New Job, First Day; and Taxi from Tivim

(7 Apr ’13)

            Like many, I’m a working woman, not a career one. Like few, I’ve changed not just jobs, but industries. I’ve been a teacher, a librarian, worked in a hotel, a hospital, sold greeting cards to raise funds, helped edit a magazine, and now have joined an upmarket ‘lifestyle’ shop. What’s a lifestyle shop, I asked myself, not having been inside one before. I learnt that it’s a place where you get ‘everything you need’ for a house except appliances, toiletries, groceries, fish-and-fruits, underwear, taps, washers …

What you do get is furniture, curios (dust-worthy things), curtains (sheer and fancy), linen (sorry, no towels, no napkins, only razais, digital cushion-covers and handwoven/block-printed rugs), artefacts (same things as curios), mirrors, bars, bar-stools… in other words, stuff to add style to your life. When you have the money and the will to spend, you go to a lifestyle store. You could spend on charity, but… the way to heaven is paved with ‘buts’.

The money comes in from orders executed on site. Customers flip through albums real or virtual and tell us (I’m part of the ‘us’ for the moment) what they want. Their wish is the carpenter/tailor’s command and they’re happy to be billed for it. My interest lies in the walk-ins. People to stop their taxis (no commission here) to see what this fancy village shop has to sell. They’re on their way to the airport, and they need to pick up gifts for neighbours, cousins, colleagues, parents… urgently. We don’t sell soaps shaped like fish or stars, we don’t sell cashews with skins/naked/roasted/salted/with chocolate, mango or any other flavour, we don’t sell liquor or shell/coconut photo frames, we don’t sell crocheted ‘tops’ or balchao masala, so some go away.

Those who stay to browse are more interested in the air-conditioning, I thought. I was wrong. There are those who sit on something and like it so much that they buy it without bargaining, then and there, they want instant gratification. Some fiddle with items, turn them around, inspect them, put them back, pick up others, spend time aimlessly. There are others who think their spouse will like a particular screen and buy it as a surprise gift, definitely not need-based. This is going to be a great study in human nature. Those who have opted to make Goa their home, first or second, don’t necessarily want an ‘only Goan’ look for their houses. One Goan NRI wanted an authentic antique Cardinal’s Chairs. How many were there to begin with? Were any (chairs, not cardinals) dismantled to make children’s toys or book racks? There seems to be a shortage of them by the looks of it.

 Am looking forward to another chapter in my life.

My favourite topics to end each column are water resources/shortages, garbage disposal and public transport. Today it’s the turn of the taxis. I took a pre-paid from Tivim to Sangolda. At the end of the ride, the driver was in a bad mood because he guessed (wrongly) that we were in Porvorim. Whether he threw a tantrum at the counter on his return to the station, I don’t know, but his nastiness was uncalled for and left a bad impression on us. When I read out his number-plate, he said, “What else do you want, my mobile number? Take. Complain. Do what you want.” Sadly, friends and family tell me that such rudeness is the norm. I usually travel by bus, hence have a poor audit sample of taxi-drivers’ behaviour. I have no idea whether Parrikar’s government has the will or wish to improve the public transport system. The attitude of the owners, drivers, conductors and overcharging can’t be changed by the government alone. Unless Goans themselves want a change and insist upon it, we will continue to be cowed down by the bullies. I wonder if there is any other place in the country where passengers pay a return fare for a one-way journey. And that too way above what the actual per kilometre rate should be. As in the case of mining, garbage or water, we Goans will react only when we are in deep trouble. I’m waiting for the deep trouble to start. Earlier the better, for only then will we passengers/customers react. Que sera, sera.

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If the Big Bad Flood Had Happened in Goa

(30 Jun ’13)

            We’ve never been as unlucky as Orissa or Uttaranchal with cyclones and floods, to some extent because the west coast (exception: Gujarat) has never borne the brunt of Nature’s fury as much as the east. Another reason is that the Brits in Mumbai and the Portuguese in Goa did something called ‘planning’ for towns and villages, a concept our ancestors kind of understood, now alien to us. In spite of having ‘decent’ rains year after year, Goan housing colonies and hotels still buy tankers of water. But we’re not talking about our fiscal stupidity here.

            Suppose, just suppose, a calamity of Uttaranchal’s proportion happened here. Since we’re fighting for special status, first we’ll cry ourselves hoarse for the centre to help us. When the water has risen above our ankles, the auto-rick guys would charge Rs 500 from St Inez to Caculo Mall. Taxis and pilots would accordingly hike their fees. You can calculate the cost for other distances.

Milk, sugar, bread and fuel would suddenly go ‘black’. Fish wouldn’t be a problem. We eat anything that swims. In a flood, should the larvae of amphibian and insects grow beyond three inches, we’d be happy to catch, fry or chuck them into gravies.

