-Brian Mendonça
Travelling back from a hectic day in Panjim, I was, as usual, headed South. Night had fallen. I had already negotiated the ghostly spectre of the Taleigao plateau in the lonely reaches before I met the junction at GMC.
Travelling back from a hectic day in Panjim, I was, as usual, headed South. Night had fallen. I had already negotiated the ghostly spectre of the Taleigao plateau in the lonely reaches before I met the junction at GMC.
Thinking about the event of
the day I was keen to unwind. It was 8 p.m. Getting to Benaulim for the Big
Bang Blues concert at GoaChitra seemed out of the question. This was a pity,
since I had viewed a UTube clip that morning of Shivam Khare(keyboard)
performing as if there was no tomorrow. As the city winded down the firelight
glowed in the villages.
I was hungry. Ravenous. It’s true the food at the Taj
Vivanta – Tango 1, they call it – was delicious with the chicken cafreal and
all, but on a Friday night I was in a mood for more. It had to be Elena’s delicious sausage pau on the Agassaim road. For a taste of
Goa it was unbeatable.
As I approached the junction at Agassaim coming from Panjim in
the inky darkness I turned left. A new world opened up to me. Rather than a
bald bypass hurtling to destination almost in virtual time, I was transported
to a Goa 20 years back. Nothing had
changed. I remembered ‘Last Bus to Vasco’ --the poem I had written in 1987 --
when as a youth I travelled on the KTC buses– usually alone – back home to
Vasco.
Suddenly, I felt young once more.
The same emotions of my youth surged through me. Then, as now, I used to
observe the vignettes of village life, the characters coming to life, as it
were, from a Mario Miranda cartoon. Struggling to keep my hands on the wheel,
my eyes went this way and that like a child in a fair. There in the distance to
my right loomed the massive Agassaim church. To the left amid dim lights, weary
souls asked for their tot, or in yesteryears played carom.
This was the Goa I knew. It was right there before me, to
touch, to hold, to preserve. As frenetic
Goans chose the highway, I chose my way. This was a Goa which welcomed
me and brought me home. Straight roads which get straight to the point bore me.
Give me a winding road, any day. The sausage pau was delicious. Bound by a
common heritage I asked in Konkani whether she had visited Old Goa. No
explanations were needed. It was December, and there was only one thing I was
referring to – the feast of Francis Xavier on December 3rd.
Elena sells her signature sausage pau outside her Goan house, by the roadside. A family business, you
can always count on her to be there just before the Agassaim road meets the main road up ahead.
In Vasco, a Goan lad has a cart on which he sells omelets. But his best is
mutton soup. The lemon drink which Elena offers is manufactured in the house
opposite. In their quiet ways they sometimes struggle to make a living.
The old roads of Goa bring back old memories. The healing of
the past is always rejuvenating.
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Published in Weekender by Gomantak Times (St. Inez, Goa) on Sunday 20 Jan 2013. Pix courtesy know (dot) burp.com
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