“By the time we reached Palolem, sweaty and grimy, we should have been tired, but were all charged instead. The bulbless, fanless rooms, the banyan standing sentinel in the aangan, and the loving Aaji-Bai did the trick.”
By Sheela Jaywant
The men of the Gaitonde family were rarely seen in the ancestral house. The Portuguese had left; the cry aamchey Goyen aamkaa jaay (our Goa must be ours) still echoed around; it wasn’t yet certain whether the Union Territory would be merged with Maharashtra. The villagers kept their distance from my politically active family; my eldest uncle, Dr. Pundalik, had, in the 1940s, done an unthinkable thing. He married a Portuguese girl, Edila, who lived with the family for some years. Remarkably, family accepted her unconditionally. (She’ll be hundred in 2020, in good health, in Portugal, a valued mami to four generations.)
Pundalik left India after Liberation and settled in England. He visited Canacona once every few years. The youngest uncle, Shivanand, had been jailed by the Portuguese for his participation in ‘the struggle’ against them and had gone to stay with Pundalik to catch up with his studies. The only brother in Goa, Adv. Madhusudan, lived in Vasco. My aunts too, lived outside of Goa. All nine siblings had done their primary schooling in the Marathi school at Chavdi, and then shifted to Murmugoa for the secondary level. Except the youngest two, the girls were married by the age of sixteen. Most of the grandchildren were born in the tiny room next to the coconut store. Not uncommon in those days, my grandmother and one of her daughters were pregnant simultaneously. Aunts and cousins were sometimes born days or weeks or months apart: two generations sharing a birth-year.
I was five years old. Palolem had no electricity, no running water. On its narrow, tarred road ran a bus that arrived and departed once, in the morning. Coconut trees dominated the landscape. Mango and jackfruit trees shaded homes and schools. Peepuls marked public areas like temples and schools. Fragrant mogras and juis hugged front-gates. Pigs squealed around, buffaloes with laterally spreading horns blocked paths and all it took was a little twig and a loud ‘ho-ho’ sound to bully them out of the way. Emerald rice-fields stretched, met the azure sky at the horizon.
The beach, vell, was a few metres from the house. The only footprints on the sand were of the raaponnkars and we cousins who came to spend our summer vacations here, from Bombay.
My maternal grandmother, Aaji, and her ‘child-widow’ sister-in-law, Bai, were both clad in crimson cotton saris, sans ornaments, and felled by stroke or illness. We clubbed them together as one entity, called them ‘Aaji-Bai’.
“A BEST-bus-ride from home to the docks at dawn, carrying our ‘hold-alls’ and packed meals. Oversized, heavy bottles covered with damp cloths kept the water cool. Luggage included, for travel-sickness prone creatures like me, an empty tin of Dalda.”
When we arrived, their caretaker, Alka, yelled like we weren’t expected. The old ladies cried in joy. Bai lay in a corner, upon neatly folded layers of clean sheets, her frail frame, possibly arthritic, painfully curled up in a foetal position. Aaji sat upon a bed, legs dangling lifelessly, resting against a thin pillow propped against the wall behind her. Both had bald gums. They incessantly moved their chins, drooled, and found it difficult to form words correctly. An odour of decay hovered around them.
Our journey to Palolem is noteworthy.
My parents had shifted to Mumbai (Bombay then) in the ‘fifties for education or/and earning a living. Like thousands of others born and educated outside Goa my summer vacation began in a Chowgule steamship.
A BEST-bus-ride from home to the docks at dawn, carrying our ‘hold-alls’ and packed meals. Oversized, heavy bottles covered with damp cloths kept the water cool. Luggage included, for travel-sickness prone creatures like me, an empty tin of Dalda. Plus, Bata shoes, Champion Oats, Polson’s Custard Powder, Horlicks, even peas, carrots and apples, for those weren’t available in our ‘Native Place’. On the return, we carried dried fish, jackfruits, coconuts, sacks of rice, dabbas of laddoos, chivdas, sun-dried saats and saandges. No wine.
On board, we’d try to spot faces from the previous year who, like us, were doing a temporary migration, flats locked, school-books in tow, to villages along the Konkan coast, down till Mangalore.
We children ran up and down the stairs from the swank but uninteresting cabin area to the crowded but exciting lower-deck full of people, fowl, pressure-cookers, furniture, cages, plastic buckets, sacks of potatoes, etc.
