Carona was an unexceptional place, until COVID-19 arrived. When friends called to ask my whereabouts, “Carona” sounded, over a spotty WhatsApp call, like I had been quarantined. Truth be told, I was happy to be confined to this idyllic village, 12,000 kilometres from my home in the United States, where the mercurial President had a “hunch” that Coronavirus was like the flu.
Every morning, except Sundays, as the sun cast its first golden light on verdant forests, swaying coconut palms, and emerald green rice paddies as far as the horizon, I walked 6.1 km, my Health app tells me, on single lane rural roads past quaint homes christened with names like Villa de Inglese, Luibona, and Residencia Souza. Whitewashed churches and Hindu temples watched over me as I took notes on the many species of birds I encountered.
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A pair of black-hooded Orioles, preening in their resplendent yellow plumage, a noisy coppersmith Barbet, and a chattering Flameback woodpecker, occupied the canopies of towering old jackfruit and mango, while overhead, Malabar pied hornbills approached a fruit laden Indian plum tree like a squadron of B-52 bombers on a mission. Red-whiskered and Red-vented Bulbuls, and a Common iora, sang joyously in the mid-tiers. Jeweled sunbirds, Vigors and Purple-rumped, and black-and-white Oriental magpie Robins, flitted in the understory. Drongos and Bee-eaters swooped down from their perches on electric wires to dive bomb insects on the wing. The plaintive cry of an Indian Koel and the catcalls of peacocks punctuated the avian orchestra.
As I made my way past their homes every morning, one Carona resident taught me to say “good morning” in Konkani, another, a retired police officer, invited me in to his freshly painted home for a cuppa, and others looked up to greet me as I passed, baton in hand. A feisty mutt, an excitable black lab, and a stern Doberman, who barked at my approach in January, now acknowledged me with the wag of a tail.
Noisy two-wheelers speeding by announced another morning ritual. The school run had begun. Chauffeured by moms, kids in hoodies buried their faces in phones, balancing effortlessly on their rides, two, or three astride. Uniformed children with bulky backpacks gathered for the yellow school bus, or the blue and white government bus. I can recognise many of them now, the lanky boy with the Dev Anand mop, the confident girl in pigtails, the pensive kid mouthing his by-hearted lesson, and the dreamy pair who look like it could be the start of something.
I noted that there were no children left behind in Carona’s homes, or working in the fields. With a literacy rate of 90 per cent, second only to Kerala, and 100 per cent rural electrification, Goa boasts the lowest poverty rate in the country and possibly the highest happiness susegad quotient.
Now, having returned home to New Jersey on the last flight out of Mumbai before the lockdown began, I just wanted to say “Thank You Carona” for infecting me with your warmth.
Dev borem korum.