            Gravies remind me of coconuts and the trees they grow on. If the water goes above a couple of metres high and thanks to the plastic clogged naalaas doesn’t flow into the sea, (that would happen soon enough), we’d have to get onto slimy, slippery, unsafe rooftops or up the safe and sturdy emblem of Goa, the coconut palm. Problem here: it’ll be too late to take tree-climbing lessons and it’s unlikely that the bhailley who we hire to do the job (“oh-so-sloppily” we complain) will agree to take us piggy-back for money or love or threat. Forget climbing the roofs and palms, so used to wheels are we that without our bikes, scooters and cars, we’ll have to depend on our limbs: that’s a disaster in itself. Except for trained sportspersons and the getting-extinct hands-on Goan farmer… only doctors know whether and where our thigh and calf muscles exist. We make up with the strength of our jaws, but in or under water, of what use with that be to us?

            Once the number of dead and affected rises beyond the combined fingers of the Legislative Assembly Members, the Government will call in the Defence Forces. It would be a shame to call in the very Navy that we didn’t want in our state. The uniformed guys won’t say “we’ll save only Karwar or Sindhudurg”, will they? They’re not like us, they do their jobs and they do them well. They’ve proved this time and again, whether they’re dealing with enemies, or children who’ve fallen into wells, earthquakes, naphtha leaks or floods. In fact, we’ll be dependent on the people we’ve always cribbed about: the cops, the fire-brigade, the municipality workers, the labourers from the NE, Bihar, UP, Andhra, Kerala, etc.

            Our village brethren will no doubt bury all hatchets and help save each others’ dukors and mhashee. After the floods recede, we will ask for our pound of flesh for sure. Our television media will hyperventilate about how we didn’t have enough ghee to cremate the Hindu dead (do the dead have a religion?) nor any blessed land to bury the Muslims/Christians/Jews. NRIs will weep over heritage lost. Only a few will start: 1. Taking classes for children so they don’t lose out on their learning years, 2. Prepare for prevention of epidemics by disposing of decaying corpses, 3. Building shelters of all kinds, 4. Collecting and distributing food, water, clothing. In spite of what the tv channels say and we moan about, it’s the government machinery alone that does most for rehabilitation. The others do fringe work. Some even believe that techniques of meditation and prayer-chants are more important than availability of drinking water, medical aid and dealing with sewage.

            I read on the Net someone’s comment. Not verbatim: “… a shrine was ‘disturbed’, hence this calamity happened.” When will we learn that our heritage lies in our thoughts and behaviour? Principles and skills must and do outlast buildings and statues. If we face a calamity of this proportion in Goa, what will we mourn most? Destruction of our temples/churches? Our value system? Language? What?

            Lots will happen after the floods. NGOs will spring up to take care of the welfare of mosses, rodents, oldies, babies, and now that our Freedom Fighters are on their way off the planet, will demand free railway passes and pensions for their ‘causes’.

            Dear fellow Goemkars, we have to learn from Uttranchal’s tragedy. Now.

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Fatima’s Mango Branches and Ulhas’ Butterflies.

(1 Jun ’13)

            In the last century and a bit into this one, Fatima M Noronha (no, she isn’t that old, it was the turn of the ‘twentieth) used to send me, by regular post, a cyclostyled (this happened before ‘photocopying’ came into our lives) letter. It was an annual ritual. I would read that letter aloud to all at home, as much for the news about her great-aunts and grand-nephews as for the prose. She wrote in quaint English, the kind I used to read in primary and secondary school. She used quotes and apt foreign phrases. Carefully chosen words described events, eccentricities and brought alive people I was never going to meet. An abrupt goodbye to a nomadic lifestyle and a shift to a much smaller abode forced me to abandon (hate to use the word ‘throw’) that bundle of letters. I’d carried them around for years. Had pcs been around then, I’d have scanned and saved them in a folder in drive D. Other ‘chosen’ friends confided that they, too, used to read them over again, so well did the letters hold one’s interest.

            That was when Fatima was setting up home in distant Tamil Nadu or Rajasthan. Now a Vasco resident, Fatima has moved on from writing family newsletters, theses on religion (not my scene) to creatively presenting Goan life through her short fiction (my scene). I expected much from her Stray Mango Branches. She has lived up to that expectation. She has held each tale at the end and twisted it. Makes one want to read more.  I was disappointed in a way, because only half the book contained stories: the last few essays were vignettes. I wish the publisher had insisted that she write one book on stories and the other on slices of life. She would have done justice to both. Still might. Someone from Sangolda (hint, hint) needs to push her. Also, illustrations bring words to life. The next time, a good artist must be her companion.

            The fact that author F Noronha and publisher F Noronha aren’t related needs to be mentioned here: both the kinds that are good for Goa’s image, kind and cultured and literary aficionados.

            I get the most interesting visitors to my little abode in Sangolda. Like Fatima has done a couple of times, Ulhas Rane, son-in-law of late Dr Ernest Borges (the road leading to the University from Bambolim is named after him) came home for an informal meal. I have learnt to introduce people by their relatives ever since I’ve come ‘home’ to roost. It matters not what the modern, developed, western world thinks about discretion, etc, that’s how we Indians are, Goans in particular, so there.

