Dusk has settled. The lights, a throwback to ancient Goa Portuguesa come on, lighting the winding and steep steps going all the way from Rua de Natal in Fontainhas to the High Court and the leafy splendour of Altinho.
The day time cafes are winding up while the restaurants are opening up, brightly lit, to welcome the first diners. The playlist includes Jimmy Hendricks, Dolly Parton, Billy Joel or the good old jazz and bl ues classics. Linda, the evergreen, affable and warmth radiating mama of Viva Panjim, fresh from her long travels, is back home to her restaurant and to her life, and home where she belongs- right here in Fontainhas, and at Viva Panjim,
For 15 years nothing has changed in that ground floor living room, the heart of Viva Panjim. For 15 years time has stood still at Viva Panjim, each day a celebration of the same and a joyous outpouring of this evocative outburst ‘Viva Panjim” a toast to our quaint little town, the center of our world and the core of our happiness ( to many of us). Linda’s return has quite understandably livened up the place. Her constant chatter, laughter and a never-ending stream of stories and anecdotes, is pervasive. It’s a constant. And is served free.
And yet as things remain the same, they also change. In 2004, as a young (then) reporter, new to Goa, and to Panjim, Linda and her husband, Michael, the ever-smiling but quiet, (absorbed in the charming garrulousness of his wife) welcomed and took me under their wings, telling me about Goa, its people, its customs and quirks and of course its cuisine, before other friends like Dinito, my dear landlady’s Zizinha’s, brother, took over the role of becoming my educational instructors, infusing within this wide-eyed greenhorn, wisdom on cuisine, its creators and all things Goan. What has changed is that neither, Michael or Dinito, is there with us, moving beyond the sunset to light up the heavens.
There he was Michael, on his favorite chair by the window having a quiet word or mainly engrossed in his paperwork or reading. He had his lunch right there and went up for his much-needed nap only to emerge in the evening.
What hasn’t changed is the consistency of Linda’s food, the effort that goes into her masalas and the wicked crab xacuti she makes. Last week, Linda learned that yours truly was now a neighbour. As we met, 14 years went by in a flash, the same laughter and warmth enveloped this aging writer, while the cooks were asked to whip up a crab xacuti. For good measure, one of her Bengali cooks was asked to rustle up Bengali mutton curry (with lots of light gravy cooked in potatoes). Both were served in copious quantities and eaten with gusto over two days , with fresh pao delivered home.
These are people connects and this is what places like these do. They are not businesses, never were, but created to get people together and join them in a bond for generations. AND if there is a Linda at Viva Panjim, there is a Moses at Pinto bar, next to St. Inez Church. In his one room, tavern cum restaurant three of the five small tables were full. One had a gr oup of friends, congregating from over the country and corners of the world to that table at Pinto bar to have a cracker of a birthday for David Ferrao. Here were five men, transported back to their days as “gully boy s”. They became children from men, just happy to be with each other, not exchanging notes about their work and their adopted countries and cities but replaying their childhood, in frames and music, in anecdotes and experiences. All of us joined in, listening intently, to their tales.
Moses, the patrao, of the Pinto bar was missing though, and his absence was felt. Instead of his rotund smiling self sitting on the chair in the corner, by the music and partaking in most chats while controlling his kitchen and his orders, his twenty-something petite and demure daughter was in charge. Where was dad? In England, looking for a home for her, who will be leaving soon, to study in a college there. So a proud and worried dada has left Pinto bar in the responsible hands of Mrs Pinto and their daughter and gone looking for a safe and secure home for his ever little one.
However, the kitchen is running with precision. The pork chops are just as succulent and divine and the beef green curry with hot rice is a succour for the soul. David Ferrao and friends have now reached the peak of the evening, as the meal is ending. Songs are being played, a group of lovely middle-aged ladies have joined the chatter and we all sang happy birthday to David. The women at other table order panna cotta (sweetened cream thickened with gelatin and molded) with jelly) for the boys. In a matter of minutes, we became friends, from strangers. In fact, we were perhaps friends who had never met. That’s what places like Pinto bar do to you.
And it didn’t stop there. Learning that my 50 plus cousin’s birthday had passed a day before, David and friends serenaded her in the most charming and gracious way leaving her, and her twenty-something daughter, floored.
And by the way, before they left, the boys, sat and wrote a declaration (penned by one of them who divides his time between Goa and Romania) that they would always meet, eat, drink and make merry.
May they, and we live up these simple declarations. They make life worth living.
