My Goan Holiday

 

The lesser known Goa, through my lens

Goa had been on my bucket list for the longest time- almost three decades from the time I graduated from university. We holidayed at places not on the bucket list but somehow Goa kept getting pushed to the backburner. The holiday finally happened early this year, with me in my mid fifties and my husband a solid sixty. But no regrets about that: this was the first holiday the husband and I took alone since the arrival of the first child some 28 years back. And it worked!

We were in Goa for five magical days. I had heard a lot from people about the place – and from that had images of sun kissed tourists dressed in lovely beach wear, drinking feni and indulging in PDA firmly entrenched in my mind. We landed in Goa all prepared to be the proverbial uncle ji and aunty ji, but soon realized that the place lets you be yourself.

Half the charm of the holiday was that we stayed at my husband’s cousin’s place. Cousin is a retired babu who, very wisely, bought himself a very cute villa in north Goa post retirement. He stays half the year in Goa and the other half in Delhi. The six months he is in Goa, family and friends make sure he is never alone. When we were at his place, his younger brother- another retired babu- was also staying with him. The housekeeper is a very pleasant Nepalese, who makes the most awesome food. I finally mastered the art of making upma from her- as also the thinnest softest moong ki daal chillas. A young boy, forever smiling, serves as the Man Friday.

Our daughter, considering herself a Goa veteran, had made a detailed day wise itinerary which included the ‘must see’ spots as per her and her friends. But when we returned from our holiday and exchanged notes, she had a blank look at almost all the places we mentioned! That’s when I decided to pen my own ‘Must visit Goa spots’ for all kindred souls who want to experience this charming city away from all the normal touristy spots.

 

 

The places we ate at:

Cafe Chocolatti

Café Chocolatti is on Fort Aguada Road in Candolim. It is a charming place, with outside seating and the sun peeping in through lush green palms and other tropical foliage. We went twice here, both times for our mid morning coffee. Definitely a must visit.

Amavi by Sumera

Amavi is in Calangute. We visited the place for dinner on our second night.  Smart décor, live music and singing and a great European menu even for vegetarians like the four of us.

 

 

 

 

Mum’s Kitchen 

A must visit, Mum’s Kitchen is in Panjim. When you enter the place, you feel you are entering someone’s well maintained residence. 

 

 

 

 

Mum’s Kitchen is a celebration of Goan legacy: recipes that have been handed down from one generation to the next. The place also has an extremely well appointed washroom, proving that small spaces too can be done up well !

The husband enjoying his relaxed afternoon at Mum’s

 

 

 

Bhojan in Hotel Fidalgo

Fidalgo in Panaji has a restaurant serving authentic Gujariti – Marathi food in huge thalis. Bhojan is a no fuss place with amazing food- which just keeps on coming. Go here on an empty tummy:)

Mojigao

The place is located in a forested and well landscaped part of Assagaon. The cafe at Mojigao offers delectable vegetarian and vegan items on the menu, with fresh fruit juices and delicious desserts. This eco haven in Assagao is a must experience.

 

The Lazy Dog

                      

The Lazy Dog is located at the back of Mandrem beach and is the perfect location to view the beautiful beach. It has comfortable settees and chairs for drinks or dining. The varied menu offers light snacks to a full meal. Nice!

Places we visited and recommend

Altinho Hill

If there is an address to die for in Goa, then it is Altinho Hill. The hill has a picture perfect location and offers a splendid view of the city from the hilltop. It neighbours Panaji and houses the Archbishop's Palace, the house of the Chief Minister, the All India Radio Station and Government Servant Quarters.

                                              The Archbishop's Palace

Reis Magos Fort

The Reis Magos Fort is located in North Goa and is a must visit. The short walk up from the main road is a delight to traverse. Reis Magos fort was originally a fortess and later used as a jail.

                    

            

The fort is extremely well maintained and probably offers the best view in the whole of Goa

 

Museum of Goa

Another memorable part of our trip to Goa was our visit to the Museum of Goa, a private museum conceptualized by Mr. Subodh Kerkar. Art exhibitions are held here throughout the year. The day of our visit, Mr Subodh Kelkar was there, happily mingling with the visitors and answering questions. We purchased a lovely print from the Souvenir shop. The girl at the shop got it framed in wood for us within fifteen minutes. We spent that time chatting with Mr Kelkar.