By day, mats and sheets were moved on the deck, as the sun strode across the sky, to keep in the shade. At night, was a halt at Ratnagiri. A swaying rope-and-wood ladder was lowered to a row-boat that bobbed alongside. Children went first, then the luggage, then adults. It was done by the light of a lantern, with much yelling. Strong hands and a good sense of balance were the only safety measures.
The ambience was more rustic than urban. Everyone, on the way to their ancestral roots, spoke in Konkani. Even the Catholics who otherwise spoke English and the Hindus who preferred Marathi.
Getting off at Panaji was a relief for those who’d spent twenty-four hours battling nausea. For us, it meant a brief halt of two days in Mapusa, at a maushi’s home, which had a deep well attached to the kitchen wall, dogs and a yard bursting with bougainvillea. Next, we embarked on another twelve-hour journey, by bus, which involved the crossing of the Mandovi and the Zuari by ferry.
“We were taught to walk around the tullas, keeping it always to the right, to brush our teeth with tender mango leaves, to weave aboli blossoms into loose faatyo and the fragrant pink madhu-malti into vennyo, using our fingers, toes and banana-fibres. ”
By the time we reached Palolem, sweaty and grimy, we should have been tired, but were all charged instead. The bulbless, fanless rooms, the banyan standing sentinel in the aangan, and the loving Aaji-Bai did the trick.
There were hundreds of shells to be investigated on the beach, the raapponn to choose the next meal from, and the coir smouldering ‘neath our bathwater. Forays to the toilet were with escort, lest a snorting pig chomp off a slice of flesh. The chute upon which our undigested food material was gobbled still exists. The tin shed that stood above it has collapsed into ruin.
We were taught to walk around the tullas, keeping it always to the right, to brush our teeth with tender mango leaves, to weave aboli blossoms into loose faatyo and the fragrant pink madhu-malti into vennyo, using our fingers, toes and banana-fibres. No hotel can reproduce a fraction of the Real Goan Experience: the smell of food cooked in coconut oil over wood fires in mud chools, the low windows, blackened walls: indeed, no chef today can make a decent mooga shaak or a sukh-baangdya kismor. Some foods, like the pearly oysters, motiyan kalwan, and kaleraa khaapan, have probably become extinct. The huge hemispherical stone ragdo ground to a fine paste coconut flesh. And the jaati made rice-flour for bhakryo. Today, those implements adorn our gardens.
Games like drive-a-bicycle-as-slow-as-you-can, how many coconuts can you break in a given time, and langdee races may still be held in village sports’ meets today. Maybe.
The villagers, gaped at us: “They’re wearing shoes,” somebody remarked once, “these city-types think they are paklos?
One fellow spat that he had, actually, sat in a car once. And he knew, he had seen, the trees running alongside the road. A cousin mimicked him. Bai heard that. She couldn’t see well, but she could hear clearly. Aaji couldn’t hear too well, but didn’t have cataract. Aaji-Bai chorused: “They are fair, plump. Alka, get rid of the drusht.”
“Later,” the uncomplaining Alka replied.
“Have you washed the rice thoroughly?” Bai asked her.
“Your grandchildren won’t get a single weevil or stone in their rice. I’ve ruined my eyes cleaning the grains.” The ever-obedient Alka was always scurrying. If someone itched, Alka scratched for them, guided by their instructions. Their sparse hair was tightly tied into little knots behind their heads. Necks stuck out from drooping shoulders, hunched backs, hollow chests. Wrapped in nine-yard saris, neither wore a blouse. The loose padar, covered their torso.
“Start frying the fish,” Aaji-Bai ordered. “Hurry. But, before lunch, get rid of the Evil Eye. Throw four red chillies and a fistful of mustard seeds into the fire. Make sure they splutter.”
We, teenagers smirked: “…superstitions…”
“You aren’t afraid of the Evil Eye?” Aaji-Bai chorused.
“No.”
Exclaimed the grannies, “The Evil Eye doesn’t affect the brave.”
The only adult male, Sudanmama’s voice boomed through the thick, mud walls at mealtimes. “Everybody, washed your feet? Hands? Go in, then.”
Unpacking. The ‘hold-all’ was a large, rectangular green canvas sheet with large pockets at either ends, that held pillows, shoes, gifts, old clothes for Alka, new saris for Aaji-Bai, steel utensils, an umbrella, books, underwear, footwear, talcum powder, soap, even one bedpan.
