Thunder, rainbows and chasing frogs

  

Thunder, rainbows and chasing frogs

 First published on March 30, 2008

 As we reach the end of the rainy season, it is time to look at life during this period: the rains which we loved as kids and the things we did in the season. The things we miss, as we are away from the falling rains in a faraway land.

 The rainy season starts in June and ends in October. Rains, starting in the last week of May, bring with them a respite from the summer heat. May is the period when the school holidays end and it is back again to school for the children.

 The rainy season is on its last leg as we approach October. It is time to say goodbye to the rains as we head towards the middle of the month. It is time for the Goan farmers to collect the paddy from the fields. Paddy fields which turned green at the start of the rainy season in June have now turned golden.

 The rainy season blesses Mother Nature with an abundance of water and the greenery in the rainy season is worth going miles to see. The vast swathes of green paddy fields are sometimes mistaken as grass by an alien visitor and the reverse is also true when vast tracks of barren lands of wild grass are taken as paddy fields.

 Cattle graze on the grass as rains lash day in day out in the rainy season. Raindrops, which many Indians miss in faraway lands. Rainy days when floods come calling in and with the floods follows the inundation of the paddy fields. Flood water overflows the roads and makes them unsafe for driving.

 Floods, which gave us an eagerly awaited school holiday. Rainy days, when we use to sing the Marathi poem, urging the rain to come. Rain, not just in a trickle but in a gush to flood the plains.

 The Marathi primary school opposite my house has since ceased to function, making way for a government-run library. But like me and many of my neighbors and classmates in school, we share many a childhood memories at the Marathi primary school, although I did not attend it myself.

Breaking the roof tiles with a cricket ball, playing pebbles on the school wall and inside the gallery. It was also an indoor cricket stadium for us and sometimes an indoor football pitch all rolled into one.

 The Marathi school also dished out our first lesson of voting at the age of 18, ink on our fingers which we showed to our friends and well wishers that we had voted for the first time.

 The first rains made football a slippery exercise in the barren paddy fields but then falling on the ground had its own thrill. The continuous rains gave us extra stamina to play football. And then who can forget the sliding tackle, which came about not out of design but through the sheer slippery surface, which gave us the biggest thrill during rainy day football.

 On the cricket front, overcast weather meant that the ball would swing in the air and that was the only occasion, we could swing the ball and believe that we were playing in overcast English conditions.

 The rainy season was the time to burn the cashew nuts over charcoal. The odor of burning cashew seeds, sending odourous messages to neighbors far and wide.

 With many families shifting to gas stoves over burning wood, the thrill of having cashew nuts from the charcoal is lost these days.

 The first showers of the season invariably came during the last week of May or the first week of June. It was the time that we were getting ready for the school season and we eagerly awaited the rains but detested the thought of returning to our school after a long holiday of close to two months.

 Tradition has it that it is healthy to receive the first rain on your head. How far it holds good, I have my doubts.

 The first rains bring with them a gush of wind. A gush of wind, which used to bring quite a few mangoes tumbling to the ground. My favorite hunt was for the Mancura (a variety of mango). My highest catch in one day was a dozen of them.

 The rainy season was a time to catch fish in the ponds after draining the water and keeping it at bay through muddy embankments. I for one entered the muddy water once to catch fish and have never experienced such a thrill again. The freshwater fish which I took home as part of my share, was not to my liking nor of a flavor that my families relished.

 The rainy season was the time when the cow dung smell from the nearby cowshed became unbearable. A time, when friends and relatives gave our place a skip. Their vehicles had to be washed if they visited our place.

 The first rains were also a time for catching frogs. Frog legs which I tasted for the first time as a teenager, and then fell for, only to give the practice a skip after realizing the damage the killing of frogs was doing to environment.

 Armed with a torch, knife and plastic bag we accompanied the seasoned campaigners to the traditional hideout of the frogs. The croaking of the frogs made our hunting expedition easier.

