Saligao Summer: A trip south to Panjim and Margao
In some ways Goa feels like Italy, a place where every small town and city has its own unique culture and beauty.
For the first time since I arrived in Saligao last Saturday, I had a night of undisturbed sleep.
The three cats that I am looking after decided to test my patience from Holy Saturday onwards by indulging in what I call the 3 am symphony:
The friendliest of the three (King Zorba) enters my room and starts meowing loudly. This is in tandem with the most introverted of the lot (Lily) banging kitchen utensils and the one in between (Kaali) scratching anything it can get its paws on!
They’re not hungry, at least not for food. Instead they crave my attention at 3 am! Once they wreck my sleep and get acknowledged, I am back asleep for three hours. I wish I could somehow convince them to start the symphony at 4 am. That’s a decent hour for me to wake up and get busy with a home workout and write for a few hours.
In the wee hours of this Saturday, King Zorba, Kaali and Lily decided to spare me of their nocturnal party! May this continue or may they delay the concert to 4 am…
On this beautiful April Saturday morning, I was able to read in peace after a good night’s rest before setting out for a Luso-Indian breakfast at the Confeitaria 31 De Janeiro in the heart of Panjim. The delicious food and the interiors never disappoint.
This was followed by a serious conversation with J, a close Goan friend in the gorgeous neighbourhood of Campal!
My heart bleeds for cities like Panjim, which were at one point clean, crowd-free and peaceful. The city still has many relics of its glory days from the 1960s, 70s and 80s. There are some gorgeous Luso-Indian buildings, lovely houses, quaint cafes and cultural institutions of repute, but the age of Instagram and real estate money has wrecked once-tranquil Panjim.
Nonetheless, I love Goa’s capital and all it offers, not the least of which are its cafes and restaurants.
Serious conversation with J done and dusted, I left her quiet flat and headed to the town of Margao, or Madgaon as it is now called. The name Madgaon sticks to my head since it is one of the less than a handful of stops on my beloved train- the LTT-Ernakulam Duronto Express, which has taken me a few times to my treasured Calicut.
On our way to Margao, I asked my regular driver where the boundary was drawn between north and south Goa. Apparently, those living in the southern part of the state guard Goan culture against the influences of Delhi and other parts of the rest of India. I was told that anything south of the capital Panjim was already considered south Goa.
The drive south is beautiful. We drive over a couple of bridges from where the wide and free-flowing rivers of the state are visible, as are bottle green hills, some topped with whitewashed churches, and others the fantasy of the real estate lobby that is eyeing every piece of land to construct luxury houses for the nouveau riche of India.
This drive doesn’t touch the coast, but the sight of all that greenery and resistance to unsustainable development is what a city slicker like me needs to see. The town names are unique, some sounding outright Portuguese while others are just perversions of older Konkani names. There is little doubt about the name of the town of Vasco da Gama! I would be happy to write about this historical figure in another post on another day.
My destination in Margao, a few kilometres south of Vasco, was the independent bookshop named Dogears, set up and run by the soft-spoken gentleman Leonard Fernandes. Before reaching this bookshop, we passed a stunningly beautiful square, complete with colonial architecture and the Church of the Holy Spirit, first built in 1595.
I decided to come back to the square after I raided Dogears. In fact, the old part of Margao, which begins before the church square and spreads around the area of the bookshop is full of architectural gems. I have been told that there are periodic heritage walks there, so this is something that should figure in a future visit.
The bookshop, small and quaint has an excellent collection of books about Goa, fiction and non-fiction, and many a book that isn’t overtly promoted by wealthy and vanity authors and big publishers selling vanity. I was happy to find a good set of books that will make my early mornings and late evenings more entertaining and enriching. There is also a second-hand section, but nothing there caught my eye.
It was now time for me to head back north to the comfort of Saligao. As I paid even closer attention to the landscape, I said to myself- Goa is beautiful!
P.S. Dear Readers,
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