            Ulhas is an architect, also a person with vast knowledge of trees, birds, insects… butterflies in particular. Along with Fatima’s Stray Mango Branches, I’d carried Ulhas’ Adbhutachya Goshti along when I went on holiday to Assam and Meghalaya recently. I wish more people wrote in the vernacular. I wish more people read in the vernacular. This book is a great way to introduce the north east to west-coast folk. It introduced me to the life of research scientists, explorers and also how the study of butterflies affects our lives. Indirectly. Where they live, the trees that support their caterpillars, the flowers that they hover around are just pretty things to be aah-ed at. Their role in the environment dictates our health. The air we breathe, the herbs that make our medicines… even the rain that water the crops that we eat is affected by forests with large trees. The cycle is complicated. Ulhas’ book might not go down as Marathi’s contribution to Indian literature. But it is has definitely set high standards and a trend.  Anyone who has ever admired a butterfly and enjoyed its flight and who knows to read Marathi will enjoy the read. A trained professional with a scientific temper, Ulhas has churned out a novel to fulfil a promise to a friend who died unexpectedly. He did this in a month’s time, quite an achievement for one who had not written fiction before.

            Goans and their extended family members are putting the state on the literary map of India. Surely and not so slowly either.

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Dial 108 and Goan Traits.

(21 Apr ’13)

            I got the opportunity to test Goa’s unique ambulance service in the middle of the night when my mother took ill suddenly. I was pleased with the experience. The phone was picked up promptly when I called. The person who picked it up asked relevant questions in a language I understood, and without an heavy accent that often makes comprehension difficult.  The driver was provided with a phone for getting to the house with personalized directions. The vehicle arrived within the promised time limit. The staff attending to my mother, Yvette, was brisk, professional and very polite. The concern showed. Hope all are like her. The problem most of us face is of manpower to lift the loaded stretcher. Unless one has young male neighbours to lend a hand, this is something that needs to be looked at. This is a free service, and one can’t have extra hands on board. That apart, 108 did give commendable service.

            In all my previous jobs, the atmosphere was cosmopolitan. This is the first time my colleagues are true-blue Goans who have not stepped out of their village(s) and who are not in the age-group to change or learn new stuff easily.  It’s interesting to note that they will talk behind each others’ backs but be very sweet to the face. How courteously they talk: can be misleading. Yesterday, when the tempo driver came later than at the time agreed to, my only non-Goan colleague gave everybody a lecture on punctuality. The chap was to report at 2 pm. He did, only to inform that he’s returning after lunch. So for our purpose, he arrived 45 minutes late. Strangely, everyone took the tempo-fellow’s side, saying that he was a ‘good chap’. Why was he a good chap? Because he lent a hand with the luggage and loading (as did the ambulance driver above, I must add). The other strange reason was: he didn’t mind if he was paid late. Why is that considered a ‘good thing’? Why do we not pay on time as the norm, I asked. No we do, the old-timers said, but you know, he doesn’t mind it, doesn’t ask for the money, they repeated over again. Strange are the ways of Goa and Goans, I thought.

            Two of the staff had to go to Vasco without warning. Everybody was reduced to tears like they were going on a long journey. Call an air-conditioned car, suggested one. The owner of the business said ‘bus it’. The eyes and shoulders gave indications of unwillingness. Bus? In the afternoon? Bus? All the way to Vasco? When would they reach? What will happen to their lunch (ah, this question was SO important)? Each question was fielded, answered, and they had to leave. “Never done it before” they grumbled as they bid the others ‘bye. Till they returned safely and soundly, it was live tiatr time in the office.

            Unlike most places I’ve worked in, here snakes visit my office through the window.  My true-blue Goan colleagues are unfazed by their wriggly arrival. They play around for a bit with a rolled newspaper and then toss the reptiles back into the flora outside. I remember once a pigeon had flown into the library of the hospital where I used to work and there was chaos with people running helter-skelter in panic as if they’d been hit by a bomb. Goans are ok with Nature; at least the villagers.

            Dealing with customers is another thing. They’re polite and courteous. They’re so nice that they are ready to part with items without asking for payment. “He can give later, no” used to be the attitude in the beginning, one of the owners told me. I’ve inherited a ‘trained’ bunch that knows that money must be asked for. They have yet to learn to keep track of who came, make a data base, follow up cases, advertise wares and market the goods aggressively like the Delhites do. Am glad at that reticence, though, for I hate to get badgered into buying anything, and expect others hate it too.

            My new job is in a place that deals with luxury stuff. Surprising how many Goans are interested in such things. I thought Goans were simple and weren’t good consumers. I was wrong. Wrong. There’s a lot of money floating around just waiting to be spent. And willing spenders digging into their pockets. I’m looking forward to writing about the customers in future stories. Love their quirks and eccentricities. Lots of fodder for my column!! Ha!

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