 

Friday Night Market at Little Vagator

The Friday night market is again a must visit- if only to soak in the ambience and atmosphere. It has great live music, with DJs and the whole works, food, shops/ stalls. Parking is free and the whole thing is well organized.

 

 

 

Mario Miranda’s Gallery

Mario Gallery at Calangute was an absolute delight. The artist’s body of work is on display, as are curios, posters, cushions, lamp shades, prints etc. We spent a very enjoyable couple of hours browsing through Mario Miranda’s vision of Goa.

The Quirky entrance to Mario’s gallery

 

 

 

Fab India Gallery in North Goa

We went to Fab India because our host wanted to pick up some spreads. The place is on my list only because it is one of the very well-appointed Fab India outlet- comparable, if not better, to any Delhi outlet.

Fountainhas Walk by Make it Happen

This walk definitely has to be one of the highlights of our trip. Fontainhas is not only the oldest but the largest Latin quarter of Asia. The walk guide was a young enthusiastic Goan who took us through the whole walk without losing either his smile or his energy.

We saw heritage homes

A hindu heritage home

 

 

 

 

 

Portuguese architecture

 

 

Met some wonderful people

 

 

 

 

Ate delicacies from the oldest bakery in Goa

 

And met a renowned Goan musician who played Fado and Latin music for us. The Make it Happen guys are definitely doing a good job.

 

We also did these

Saw ‘Jimmy’s House’ from far. Jimmy apparently was another Vijay Mallya type tycoon. Entertained film stars and politicians and threw lavish parties. Hasina Maan Jayegi was shot in his house.

Took the Dolphin ride (comme ci comme ca), saw quite a few churches (beautiful), indulged in a Spa session( expensive), saw the old and the new light house, drank fresh sugarcane juice, went for morning walks and ate fresh pois daily.

And then some more poi ! If food is religion in Goa, then it starts with paos and pois from family-run bakeries.  In fact, poi can be a meal in itself, with fresh salad vegetables. We had them slathered with melted butter and sinful garlic cheese. The poi delivery boys (called ‘poder’) cycle to every house at dawn and dusk, announcing their arrival with a ringing of the cycle bell.

I also ‘did’ a weekly local market- it was quaintness and sweetness personified. Tables were set up in the square and locals/ nearby residents had set out their home cooked / home prepared ware. I was there for almost an hour and was amused to see the table owners hopping across to other tables to sample and purchase.

The People

We found the local residents to be well informed, educated – and laid back. Almost everyone we met was politically very aware.

What just didn’t work for us in Goa

If there was one thing which really didn’t work, it was that there is almost no system of transport for people like us. Used to Uber in almost all the places we had visited in the past few years, we just took it for granted that Uber would certainly be in a tourist hot spot like Goa. But no, forget Uber, there is no taxi service worth its name. Yes, Goa Miles is there, but we soon realized that it is highly unreliable and almost always cancels a trip after taking the booking. The local cabbies have mastered the art of fleecing and charge very pocket unfriendly rates.

Advisory: carry your driving license (which husband did not do!!) and hire a car.

 

Would I like to visit Goa again? Yes, definitely yes. Fingers crossed that the second doesn’t take another three decades!

 

 

Looking at 74 years of freedom through the Prism of Twitter

 

Twitter is a social media platform, where ‘every voice has the power to impact the world’, used by millions globally; the 2020 statistics of number of users worldwide has India ranked third with 17 million users. From politicians to policy makers, writers, journalists, and activists- almost everyone and his/her aunt is at any given moment either tweeting or catching up on what’s happening around them. A slogan for twitter says it all: ‘It’s what’s happening’.