“So useful,” was Aaji-Bai’s appreciative comment when the last item was displayed. Was it expensive?
We had got them a toy phone to show what a phone looked like.
“The rice and curries agitatedly bubbled in brass cauldrons on the wood-lit stoves which squatted in a row in the kitchen; fish-fillets sizzled in coconut-oil alongside them on a griddle. ”
Every evening, we cousins, in turn, touched the feet of the elders and bowed before the family deities, our prayer a simple four-liner:
‘Shubham karotikalyanam: may the flame make us prosper
Aarogyam dhana sampada: give us wealth and health
Shatrubuddhi vinashaya: perish all evil thoughts
Deepak jyoti namostu tay : namaste to that flame/light
The rice and curries agitatedly bubbled in brass cauldrons on the wood-lit stoves which squatted in a row in the kitchen; fish-fillets sizzled in coconut-oil alongside them on a griddle. Aromatic smoke added micro-thickness to the blackened walls. We sat on individual wooden platforms, paats, on the floor.
Aaji-Bai were proud that we spoke English. We told them how we lived, about electric switches, bulbs, indoor toilets, gas-stoves and more.
After meals, the floor was smeared with cow-dung. Alka spread her fingers to make circular designs; it looked pretty when it dried. We described to Aaji-Bai the tiles in our apartments. Glazed, smooth, white and clean that could be wiped so they’d look like new. No one used dung anywhere, anymore, we said.
We were fond of making rangolis. On the dung floor, either at the front door or around the taats in the kitchen, we took some rice flour—or the special soft white sand kept in a rough mud vessel-- and entered the boundless realm of our imagination. Our themes stretched from sketches of Shanta Durga, to flora and fauna. The rangoli skill is simple, its scope unlimited, a short journey from simple dots to lines to complicated designs. Outside the front door, stylized doodles of mangoes and bananas, fish and tortoises, peacocks and parrots, the local flowers and the festivals that celebrated their existence were drawn on a base of soft red-mud paste (geru). Sometimes we made a tiny motif in a corner and put a vermilion hibiscus on it. Or a lit wick-lamp, pannti. The stylized feet of Laxmi, drawn in white and red were a common motif.
At times, we regularly placed dots, within a square, and joined them by angular geometric lines, or wove a curved pattern around and in-between them. When filled with colours, the designs came joyfully alive. The skill, like cooking and stitching, was learnt through observation and participation, passed on from one generation to the next. A tediously toiled-over masterpiece wasn’t swept away, but kept for neighbours to appreciate for a couple of days. No rangoli can be repeated, and none is permanent. The vibrant hues and intricate designs are swept away with the setting of the sun and new creations made on the morrow.
One memory is of the raaponn. When the boats came in, the fishermen jumped out, shouting out cues to each other, and stood in two lines, side by side, ready to drag in the heavy net. They pulled together, all together, swaying in unison, back and forth, then steadying themselves again… there was rhythm in their limbs and a song in every breath. The nets were alive with silver grey fish gasping, trapped, fluttering. The fishermen continued to pull-relax, pull-heave, as their ancestors had been doing since time immemorial.
Choosing fish for meals was serious business. What would the family enjoy? The delicate slender, translucent muddashi, the flat, scaly sole-like lepem, the triangular, perfectly edged white meaty pamplate, or the strongly flavoured bony tarley, which closely resembled the plump bangde? Each species had its own distinct method of cooking to enhance its taste and texture. The buyer had to bear in mind which member of the family was fond of which variety, and how often that had been cooked in gravy or fried in the last many days.
The coconut-tree-climbers, randhers, sitting on their haunches, inhaling long drags of smoke from their bidis, were rugged men with thick, tanned skins, naked except for the loin-cloth into whose string was tucked their solitary implement—the sharp-edged, curved koyti. During paddo, coconut-harvesting, the counting and felling of coconuts took them the whole day. They had to finish the job before sunset. Only then would they get their share of coconuts, rice or toddy. Unless they completed the task, they weren’t allowed to tap the sap to make their soro..
Every flowering-shrub had a role to play in worship. The curly-petalled, red hibiscus was offered to Ganapati. The fragrant, long leaves of the kevda; the strong smelling, tiny bakul, the white, elegant shevanti and the pretty aboli were Shantadurga's flowers. Krishna got the flame-centred parijat, and the regal, sturdy champa was placed at Shiva’s feet.
