The Obscure Goa

This article is about Goa. However there are a few things that need to be clarified.

Firstly, all of these small facts came to me from a young man who spent a few years in Goa, came to love it, and saw Goa in different perspectives. The views are not necessarily my own.

Secondly, the person explored Goa and brought to me several mementos…. but not all. Therefore I cannot vouch for the authenticity of all of the stories here.

1. The State of Goa gets its name from the word ‘Govarasthra’ , meaning the land pf cows and cowherds. However, the boy quickly realized that milk in Goa is expensive and is supplied by the ‘Nandini Dairy’ of Karnataka. Further research led to the finding that Goa was named after the “GWA” or “GUA” grass that grew on the coastal marshy edges, and the Portuguese called the land Gwa, the British changed it to Goa. I can not vouch for this theory, but sounds interesting.

2. Goa is known for its beaches, but Goa has more rivers than many other States. Granted, not all of them are big and grand rivers, but they are rivers all the same, which meet the sea in marshy tracts. The larger rivers are the Zuari, the Mapusa, the Mandovi . The smaller ones like the Setsia and the Ranas are no larger than creeks. They are beautiful, though and worth a visit.

3 Goa grows a few varieties of very sweet mangoes. This fact I can vouch for, because I ate them every summer. The names, as far as I can recall are Mankurad and Fernandin. Both are smallish red and yellow mangoes very similar to the ‘sindur kouta’ of Bengal. Excellent mangoes, which always left me wondering why the State did not promote these two varieties. Next time you are in Goa in summer, do taste these mangoes.

3. Goa has sand, but has a red lateritic soil which is found on the slightly higher level than the beach….on the plateau tops and the escarpments coming down to the flat flood plains. This part of Goa, the young man said, is really beautiful and unspoiled. There is hardly any tourist trade here and the forests of teak and sal on a moonlit night can be ethereal with the forest floor bathed in the dappled silver light. This is particularly true in the forests of Morle and Shigga.

4. Now, this fact is obscure and I can find no one to vouch for it. Laurie Baker, a famous architect built a small low-cost hut for an old village lady. The hut I was told is an architectural marvel. It has a thatched roof, built on bamboo pillars. There is a natural skylight for the heat to escape and the diffused sunlight to come in. The inside of the hut is as cool as air-conditioned, and a central courtyard allows total circulation of air. However,I have some sketches of this hut in a remote South Goa village. The old lady is called Thankamma and she ” is a very good cook”.

5. Goa, I was told is a land of Forts. There are several forts and some citadels. All of them are in a state of disrepair, and is open for anyone to walk in. The more famous ones like the Aguda Fort and the Tiracol Fort attract a fair number of tourists. The smaller ones on the plateau top are unknown, sometimes unnamed and I was told ‘fascinating’. There is even a fort called Cabo da Rama, after the mythological Ram of the ‘Ramayana’. Ram took shelter in Goa, and the fort was built for him. All the forts exhibit excellent brick-work and water-supply system.

6. Can not miss the Feni (Fenny) of Goa. What you may not know is that Feni is totally country liquor. And for this same reason, is not for sale outside the State of Goa. The young man clearly told me that Feni can be made from cashew nuts or from coconuts. Southern Goa grows more coconuts and therefore makes coconut Feni, and Northern Goa grows cashew nuts to make Kaju Feni. This lad brought some of this Feni to me. Very potent, very fiery. Ideally to be mixed with a sweet juice. However, I was given to understand that this stuff “is had all the time…..plain”. The so called ‘branded’ ones are “Reals” and “Big Boss”. Make a note…. Sattari tehsil has the best Feni.

7. I have had this very peculiar samosa called ‘egg samosa’ brought all the way from Goa. It is like no other samosa I have ever tasted. These are small flattish ones, filled with ‘egg bhurji’. Spicy, but tasty. These I was told are available at a small restaurant in Panjim called “Sartaj”. From the same shop was brought to me (in a flask) the lime juice-soda that they make. Though every time I have had this, the soda had gone flat, I will agree that for a commercial lime juice this is the best I have ever had. Quite near to Gatorade.. “Sartaj”, I was told “does a mean Biriyani and a potato bake”. Sartaj, I suppose is worth a visit.

8. Christmas time, this young man got us bebinca and dodols and guava cheese. Much traveled and much treasured these used to come to us a little squashed, but they were much awaited. I was told Pasteria in Panjim, and George’s in Panjim made the best bebincas. I never knew which packet came from which shop, as they were all wrapped in brown-paper, but these are delicious Goan desserts which should not be missed.

9. This lad often talked about the flea-markets of Mapusa (Friday Market) or of Anjuna (Wednesday Market) where everything from clothes to books to T shirts could be bought. These markets had live music and Goan women brought to the market their local cuisine. A plate of Goan fish-curry and rice could be had for Rs. 30. I do not remember much what this guy told me about these markets, except that the both times he went, his pocket was picked !!! But these markets sell Goan pork sausages with poee (bread or pau) which is not available in any shop.

