by George Menezes
writer.george@gmail.com
T. S. Eliot wrote, “April is the cruelest month….” Obviously
he was not a Goan going home. For a Goan going home, it is May that is the cruelest
month. And it gets crueler or “worser” as my friend Leitao Sacrafamilia
used to say, without bothering about his grammar.
Worser because you have to return by air since all other means of transport are already booked, and you realize that your khattli potli which would have included jackfruits, pineapples, kokum, vinegar, dried fish, brooms, jaggery, cashew nuts and feni would never be allowed on the flight.
Anyway, finally, after a gap of many years, you arrive in Goa….. like the missionaries in tribal areas, a little breathless and a little late. And like always, you peel off your Bombay shirt, get into a pair of baggy shorts, the hair on your bare chest bristling in the Goan ambience, and lower your carcass into your grandfather’s voltaire with arms long enough for you to put your feet up forty five degrees in the air. Ah, this is the life.
You get up late, and take a walk through the ancestral property in order to pick up fallen mangoes and return for a soup-plate full of kanji and kalchi koddi.
Disappointing news. There are no fallen mangoes. In fact there are no mangoes, fallen or otherwise, in the entire property. No malcurad, the king of mangoes, and no malgese, the juice-filled ones that go into the making of mango jam.
A blight has ruined the crop. Nasty looking, octopus-tentacled creepers have embraced the trunks of every tree. Fruit trees, you discover, have emotions. They require the loving care and the tender concern of none other than the bhattkar..…the landlord, himself.
Head hanging down in shame, your straw hat in hand as if you are at a funeral procession, you walk home bang into a second catastrophe.
No kalchi koddi. Or shall we say, it does not come up to the standards of the kalchi koddi of yesteryear. Something happened. The coconut was not fresh enough, perhaps. The modern attempt to solidify yesterday's liquid curry on a gas flame in a stainless-steel vessel is not the right and proper way to handle a treasure. You require an earthen pot. You require a gentle fire made of wood and coconut shells lasting the whole night through. Like a beautiful European woman taking a gradual tan under a Goan sun.
As if this were not enough, you make other discoveries of the heart-wrenching innovations of modern Goa. At ladainhas the singing is still in four discordant voices, the gossip still juicy, but the Non-Resident Goan celebrating the Cross Feast is serving Californian salted almonds from a can in place of the gas-inducing boiled gram in a chipped saucer. Worse still, bottles of Scotch are making their shameful appearance on a tray.
“Can I have some urrak, if you don't mind?” you ask meekly. The host looks at you as if you were a toddy tapper. His father comes to your rescue. “Bab,” he says apologetically, “I finished the last kouso a few weeks ago. Can I give you some urrak from a sealed bottle?”
For a day or two you go into a fit of deep depression. What have they done to this, my native land, when I was away? Slowly you realise that the more permanent residents of Goa have taken things in their stride. In fact, welcomed the development with all its evils. It is only you who want the best of both worlds, the modern amenities of Bombay and the old style charm of Goa.
Yet, my beloved Goa is still beautiful. The water in the well of a neighbour who has no tap connection is as fresh as the morning dew. He invites me to partake of its abundant source. The best fish goes to the five-star hotels, yet the family that rents out the sluice-gate (manos) for whose son I found a job, says to me, “Bab, tuka ami nistem dinav zalear, konnank diteleanv?”
That night someone takes you to the tiatr (folk theatre) and for three hours of tears and laughter you are immersed in a Goan sauna…. a nostalgic massage of giant proportions. Goa is still there alive and kicking, it is midnight and all’s right with the world.
As I said before, May is the cruelest month. Not for those
who manage to make it to Goa, but for those of us who cannot.
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A Squadron Leader in the Indian Air Force, a diplomat with
the Indian embassy in Paris, a Director of Human Resources, an award-winning
writer and member of the Pope’s Pontifical Council for the Laity, George
writes with humour and compassion in order to relieve his own stress and to
give insomnia to people who misuse their power.