Circa 2005: The rain threatened to blow away the little garage that most of us lived in
Goa for; the thin plastic protection no match for the fury that hit us at 3 in the morning. While we
listened to the rhythm of the falling rain, for one man it didn’t matter. Sitting in the balcao attached to our friend Lloyds garage,
August Braganza was one with his song and his guitar. He sang, stopping only to take a sip of Urrack and slipping back for his
rendition of Floyd and the Beatles. In the middle of this fury, the Bar be Que didn’t stop. The Pork chops were still getting grilled,
the beef cutlets fried and chilly fry available. On nights now, when the streets are dead, the restaurants
shut and the pubs on the verge of getting “Dhavlikar-ed”, (the euphemism for their impending demise if people like the
Dhavlikar brothers take ‘culture” in their own hands), those nights of 2005, when friends sat in that garage laughing till
the cows woke up and left home remind us of a Goa that once was. August, easily Goa’s best known musician till loneliness
and drink, in that order, consumed him, slept there. Merry folk from the world of politics and bureaucracy, art to activism,
broke bread and raised their glasses for the sheer simple joy of fun filled evenings of great conversations. Now, in a less simple
world, skirmishes and complications have dented relationships of that garage. The young officer Sanjith Rodrigues, full of fire and
brimstone at a system that needed to be cleansed, a senior IPS officer who loved his beef steak, an actress who had delivered her
first hit and a famous MTV host and the local village boys had basic conversations, with no baggage here. Lloyd’s garage was a
piece of life and not a place for food and drink. This week, it’s all about nostalgia, of spots with memories,
little preserves that we hope we can cling to when Goa is getting lost. Like Bhatti village, the home, hearth and the
temple of great food of Patrick’s and Merciana’s. At Bhatti village, in Nerul, we ate what Merciana cooked. The other day,
during a monsoon chat with Napolean of Clube Nacional, he
mentioned his brother Patrick. The mind has a strange way of
giving you visual reminders. It went back to just one dish from
Merciana’s kitchen, Gabodi or fish roe. As I have said in an
earlier tribute to Bhatti village, gabodi is the Goan equivalent of
caviar but caviar looks like a second class citizen of the fish egg
world, when you have a plate of gabodi in front of you. Patrick
gets eggs of pomfret or chonak, both of which are equally good
or fresh. But the point where Bhatti village transforms from
a good ole place to a culinary island is when the medley of
vinegar, kokum and pork do their number as pork amsol which
is the North Goa version of pork solantolem.
Across the other bridge, to the meeting point of Mormugao
and Salcette, there is a little sausage shop at the Cansaulim
market right next to the HDFC bank. While the aausages are
divine, the place used to come to life at 4 pm when they were
minced and put into hot paos’ for a choris pao experience like
none other. Its nearest competitor was or still is on the road to
Colva called Valankas. Here sausages are made and not bought
from the market and then used to make choris pao.
The next on the list is not an eating place but the home of
the Cottas in Majorda. Here the women folk wake up at 5 in
the morning to make Bebinca, for almost all the hotels and the
restaurants and come Christmas, this is all that happens at the
Cotta home. Yours truly has been privileged to be given the
the honour of their friendship which comes with lots of homemade
bebinca, without having to order them at a restaurant.
Even If everything crumbles, no Dhavlikar on earth can take
away these pleasures of a Goa which still exists. You must know
how to find it