And herein lies the problem. If it is true that twitter is a reflection of society, then that reflection doesn’t sit very well for India @74. The preamble to the Indian constitution promises all citizens of the country

JUSTICE, social, economic and political;

LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;

EQUALITY of status and of opportunity;

FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the [unity and integrity of the Nation]

But twitter has become a platform where the sanctity of these very ideals of the constitution are sent for a toss in hundreds of tweets daily. Women, minorities, and the weak are targeted and trolled. This ridicule and abuse has a ripple effect, with most of those targeted either withdrawing from social media or finding themselves unable to express their opinion freely. Even if one were to take into account the undisputed fact that conversations in  patriarchal Indian society have always amplified men’s voices more than women’s, it is a sad commentary on our collective failure to respect human rights and ,in fact, to push victims of trolling into a culture of silence.

Women journalists are no strangers to twitter trolling. From Barkha Dutt, to Rana Ayyub, to Sagarika Ghosh, they have all been targeted and attacked. When well known journalist, Nidhi Razdan, tweeted a comment given by Omar Abdullah, she was trolled not for the comment itself but at a very personal and sexual level.

 After the death of famous lyricist, Rahat Indori , when Saba Naqvi tweeted his very famous words, Kisike Baap ka Hindustan thodi hai..., she was targeted for being a Muslim and told to live in Pakistan , not India.

After the death of Sushant Singh Rajput, Alia Bhatt became a twitter target because of an unfortunate and snarky comment she had made about Rajput on Karan Johar’s show. Admittedly the comment was cringe worthy and it would have been par for the course to pull her up about it but what unleashed was an extremely below the belt attack on her and her family. Alia Bhatt was called a 'traitor' and a jingoistic call given to boycott her.

A sample of the tweets targeting Alia Bhatt:

According to our sources #AliaBhatt has gone into depression. she spoke about it sometimes ago also and even cried at few events. Alia’s sister Shaheen is also a patient of depression. This Bhatt family is the brand ambassador of mental illness and depression in India.

Rhea Chakravorty is being questioned in Sushant Singh Rajput’s case and the whole matter is sub-judice. But is that good enough for twitter trollers? Rhea has been targeted as a woman, as a Bengali and, believe it or not, as someone who does black magic.

The trollers do not limit their trolling to only the media or actors or those whom they feel need to be quartered and hanged even before the court has passed its verdict. PTI reported that on June 5, 2020 some woman police officers posted at a premier training institute for bureaucrats in Mussoorie were targeted with abusive and obscene content on Twitter.

 Freedom for most of us in India has almost always been synonymous with the country getting freed from British rule and the tri-color being hoisted on August 15, 1947. But if twitter is taken as an example of personal expressions through social media, in essence it will mean that what we got 74 years back was independence, which is liberation from the power of another. Freedom from the moribund shackles of gender, religion and economic status is a long way off.

Life in Corona Times

In lazy slow motion, like a sloppily shot scene of a bollywood potboiler, the exact moment when it, the virus, actually entered our life plays itself over and anon. We have just started dinner and are half tuned into Mr Modi’s address to the nation when he announces that from midnight of that night, the country is going under lockdown. For a second no one speaks: none of us are sure that we heard it right. But then he repeats it and in a nano second we get into survival mode. I still remember the adrenaline rush, the exact order of the vegetables and fruits I picked up that night, the panic buyers clamoring for milk and other essentials, the empty shelves and bread cartons in the neighborhood shops, the realization that terror  now had a new name and it was COVID-19.

For about a week life was all about reading up on the virus. We would exchange real news, fake news, forwards- anything and everything, at mealtimes, on family whatsapp groups, over phone calls. Everything was inside out, or should that read outside in? Where earlier one stepped outside the serenity of the house to be immediately enveloped in sound and people and watchful eyes, now the outside was quiet and calm and the unhingement was all inside. We tried to wrap our heads around what was happening. And everything seemed to be happening at the same time, in an uncoordinated avalanche of ruthlessness. Salary cut for the first born, an indefinite postponement of law school Day Zero  for the younger one, no house help, an office bereft of staff for the husband. But then slowly we emerged out of the shapelessness and elasticity to find our Mojo. 

