So
the world has changed we are told. And we are not talking of earthquakes or
TsuNamo s as they are called. In our little Goa, where there is fairy tale
beauty and languidness and ease of life, relatively unaffected by storms or
winds, change comes in quaint ways.
And
of one such ways is the way we organize meals at home. IN some urban homes,
Gone are the days when the red chillies and spices were dried and kept out and
then kept ready for the monsoons. Time and tide have shifted perhaps. The
pleasures of slow cooking, which involved the stroll to the fish market, the
banter and the chatter with a hint of flirtation perhaps, in a nice innocent
way with the fisherwomen, discussing the news in Herald and identifying daily
heroes and villains; are evaporating.
The
fish ( or pork and beef) would be brought home, a long conversation on the
preparation would follow, and then it would be cooked for both the day and the
night meal. It was a slow art with a trail of magnificence and skill. It hasn’t
gone though, but its footprint is diminishing, especially across the
increasingly super urban areas and in nuclear families with the young ones
moving out with “no time” to cook.
In
the bigger towns and some coastal areas, app based ordering in has caught on
and young folks are “tabbing” to get grub delivered, at home, work, friends
places and even in hospitals or gyms.
But
take the less trodden paths, the meandering village roads snaking their way
onto even smaller ones deep in recesses of villages, where the old world still
lives. Yes it’s about banter and chatter and slow cooking but there are no
mobile signals, patchy internet and a phone service whose ability to “deliver”
a decent and consistent dial tone is as reliable as the Brexit being delivered.
And
app based food delivery services are gradually realizing that Panjim, Margao
Mapusa and Calangute are fine but try getting into Loutolim, Raia and Curtorim
or the depths of Quepem, Canacona and Sanguem, the challenges are beyond any
template of problems or trouble shooting that these hi tech super efficient app
based companies could have envisaged. Mastering navigation and delivery in
interior Goan villages needs a code and algorhythm of a different kind and this
has very little to do with technology and everything to do with VI (Village
Intelligence) as opposed to AI (Artificial intelligence).
Take
for Instance app based food delivery companies called Wiggy or Tomato
attempting to deliver orders from restaurants in South Goa to Loutolim, the village
that stands in time, encapsulated in the magnificent 1950’s. The challenges can
beat the best techies the world has ever produced because technology depends on
certain given constants i.e an internet service or a the very least a telephone
service.
Now
let’s say that a young couple living in Panjim have arrived at their ancestral
home in Loutolim and their son wants a pizza and spaghetti with meatballs and
not the fish curry rice, pork solantolem and rechado kingfish masala cooked at
home. Let’s overlook the logic of these choices as opposed to the ones at home
and figure this. The dad, picks up is phone to access the app only to realise
that there is no mobile connectivity and even attempts to perch the cell phone
on a branch of a tree or at a particular angle towers the non-existent
imaginary tower will get even a bar on. Of course one can go to the church to
find some network but that is the Church, anything is possible if you are
devout, even mobile connectivity.
But
then you are told, forget data on your phone, log onto the app from the home
WIFI. Eureka, why didn’t he think of that? He tries logging on to the WIFI
network, only to get a greeting “No internet”. He asks the residents of the
ancestral home and they shrug and ask the son to check the landline phone. They
can’t still figure when there is solantolem, why is there a fuss over
spaghetti?
The
son picks up the receiver of the landline phone to hear the familiar silence of
the graveyard. DEAD. And a dead phone cannot give you a live WIFI, can it?
By
this time hunger pangs have increased and there are two options. Switch to
Solantolem or get the phone repaired. But how do you lodge a complaint when the
phone is dead and the mobile does not work. Simple really, use VI.
The
son is advised to take a walk. Hmm….. To the local village telephone exchange.
The perils of such a journey, are nor foretold though.
So
the son of the ancestral home who is also the father- of the boy who wants
spaghetti, the son- the one who wants spaghetti revved up with the holy spirit
of ordering app based food against all odds, trudge to the telephone exchange
in the neighbouring vaddo. They come to the exchange and discover that that the
little tiled roof room with many tiles missing and parts of the roof missing
from where water drips on the machines- called the telephone exchange, is the
perhaps the last lighthouse battling against the turbulent sea of technology,
stopping it with all its might to save the world and let it be frozen in the
previous century for the sake of peace of mankind.
Inside
there is peace. The two men there are resting with the wires and gadgets meant
to ensure that people can call to those in Loutolim and Lotlikars can call out,
are at total non functioning ease- both men and machines. The men are told that
at least one line in one home needs to be repaired pronto because a dial tone
means WIFI, a WIFI means a connection to WIGGY or Tomato, and that connection
could lead to the delivery of spaghetti and meatballs. This is met with
absolute shock because the speed demanded for re-connectivity had not been
achieved since the time the tiles were first put above that room. It was like
asking a graveyard to come to life, in time to order from Wiggy and Tomato.
To
cut a very long story short, the father, the son and the now fatigued spirit
return to the ancestral home, chastised and realising that grandmom’s
solantolem is easier to get with no technology coming in the way.
Post
script: If by miracle all went well, and there is WIFI, there are further challenges.
A typical Loutolim address to deliver food, will be the name of the person, the
vaddo with another line saying ‘near so and so’s place”. Now the village
postman, knows every home, family members, internal politics and various family
dalliances but a delivery boy of Wiggy or Tomato, “outsiders” are hardly
expected to figure that out. And when they reach the village, how do they call
you. Your mobile doesn’t work and you haven’t asked for the landline. Who uses
landlines anyway? Haha. Live in Loutolim and figure.
For
the bosses of these app companies, learn the old human codes, not pin codes.
Who lives behind the white house next to the yellow house next to the pond? If
Caitano has ordered, ask for Dona Margaridas home and you’ll somehow reach
Caitanos.
Can this be fed into any template or
code? Get real, in Goan villages, adapt to old technology- VI (Village
Intelligence which is Very Important).
