goa, its people, its places and its
experiences, all a roller coaster, hangs like a morning mist, crisp in its
freshness. The year end is always a good time to look back and sample (like
tapas) some morsels of BWP, picked and pickled. Below are some of my personal
favorities with a brief excerpt from each. A google search will take you to the
full version of each:
1 George put us on the
happiness route with his music & warmth
As he lay there enroute his last journey, the few
of us who loved George and his Jazz and his infectious laughter, realised that
it wasn’t just that the music had died but a slice of our lives in Goa, always
infused with the kind of music George played, just did. As we took the lasts
steps from the church to the cemetery, eyes moist, the image of good old George
hunched over his piano, playing furiously with the passion of footballer and
the grace of a ballerina lingered. His family were his friends and his friends
his family.
2 Footnotes from Batim, with a dash of
salt pans & the charm of the Menezes
Last
Sunday, the route was taken enroute to another village off this track, which
hasn’t quite been documented by yours truly – Batim. During regular journeys
around six years ago from my home at Arrosim to work in Panjim, the car – which
had a mind of its own – forked right on the Curca road, past the Goa Velha
Panchayat ghor and raced down one of the prettiest stretches of Goa.
3 A very special couple in
Siridao, a village in waiting
We did a bit of Siridao exploring, a family
affair and chanced upon a couple who were doing what everyone else does,
waiting for their daughter to come back from Paris and be with them. And here’s
their story. Decades ago, the family of Ainuddin Hakim set up one of the most
public service oriented businesses those in coastal Goa could ever have, that
of trading in sea food. Simply put, Hakim’s folks used to send out many
trawlers into the high seas for days and return with their catch to be then
sold to smaller fishermen and to establishments. For Aino, as he is called, Goa
has but been only a life, at sea, by the sea and off the sea.
4 Solantolem, salted tongue and
dejavu in Moira
Moira, or its by-lanes are perennially and so
beautifully stuck in the late 1880’s or even beyond. Time does stand still, but
so do the bricks in the facades of homes, both the very old and crumbling as
well as those which are old but inhabited. Every home retains that ageless
magnificence, even as some of them are frayed around their edges.
5 Ah Loutolim! bring on the
delightful madness
From the dark recess of the night, this four
legged languid figure emerged on to the main road on the edge of Loutolim
village and decided to stretch his limbs and let out a yawn. From the bend the
headlights of my car couldn’t spot him, blended into the night till the
distance between the stakeholder of Loutolim village and me the outsider was a
few inches. The brakes worked.
6 A GPS defying cafe on
Uccassaim hill & other journeys
It was a quick languid drive along the
backwaters, on a week day afternoon. We took paths seldom caressed, through
turns and hills, past foliage and forests, with the water constantly by our
side. Uccassaim, Aldona, Pomburpa, Britonna villages are, nestled in a Goa
which is fast vanishing, shielded thankfully by other forms of devastation our
land is facing.
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.
7 Our AGM, from the boardroom
of vintage friendships
So what is it really about Dec 23 rd for many of
us, joined in bonding and spirit about an institution of revelry and warmth.
It’s our day of Christmas, our new year and our Annual General Meeting (AGM) of
journeymen who come home to Cavala. The annual congregation of catching up with
the simple unadulterated and agenda less way of life is a tradition that Marios
of Cavala seamlessly keeps, with a regimen that would do a General proud.
8
From bhaji puri to full English, life is a good breakfast
Sitting on a table made of sewing machine parts, looking onto the fields which have just been baked with the first rays of the sun, you hear the first sounds of the sitar. You are on your first juice, followed by herbal tea and then some mango lassi – each a detox weapon of
immense significance. At this little bend on the road is a little island of
calm literally in the middle of the fields – Baba Au Rahm.
