Monsoons in Goa - Ben Antao 

This year the monsoons have wreaked havoc in south Goa, I learn, and being
from Salcete I remember well the days and nights when it rained 
continuously for a week or two in the forties and fifties.  

Now, how would people cope in such relentless, protracted, torrential
downpour that might highlight the better part of a month?

Those confined to their homes and hearths would lapse into a typically
monsoon lifestyle.  Rising to the rumbling of intermittent thunder, Joe's
mother would roll up the straw mattress and place it leaning against the
corner of the room.  Then she would go into the kitchen and light up the
firewood stove, first to make tea, then rice gruel (congee).  After tea and
while the congee cooked in the clay pot, she would sit on a low kitchen
stool and beguile the time counting the beads of the rosary.

From the front window facing the verandah and one side of the eavestrough
that covered the stoop, ten-year-old Joe would gaze at the half-moon trough
spouting copious cascades.  Along the border of the verandah ribbons of
water drained from the sloping red tiles projecting from the roof.

Around ten in the morning he would sit down at the long table in the
dining-living room to enjoy a bowl of rice gruel with mango miskut.  The
miskut is a pickle of small green tender mangoes that are slit, salted,
kept under heavy weight for three days, stuffed with masala ground from
hot-oil treated spices, such as asafetida, turmeric, and fenugreek.  The
stuffed mango trips preserved in a jar of coconut oil and mustard seeds
would be ready for eating in about a month.  The sour-hot taste of the
miskut would at once dispel the languorous disposition that beset the
house-bound and rekindle a spark of enthusiasm for the rainy season.
After the congee it was time to look out the window and observe the
surrounding trees taking a perpetual shower.  The sturdy guava tree, its
knotted branches fruitless, stood near the stone wall fence bent on
protecting its leaves from touching the broken glass that studded the
wall top.  The tall banana stalks outside the kitchen sink had yielded to
the fury of the storm the previous night, and now lay broken and bent like
protractor at a 45 degree angle.


Across the guava tree a solitary grapefruit in the neighbor's compound
enticed the eye and begged to be picked.  In a corner inside the fence a
young coconut tree ached to grow up and bear fruit as a bud stood erect and
spear like in its crown needling the rain.  Close by a clump of bamboos
sheltered in the leafage of the jackfruit tree and occasionally rustled to
draw attention to their pale green willowy polished stems.  The jackfruit
tree having brought forth an abundant crop three months earlier was now
resting in a well-deserved vacation in the rain.

In the front yard the gnarled mango tree that would blossom profusely but
produce only a few fruit of the sensational Afonso variety appeared
unperturbed with the changing seasons.  Its branches had been chopped down
because they bothered the neighbors across by straying into their compound.

 Out of spite it refused to bear fruit plentifully, unlike another  
another's tree near the village community well, whose fruit surpassed the
leaves in quantity and provided a feast for the crows.  That morning,
though, Joe had plucked a couple of mango leaves from a branch that was
allowed to stray over the verandah.  After brushing his teeth with a stick
of charcoal from the hearth, he polished his teeth with the mango leaves.
And now as he looked at the Afonso tree he smiled in satisfaction.

Since getting out of the house is unthinkable in such weather, the folks
mainly rely on the provisions they have made for the rainy day.  For lunch
and supper Joe's mother prepared the usual boiled rice in the black earthen
pot, and for curry she used the sundried salted mackerel fillets, a
traditional standby of the monsoon season.  The curry sauce, also made in a
pot of baked clay, featured crushed red chillies, crushed turmeric and
cummin seeds, and a few dried salted mango slices.  These ingredients were
added to chopped onion sautéed in coconut oil.  This simple broth-like
curry lent the fillets an exquisite sour and hot taste that lingered in the
mouth for hours.

Another monsoon favorite was the paro, a pickled preserved of dried
mackerel fillets.  The fillets are washed in vinegar and covered in masala
consisting of dry chillies, ginger, cummin seeds, peppercorns and turmeric,
all ground in vinegar and kept in a tightly sealed jar for three to four
weeks.  The fillets, served fried in coconut oil, added zest to a simple
meal of boiled rice and plain curry sauce.

Then there was the preserve of balchao of dried newly spawned shrimps.  The
masala for this was ground in coconut fenim.

Another monsoon favorite was the dried fillet of cod or the shark.  A piece
of the cod fillet roasted on glowing embers and dipped in oil was all one
needed as an appetizer for a plain curry and rice.

With so much preserved food to titillate the palate, Joe did not lack for
variety, even if a piece of paro or a spoon of balchao or a slice of miskut
became the regular diet of the rainy day and night for many people in the
villages of Goa.

Have a good day, sunny, rainy, whatever!

Ben Antao © 1999