Velvet afternoons were times for needle-work. One needed respite from the gloom of the monsoons when one was restricted to the indoors for days, even weeks at a stretch. Aaji made rag-dolls look like the peasant gawdi women who sold vegetables in the market; the ones with the red checked sari and the necklace of coins and beads. She made them from the bits and pieces of fabric she collected from the blouses that she hand-stitched.
Stories were woven around the crude wooden dolls bought at the local weekly market. Myths and legends found their way into these stories: like about the parrots painted on diagonally opposite corners on the wooden paats placed on the floor and sat upon for meals. The green parrots stood out against the red and yellow, brightly coloured background of those paats. They dispelled the gloom of the dank interiors of those old ancestral village homes and brought cheer at weddings, poojas, births and other auspicious occasions.
We girls wore parkars (long skirts). They were made from old silk saris. The fabrics of different colours were matched and made like a patchwork quilt. Aubergine purple, mustard yellow, vermillion red, sky-blue, henna green, rose pink... no blacks or whites.
In the balcão, we sat around on santrees, and amused ourselves with a small mirror, bouncing a ray of sunlight on tree trunks, the windows and the ceiling.
Aaji-Bai asked us about our lives. A cousin had flown in a plane. They didn’t understand what it felt like to be in the sky. They were in awe that she had experienced something they never would. How could something that was not a bird, fly?
We were their link to a world beyond the 24x7 fear of death. Once, we asked what would happen if one of them died. Aaji pragmatically replied: “The other will live on.”
“Aaji-Bai, in our flats, water flows out from taps. We have electric geysers and proper bathrooms. There are two or maybe four flats per floor in buildings. And four, or even ten floors in a building.” We drew a sketch to describe what a building, a street, looked like.
Said Bai: “These children have our genes, our blood, and they can read, write, draw.”
“You are confusing literacy with intelligence, Aaji-Bai,” we said comfortingly. “You calculated and stocked provisions needed for an entire year, supervised the harvesting of the coconuts and the threshing of the rice. Without stepping out of the house. You made preserves.”
Long forgotten pride fibrillated in the aged hearts. They blushed.
They had once learnt to write with chalk, on a slate. We gave them pencils and helped each write her name on paper. Bai tremulously sang a song. Tunelessly, but in rhythm. Aaji said, “Her song, her words.”
“You wrote it?” we asked.
“Can’t write,” said Bai.
“When did you make it up?”
“I was about your age.”
“You still remember it?”
“There are others. Most I have forgotten.”
The load-bearing walls had few, small windows and no paint. The pyramid-shaped tiled roof rose above wooden beams that rested on a central tree trunk, the main pillar of the house. A thin cloud of cobwebs dispersed the sunlight that entered through the glass pieces on the roof. At night, petromax lanterns dispelled the darkness. We tried to explain to Aaji-Bai what electricity was. For them, it was fantasy.
“You know what a switch is? It’s on the wall. You press it, it makes a “pit” sound, and the bulbs come on.” Bulb? Wires? We laughed at their ignorance. They joined in, not considering it ridicule but fun.
Aaji-Bai had sisters, cousins, sisters-in-law, nieces, etc. Only men-folk had friends.
They told us about other members of the family, characters that lived in the village, the days of their youth. Untouched by ‘civilization’ it was a life of routine, little drama, robust struggle. Barter was still in kind, currency they did not own. Music, dance, drama, was never witnessed.
We told them about blackboards in schools, women teachers---wearing skirts, girls swimming in large pools, cycling, traveling alone by train. Under the Portuguese, they had information only by word of mouth. For every event, even to name a baby or print a wedding invitation, permission had to be sought from the local police-station. Liberation had made no difference to their lives. They were ‘destined’ to cook, clean, tidy, chop, peel, wash. Families were large, tasks endless.
What happened after we left? Did our voices ring in their ears? Did they discuss what we told them about the cinema, the blender-mixers? Did they look forward to our getting them spectacles? We had promised we would.
Or did they just wait for our next visit, after eleven months?
Sheela Jaywant is a humour columnist, travel-writer and some of her stories have won international prizes. Widely anthologised, her single-author anthologies include, Quilted: Stories of Middleclass India (2003) and The Liftman and Other Stories (2009).
The banner picture is courtesy of Marius Fernandes and is representative of rural Goa, not Palolem.