The expanse of the ocean had no borders, the sky was bereft
of distractions, its slate clean, awash with a blue you don’t always see, boats
of fishermen bobbed like happy dots on the landscape, a relief from the
fissures of construction on bleeding and cut hills, that are a part of Goa’s
landscape now. The width of the beach was vast and smooth, with the sand so
white, that we could have been in the Carribean and not in Velsao.
The slope from the airport highway, winding its way down the
valley towards Velsao, enroute to Cansaulim, was a part of the journey home,
for this wanderer, many years ago when home used to be in the village of
Arrosim, where the Mormugao taluka ended, after which Salcete began, right at
the entrance of the ‘Balton’ restaurant (run by the brothers Balthazar and
Tony), a little ahead of the Park Hyatt hotel. Velsao, Arrosim and Cansaulim
were beaches of splendid isolation, away from the tourist bus loads. This is
where locals came for their stroll, like in the old times, the village boys
played football and the children rolled in the sand, unafraid of plastic or
glass bottles.
It’s just as well that these beaches are off the radar. This
allows them to breathe and retain large chunks of a Goa that once was, a Goa
reserved, where the sun, sea and sand coexist in daily harmony, a symbiotic
relationship unfettered with the chains of development.
On a weekend afternoon, a drive was undertaken to meet a
couple of buddies, on the edge of the Velsao beach. After you drive down the
slope that goes down from the airport highway and enters the serenity of Pale
and then Velsao, there’s a turn at the bus stop towards the beach past the Velsao
level crossing. The road goes straight to the beach where there has been, for
the past twenty odd years, just one shack. And it’s a shack with no name. And
it has a lovely story.
Peter and his wife Leonildis (Leo) Carvalho decided to move
back from their home in Dar e salam, in Tanzania and move back to their roots
and their village of Velsao. They set up this shack which is frozen in time,
tailored with simplicity with the expanse of the sand and the ocean as its
frontage. One of my two companions arrived shortly after us, carrying a
container of spicy beef curry and some local pois. For him, this shack was home
and Peter and Leo were friends. The home made beef was quickly warmed up and
served with the pois. While we hungry
folks got to work on this, Leo went into the kitchen to rustle up some of her
own stuff. But let’s linger on the spicy beef with curry leaves and thick
gravy, simply the best this wanderer has had in years. But what made it special
was the quality of the pois, slightly
crispy and most importantly brown. And this was made by one of the fastly
depleting traditional poders who
stick to the basics of poi making –
Godinho of Majorda.
Well the beef disappeared and so did Godinho’s pois, by which time Leo’s first
offering, the beef croquettes arrived followed by crispy fried lepos. We settled down. The breeze was
perfect and Peter kept the music going, delightful ole country songs, which we
all grew up with. Yes, it indeed felt like the old times. The quarter bottle of
urrack, fresh from the village was getting depleted every ten minutes with
rapid regularity and it was soon time for more. Leo arrived from the kitchen
with the ‘main’ course if you will – spicy and flavourful chicken xacuti and
the good ole prawn curry, where the curry could be tasted and the pieces of
prawn could be seen. Mind you, in the shacks of Goa today, it’s a luxury to see
prawns in a curry, which actually is a curry and not warm water with some salt
and spice thrown in.
There’s something to be said of Goan folks who have lived in
Africa – across the span of Tanzania, Mozambique and Cabo Verde. These
influences have found their way in the cooking of these families across
generations. The use of the spices is an art which they have perfected and over
the years, the link between Africa and great ‘Goan’ cooking, often emerges
during conversations.
Peter and Leo are a lovely middle aged couple, content in
their village and in their shack. It has never been about business but about
life by the water, good country music and cooking from the heart. And with a
pristine stretch of spotlessly clean beach with no shacks, they are bestowed
with divinity of a different kind.
On the beach in Velsao, in the calm of the afternoon, with
the expanse of the sea as witness, the decision to follow the heart and move to
Goa fourteen years ago, was affirmed yet again. It’s been a journey of pure
waltzing, with Goa as a beautiful partner.
