It’s rush hour on a Friday morning in Loutolim. And the Olympics have begun. The long jump event is in full flow with half a dozen simians leaping from top of palm trees, before bouncing and crashing on to the tiled roof of the 500 year old mansion whose age is kinda catching up.
This
tribe of monkeys is from the surrounding jungles, which themselves are on the
high road to extinction with more pathways and roads and missing links that are
being linked, pushing the angry monkeys, out of the comfort of their homes into
ours.
Wikipedia
tell us that the simian line and the tarsier line diverged about 60 million
years ago. Forty million years ago, simians from Africa colonized South
America, giving rise to the New World monkeys. The remaining simians split 25
million years ago into apes and old world monkeys. Whatever that may be the monkeys
of Loutolim are surely old world and they are colonising the village or at
least one home.
And
they are quite a ‘sport’. Every possible discipline is practiced with elan. The
jumps of course and then the sprints, with the hapless home strays giving chase
and giving up the next instant, gasping for breath. This monkey business
doesn’t quite suit the dogs. They are happier in the more salubrious confines
of the front drive where they wake up to eat and sleep the whole day.
This
is just one snippet, a sliver of village life in South Goa villages. And while
this is perhaps normal to most readers of Herald, let us just hold onto these
images and this way of life. It is under threat. Just like the monkeys of
Loutolim, we will soon be pushed out of our habitats or our habitats will
change. As we fight to stop the slide, let’s simply soak in what we have, only
to remind us of what we have.
A
path that always rejuvenates your truly is the one that leads the highway just
after Nagoa and cuts through the vast swathe of green fields to the Cansaulim
junction, past the well known Quinta de Valadares. One always stops, because
driving past this jewel of countryside without pausing is sacrilege. It is Goa
in a frame, absolutely lush fields and palm trees. While there are hundreds of
such spots through South Goa, some spots stand out because they are so
unadulterated. Further on, the bustling Cansaulim junction with its fish
market, other stores and the sausage man who sits on the bend of the road that
goes to the railway line towards Arrosim, is another frequent pit stop. This is
where one is armed with samosas – Rajasthani style – and choris pao from the
shop, directly opposite.
National
integration complete, the journey carries on through more winding fields just
after the Cansaulim railway junction towards Arrosim and Utorda. If you look
right towards the sea on this journey, exactly at sunset, there is a jaw
dropping moment each evening, as the sun sets between the palm trees and sinks
into the ocean. This is a long road, very close to where I once spent two
memorable years on this stretch. Every bar, restaurant and shack has memories,
which are rekindled now and then. Just after the Park Hyatt hotel there are two
gems – Balton (named after brothers Balthazar and Tony) where some long
evenings were spent. They also run a shack on the Utorda beach. 100 meters next
to Balton is is another local joint – Da Silvas. A Sunday fish thali with
copious amounts of feni is recommended with a caution that this should be
partaken only if home is walking distance, since sleep might arrive before your
journey home has commenced.
If
you aren’t stopping, then head on to Valankas, reported often as a call of duty
in these columns for arguably the best fresh choris paos, just before the Colva
circle.
Apart
from these places of natural interest, this stretch of Utorda Betalbatim, some
parts of Colva still and then Sernabatim, before you hit Benaulim; has a vibe
and a pace of life which allows us to hug the Goa as it once was. Languid
homes, which for some reason are called Portuguese villas, when some existed
before the Portuguese came and were handcrafted by true blue sons of the soil
Goans, stand proudly defying time, but for how long?
Every
sight you see is handcrafted from a Goa we love and live in, in its simplest
form, amidst the chaos, the politics and the rivalry that so many of us,
including families live with for years. And yet the land gives so much to us
that each of us feel it’s worth the fight, if not our land itself but for us.
Yes there is the selfish desire to cling on to what this land offers like no
other land does. Which again is fine.
And
as we realise this, we understand what still draws so many people to Goa, even
from countries where living and working and imbibing the beauty of their
homelands is so seamless. Yet they spend time in Goa. We met Yogini of Villa
Blanche in Assagao a few weeks ago and early this week, met three effervescent
Italian boys who run the Goodfellas restaurant on the Benaulim beach road.
Their story is worth telling. Goa was a on and off pit stop on their journeys
around the world till they decided to spend close to half a year running an
Italian restaurant. So we get Italian food by and from Italians and they get
Goa. It a great deal.
They
are Nicholas Compagnone from Palau, Fernando Coleldanchise Soiano from Lago di
Garda and Davide Stampini from Bareggio. And the pizzas they make are straight
from the land they come from. No nonsense, clean, fresh and an answer to so
many Indianised pizzas we are forced to pay thousands of rupees for.
They could have lived and worked
anywhere in the world. But they chose Benaulim. If that doesn’t tell a story,
then what does?