10. The two bookshops I constantly heard about was Broadway at Panjim. These people let their customers browse and read with comfort. To boot, they keep the book aside if you want to come back the next day. The other book shop this boy frequented was Literatti at Calangute. This shop was a little way out for my resource person, but there was the owner Divya Kapur (I think I have the name right) who served chilled kokum juice and cold coffee for customers who spent the day there. Of course, at a price.

11. I was told with great emphasis that Goa had the most beautiful churches, and I never had any reason to disbelieve. Francis Xavier, the Basilica, the Don Bosco Church ….. I heard of so many. What impressed this boy was the complete and total 4 voice choir at St. Inez at Panjim and a Latin Mass at 7am in a small obscure Church in North Goa. I last heard a full Mass in Latin about 40 years back in a Chapel in Darjeeling. Not only for the architectural value, I do believe that a Full Mass in a Goan Church is not to be missed……specially a Sunday Mass.

12. A small item. A small bottle of home made chepnim (mango pickle) and a small bottle of prawn balachao was brought by this young man. Home made by one Auntie. I think most Goan homes make these. Try to scout around and buy some. Taste some. Enjoy.!!!!

Not all these are my views or my take on Goa. It is just that these interesting topics do not seem to be discussed on general travel sites on Goa, and yet this lad shared his find with me, and I found the ‘finds’ interesting.

Hope you can scout around for the obscure Goa, next time you go there.

Gopipur and East Anglia

Deep in the valleys of Garwhal, in Gopipur I met Bela last week. Gopipur is 5km from the nearest metalled road and about 350km from Landour, which itself is a small sleepy town.

Gopipur is less than a village and by the English Town and County Planning standards (if applied in this instance) it would probably rank as a hamlet or isolated farm. Gopipur has about 15 small huts, housing about 70 people. No school, no clinic, no post office, one tea-shop. Just acres and acres of hilly pasture land with sweet green grass and hundreds of cattle. The entire village depends on grazing and though they are not nomadic, they are certainly shepherds by occupation. Rearing milch cattle. Pure unadulterated milk is Rs. 10 a seer. They have not heard of kilograms. The rate is " dhai rupaiya pau". Sweet, thick creamy milk. Bela lives in Gopipur. Does not go to school. At least not in summer. In winter, when it is cold, a Masterbabu comes from the town, spends three or four months at Gopipur and teaches all the children the basics of grammar, arithmetic, alphabets and what not. Funnily enough all the children I met and the women too are more or less literate. They all read Hindi, and a little bit of English alphabets even the 5 year old knew. Left me wondering why we could not have the same system in the cities. School for 4 months. Holidays for 8 months!!!!!!

Any way coming back to Bela, her beloved Baba had been all the way to Pithoragarh (another small town in UP) and had brought back a pair of strappy tinsel coated sandals for Bela. For Bela that was the ultimate in fashion, and she dearly wanted to wear it. Her strict no-nonsense mother had put an embargo......not till Diwali. The footwear was kept wrapped in newspaper and sunned everyday (I never got to know why the daily sunning was needed), much admired by all the village folk as it glittered in the misty sunlight and all of this watched by the totally enraptured eight year old.

This pair of sandals and Bela's dark deep dreamy eyes took me back 45 years in a fraction of a second.

Long time back in the bleary and misty shores of East Anglia I spent a winter holiday. On the dead flat marshes of Suffolk it was an intensely cold winter. There was the high sea wall on which we used to walk and play. If you know this part of Suffolk, the sea wall near Lowestoft

is a lonely stretch, on one side lay the bleak grey sea, howling and raging with the wind which was always bitterly cold. On the other side of the sea wall lay the wide expanse of heathland, rimey grass dotted with winter-black whin bushes and dry gorse bushes. A wide pale sky touched the heathland somewhere far way. In this bleak landscape played Norah and Robin and of course yours truly. The sea wall was slippery and wet, and we ran along it as sure footed as only children can be. Norah was the daughter of the local P.C. and wore a pair of red leather shoes with bright silver buckles. I had never seen such a pair of shoes. All I got was the regular black boots for school wear and of course the three striped Adi Dassler hand crafted grey suede shoes. These Dassler shoes were good, comfortable but they could not match the clop-clop sound and the brightness that Norah's shoes brought while playing on the sea wall. All winter I yearned and longed for such a pair. I even went to the extent of asking Mother.

"Red shoes?", she said.

"What's wrong with the black shoes?"

Too bad Ma never understood these things.

The whole bleak winter we played and ran on the rimey heath, on the sea wall, on the straight sandy coast-road. All the time I longed to have a pair of red shoes. They never came. I stuck to my solid black boots and thought that if Norah was not the P.C.s daughter, a clever theft could be arranged between Robin and me. Such luck was never to be, and I left for School in February wearing my black school shoes (albeit a new pair).

While my children were growing up Rita gave a pair of red boots to Sajani (Numbo's old pair).

Sajani wore them to her playschool. However, I never got to wear a pair of red shoes....not ever.

Silver sandals in the bright and green Gopipur, and red shoes in a blear wintry East Anglian landscape. Two little girls, separated by a whole generation and a half. Yet the difference is so very negligible.