 Laughter was now in seeing the son making the beds and the husband setting the table for lunch and dinner. Love was in the sheer indebtedness of being together and alive.  Work from home and online classes helped maintain order and rhythm. The husband discovered the joy of working in an empty office- the luxury of putting his feet on the table! And I discovered that Sooraj Barjatya had got it right some twenty-five years back: as long as Hum Saath-Saath Hain, even cleaning, cooking and washing up had an endearing appeal.

What has also been proven right is the ability of humans to adapt. The pandemic may have forced us to break with the past and build a new world of social distancing but this world is no different from what we were living in. As a matter of fact, it’s an even closer, more contracted world where the friend in Singapore, the niece in London and the cousin in the US are as close as the sister in the city. It is a world where distinctions have blurred. No one will be traveling for a long time, posting touched up pictures, wearing Prada or attending book launches. It’s also a more convenient world. Bored of the conversation thread? No need for prolonged a good bye. Bad network connectivity is a fault proof alibi.

In all this unpredictability what has also been comforting is the tedium of human nature. We are wired to communicate, to attitudinize, commiserate, brag. I truly want to hug that person who is still able to talk about her friend who is so well connected that at her son’s wedding a thousand Very Important Persons were in attendance ; the one who will have a drool worthy dish placed strategically during a zoom meeting; the right winger who will take any opportunity to turn the conversation to a strident defence of Modi ji, the enthusiast who will share every joke on the whatsapp group. I feel grateful to them for being that bowl of Maggi , providing comfort in continuity.

And on many moments in this period, I have felt pride in the stoicism and fortitude of my people; gratitude for those battling for solutions, shed tears for strangers and understood that what we, the world, are going through is unique and shared. This period of retreat has also helped me to come to terms with fear, understand that the cocoon one is wrapped in at the moment is extremely fragile and can rupture at any time. Understood too that the very seductiveness of its name, Corona, threatens to engulf us all at some point in time. It truly begs the iconic question from the The Jacket: "How much time do we have?"

A  Lifetime. The solemness of the words, connoting the duration of a person’s life, of eternity, are almost never spoken lightly. Lifetime.  But, as life as we knew it, ground to a screeching silence, we are, without any doubt, living a lifetime within another one.  We will all remember this time we are collectively living in different ways: the fear, loss, pain, bonding and love. Maybe, just maybe, some of us may indulge in the luxury of denial and not remember these days. But in all this uncertainty what is certain is that we have earned ourselves a place in history. Maybe, a Salman Rushdie will write another Midnight’s Children and call it The Virus Generation?     

How Nichiren Buddhism Helped Me

In the summer of 2016, my son, after his 12^th boards, got admission in a law school in Bangalore. The three weeks between his admission and joining date went in a flurry of shopping, packing, getting his papers etc in order. My husband and I went to drop him. All this while I had been my normal self- after all I had known all along that he was preparing for the entrance exam and that he was keen to do law. We were in Bangalore with him for two days and helped him settle in. When the time came to say bye- it suddenly hit me that I was actually saying bye to him for 5 years. And knowing how one road leads to another, maybe for many more years. I was very quiet on the flight back. When we reached home I went straight to his room. My eyes fell on his badminton racquet and I burst into tears.

In the days that followed the yawning gap inside me refused to fill up. I had read about the empty nest syndrome – it always seemed something that would never happen to me. And here I was, right in the middle of it –and not able to handle it. I could see my husband was concerned. He talked to me about so many of our friends and relatives whose kids were not even in India but outside India. He made plans for all the things he knew I liked- I think we saw every new play at Kamani auditorium and Sri Ram Centre the months that followed. I hated the new me. I had always been an active, bustling person. Now, while I was keeping myself involved in the house, in work, with people, as before, but I knew that something was not right with me.  Six  months passed when I acknowledged to myself that I was allowing myself to slip into a depressive state.

A very dear friend had been telling me for quite some time about a wonderful practice she had joined. I would listen to her politely but not much registered except the words Nicheren Buddhism. I rang her up and said I would like to know more about the practice. As chance would have it, she had the 2017 New Year meeting at her place two days later. She invited me  for it. When I entered the room about 20-25 people of all ages were already there and chanting Nam-Myo-ho-renge-kyo. The rhythmic chant magically seemed to fill up all the emptiness inside me. I just felt as if I had been given the proverbial ‘Sanjeevani booti’. That very day I told my friend I too wanted to join the practice.

