Layers were getting peeled off on this Sancoale countryside.
Layers of everyday existence. Wide roads, the massive new bridge on the Zuari
coming up over yonder, more expansion en route to Vasco from Sancoale, cutting
through a swathe of trees, instantly slicing through what was pristine country
and offering the debris of construction at the altar of development.
But then there is another Sancoale,
a village which stands at the edge of Cortalim and Chicalim. It’s a village of
transit, one of the dots you miss as you are speeding to the Goa airport or
heading towards the beaches in your first flush of excitement, after landing
here, to o rushed to give Sancoale more than a minute of your time, if at all.
And if it took over a decade for this purported wanderer to go into the
recesses of a village, whose magnificence is a low hanging fruit, the sense of
loss sits as heavy as the elation of a mid afternoon bike ride hugging the
Khazan wetlands of the village.
And as it so happens – actually
almost always – the voyage of discovery (this almost sounds like the Titanic)
is also about missing out, about not taking the little turns or cuts on the
roads, about not bending on a curve to enter the innards of villages that open
up another world. And here I say this – folks who say they know Goa well, need
to ask themselves if they have taken those turns, bent on those bends and hit
the paths that many others do not know of.
Last week, one of those bends was
taken at Sancoale, courtesy the gentle prodding of a colleague, aware of the
journeys undertaken by yours truly. And each new bend on the road has a
connection with food, which binds us altogether. Once you hit the old airport
road and drive through the Khazan lands on either side, there is a very sharp
turn before the road continues towards Sancoale and onwards to Vasco, where
there is a small temple. We turned back on a little village path and moved back
and into the village, hugging the other end of the Khazan lands, entering a
divine countryside, with arched palms, fields and the wetland. Children walking
back from school in their uniforms, to their homes for lunch, made this picture
perfect.
In the middle of that road from the
temple bend to the village is an all pervasive mango tree, perhaps a century old,
and under its shade is a home and a little restaurant run by the inhabitants of
the former. It has a name – ‘Ramesh’ restaurant, but if you go looking for
Ramesh, you might get quizzical looks. For years, this was just a small bar
called ‘Ambe Pona’ (since it was under
the shade of the mango tree. So ‘Ambe Pona’ is what Ramesh restaurant will
always be, for many across the Mormugao harbour, the town of Vasco, and of
course the villages of Sancoale and Chicalim.
Sachit Naik, a young boy of just 16,
started this restaurant close to three decades ago, yes that’s right. He named
it after his uncle, Ramesh, who he lost a few years ago. But ‘Ramesh’ didn’t go
out of his family as he also named his first born, Ramesh.
He thus opened this adjoining his
little home – just a small bar that served local fish on the side. Over the
years, the freshness of the fish remained and the easy village ambience grew
and the little village bar has become, thankfully, a little bigger restaurant
with an added room. But it’s still under the mango tree. His wife cooks the
food served here; now with two children to look after, she finally has asked
for help in kitchen, but it’s still her show.
And this is cuisine in all its
freshness, simplicity and clarity. There’s no menu and the food is the fish or
seafood that Sachit gets in the market or from the fisher folk in the morning.
And then wifey Naik gets down to work on the spices and the curries before
people turn up. On an average, she makes 150 thalis each day and some special sides.
We ordered tisrio coated with coconut and the big
prawns marinated with garlic and turmeric and a bit of salt. Two plates were
wolfed down without a fuss and a third was attempted but better sense
prevailed. Unlike the thick masala coated and rawa fried stuff you get
elsewhere, the prawns themselves did the talking with the turmeric and the
garlic acting as enhancers and not as overpowering agents. In the tisrio dish too, the coconut, though coated
over the shells, felt like the accompaniment, without taking anything away from
the real taste of the clams. The thali has two big pieces of king fish
lightly fried, caught off the water and taken straight to Naik’s kitchen, prawn
curry (sungtache
hooman) that is thick and actually has more than one prawn (it has about
four), kokum and a vegetable.
The 150 thalis on most days get over and then you
simply do not get any because the fish is over and he doesn’t keep anything in
the fridge. One of the regulars said that often those who turn up late ask Naik
to split a thali into two or three so
that each in the group gets a bit. And then there are still others who drop by
to pick up the hooman
(curry),
which they take home to eat with their rice, if they or their spouses aren’t in
a mood to cook. And that can happen often in this laid back idyllic village,
where a meal at Ambe
Pona (Ramesh), a walk or ride through the village, blissful sleep till early
evening, waking up to village sounds and chatter on the roads and the tinto form a heavenly daily routine.
Ambe Pona and places like these do not need votes or
food awards or Facebook pages and social media blitz. Under the shade of the
mango tree, life is lived and loved with a simple thali.
