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| Sunil Sethi: Goa's monsoon sosegade | | The towns and villages of Goa turn away from the coast during its long rains |
| Sunil Sethi / New Delhi Sep 19, 2009, 00:08 IST |
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Goa: I usually visit Goa once a year, often to escape the winter chills of the north, but returning after 20 months at the height of the monsoon I find a place quite distinct in pace, atmosphere, colour and contour. The land is verdant, in vivid shades of green, the pale luminosity of the rice paddies offset by deeply wooded hills, with rivers and streams in spate. The estuaries of the Mandovi and Zuari are like lakes; ferry-crossings can take upwards of half an hour. Smaller rivers like the Kushavati in the south, placid as brooks in the dry winter, have swelled with a current so strong that the sound of gushing water fills the luxuriant, dripping foliage like a rain forest.
The towns and villages of Goa turn away from the coast during its long rains. The tides are treacherous and the undertow dangerous; despite several drowning incidents reported each year beach life is virtually at a standstill. Many of the shacks, restaurants and nightclubs are boarded up and won’t reopen till October. Gone is the night market at Anjuna, the trendy cafes on the river Baga and the beautiful German blonde, an ex-Oshoite named Yogini, who dreamily purveys homemade cakes and Italian espresso on her terrace at Villa Blanche. Goa has shed its garb of a crowded, noisy, cosmopolitan resort to shyly display the colours of an intimate backwater.
Locals boldly venture where angels fear to tread. They step into the touristy Calangute-Candolim-Baga stretch, normally avoided like the plague, to collect parcels of bibenca and rum balls at small local confectioneries or drop by to lounge at Literati, Divya Kapur’s famous bookshop which is, in fact, a large drawing room with smaller rooms attached, piled roof-high with thousands of old and new books. To this remarkable lawyer-turned-bookseller from Delhi goes the credit of creating Goa’s best-known literary adda. She will make and serve you coffee herself at this time of the year and forget to charge you, if Frieda, her lolloping Labrador puppy, hasn’t knocked the cup out of your hand already. There are cupboards devoted to second-hand paperbacks at Rs 50 a piece. My purchases included PG Wodehouse and Agatha Christie, ample demonstration of Goan sosegade in the monsoon.
Drip, drip, drip goes the rain, it comes down in sheets or vanishes for hours, and in homes covered with plastic sheeting for protection, Goans dawdle on their balcaos boasting of nephews who’ve made a killing in property or fretting over rare orchids and heliconias brought from Bangkok or Bali that may not take root. “You once wrote of Goa becoming India’s Ibiza but it is sooner likely to become Macau,” said a friend with asperity, referring to the government’s open encouragement of casinos. There are a dozen already, on land and on river boats, and the local press is full of arguments at how promotion of gambling is certain to “ruin the morality of Goa’s youth”.
Leaving the tawdry talk aside I went one morning to Quepem, 13 km south of Margao, where a young couple are engaged in the restoration of an 18th-century bishop’s palace. Ruben Vasco da Gama, a mechanical engineer and his wife Celia, a microbiologist, found the Palacio Do Deao set in elaborate riverside gardens in a bad state of dilapidation in 2002. They have made it their life’s mission to revive its glory. Celia cooks while Ruben walks you round the stately home’s terraces, belvedere and salons which he has filled with fine collections of Indo-Portuguese furniture, stamps, coins and artefacts. We were served an exquisite six-course meal that included stuffed crab, fish encrusted with cashew and breadcrumbs, pumpkin pie and prawns in rechaedo paste. Cost? Rs 500 per head excluding drinks and dessert. Advance booking is necessary but I am happy to change my annual plans to savour Goa’s monsoon pleasures.
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