My shakabuku friend started coming over every evening to chant with me. We would sit in my living room facing a bare stone wall and chant. She explained to me that I should put all my wishes, desires in my chanting. Though now I chant in front of the Gohonzon, but till today- whenever I look at that stone wall I am reminded of that period of despair and sadness and how it changed to one of hope and courage.

I started attending all the meetings. Each meeting would fill me with positivity. Even now I remember the genuinely warm and welcoming smiles of the people I met. I thought-‘I want that same smile.’ My interactions with leaders and members were extremely encouraging. I heard the personal experiences of other members and realized how they had overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. In the study meetings I imbibed concepts such as: how poison can be changed to medicine; that winter is always followed by spring; never disparage anyone; live life with courage, wisdom and compassion, human revolution etc.

I didn’t immediately understand all the concepts, but from the beginning of my practice, members told me: “It’s all about you. You have to make a change yourself to see a change in your situation.” So, I decided to just “get in there” and start working to make a change.

 Soon I could feel the change inside me. When my son went back after his trimester break, I was able to maintain my equilibrium and say bye to him with a smiling face. He must have heard about my melt down from his father and sister because I could sense the relief in him.

The change was not confined to accepting that children have to spread their wings. To date I had never been able to stand up to the elders in my family. What for me had been a show of respect had been read as a sign of timidity and weakness and for the longest time I had allowed myself to be ridden roughshod over. The practice gave me the courage to speak out positively and confidently. If I felt something was not right, or that I did not have the time to do something asked of me, instead of keeping quiet I spoke out. I could see the surprise on the faces but soon that surprise turned to acceptance and even admiration. More importantly, I was at peace because I was not bottling anything inside me. My relationships improved because of the practice.

My actual victory came six months from the date of joining. My daughter, who since post her MBA, had been working in Gurgaon, got a job offer from Flipkart in Bangalore. It was with equanimity and pride I saw her off. After she left, I maintained my routine and did not allow any negative, unhappy thoughts to enter. I kept telling myself: one day at a time. One day at a time, move forward. Believe in yourself. Be happy. I don’t know how, but since joining there has been this constant inner voice that says: “Okay, move forward. Take it one day at a time.” This kind of determination, this fighting spirit that I have forged, has come through my Buddhist practice. My husband, who had been a silent spectator to my metamorphoses, was inspired to join the practice.

As a Hindu I already knew about the concept of karma. In the Buddhist tradition, karma refers to action driven by intention which leads to future consequences. Those intentions are considered to be the determining factor in the kind of rebirth in the cycle of rebirth.

SGI President Ikeda writes: “Nichiren teaches the means for transforming our karma in the present and offers a direct route to building a state of absolute happiness. It teaches that our karma is our noble mission.”

My practice made me conscious about transforming karma. I have since tried to live and speak in a manner which makes me happy while giving grief to as few people as possible.

Friends, here I would just like to add that joining the practice does not mean the gift of the proverbial lamp of Alladin. It is not a quick fix solution to all problems. What it does do, or has done in my case, is to give one the courage to accept that things will happen: your children will leave the nest, people will say hurtful words, illnesses will come, losses will happen. It gives one the compassion to understand that the person who said those hurtful words is in all probability hurting himself or herself; it gives one the wisdom to travel unchartered territory, take decisions, to stop blaming others and to responsibility. Most importantly, it teaches that there is a rainbow at the end of a storm- it’s just that we need to never give up hope.

I quote from (“Winter Always Turns to Spring,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 536)

Those who believe in the Lotus Sutra are as if in winter, but winter always turns to spring. Never, from ancient times on, has anyone seen or heard of winter turning back to autumn. Nor have we ever heard of a believer in the Lotus Sutra who turned into an ordinary person. The sutra reads, “If there are those who hear the Law, then not a one will fail to attain Buddhahood.”