 The rainy season was the time when the ladies’ umbrellas came out in force. The multi-colored umbrellas were a sight to behold. Men came out with their long black umbrellas. The workers wore special rain protection made from coconut palm leaves while working in the fields.

 The lightning which came also used to send a chill down our spines and the memory of a young couple dying in our paddy field haunted us whenever lighting struck.

 The multi-colored rainbow making its presence in the sky was another sight we used to behold. A rare occurrence, and as and when it happened in the sky we used to shout in excitement.

 The snakes were also driven out of their habitat when rain water entered their holes. They were sighted on the roads and even entered houses.

 The winds also brought trees down and blocked traffic, and fire brigade personnel would come calling in to clear the roads and sometimes come to the aid of people whose houses were damaged by falling trunks and branches.

 The rainy season is a time for festivals, and one that is eagerly awaited is the feast of St John the Baptist. During the festival it is the practice for newly married couples to hand a bottle or two of coconut feni, a local liquor, to the village boys celebrating the feast.

 It was a time for young children to have a taste of cashew feni. Feni burned over a candle and given in a tablespoon drove away the cold blues. Cashew feni, is still a medicine used to get rid of colds and coughs for many a Goan in the rainy season.

 The celebration ended with a litany and whatever money was left from the donations were gathered and then given to the local church or the local clubs in the evening

 In the rainy season the beaches become deserted and so are the restaurants on the beach. Only a few functions; Foreign tourists too are few in number, with the sun playing hide and seek in the rainy season.

 As we travel far away from our native land, we miss the greenery, the people and all the things we relished in our childhoods. But then you have to forsake some things in pursuit of new experience and challenges.

The Goa Whistle Blower

  

The Goa Whistle Blower

Note: The article was first published in March 30, 2008

The mango and cashew trees have just started to flower. We are in the mist of mid-winter — a winter far and wide as the ocean and sea that we experience back in Holland. The accompanying dew is everywhere to be seen as the sun sets at 6 p.m. in the picture-perfect setting on one of the Goa’s numerous beaches dotting its 105-km coastline.

The real attraction on this evening is not the weather but my travels on an overcrowded, private-owned but public, transport bus, which will be of intense interest. The whistle blower, or conductor in local terms, is the main character in my short trip from the coastal village in Cavelossim to Margao, the commercial center of Goa. Margao is a good 17-km drive away.

The outside of the bus was painted in multiple colors, similar to the multitude of colors the women wear as dress every day. Fortunately, there was only one color on the inside and its sitting capacity hovered at something around 50-60 passengers.

Among the numerous instructions found on the inside of the bus were "only 19 standing passengers allowed," "no smoking," "reserved for women," and "reserved for handicapped."

The first journey from the village starts at 5:30 a.m. All the buses on the route operate on a rotation basis.

The whistle blower is a local man. He is not the type of whistle blower who reports corruption from within an institution, but a bus conductor, operating on the various inner routes of Goa. He brings to a halt the movements of the vehicle with his unique whistle, and also collects ticket fees from the passengers.

The whistle blower blows the whistle and the bus comes to a halt, even if it is not a designated bus stop.

The privately owned vehicles are not the only buses playing on the roads in Goa. The former Portuguese colony (until 1961) has also the state-owned Kadamba transport corporation (KTC), which has a uniform color for their fleet of buses and a uniform schedule. The conductor is accountable to his immediate superiors and is easily distinguishable by his uniform.

Sadly, the KTC buses are far and few between. They cater to the entire state with an area of 3,702 square kilometers and a population of nearly 2 million.

The conductor on the private buses is not distinguishable from the passengers, but the whistle is his only weapon to make him stand out. He wears no uniform. He does not use a mechanical whistle. A man new to the conditions would wonder whether this man is trying to blow a kiss to his wife and, presto, suddenly you find the man inserting his greasy, sweaty fingers in his mouth to unfold his magic whistle.

The intensity sound level and punch of the whistle is sweet music for a devoted music buff. The decibel level has special signals for the driver, which one comes to understand over a period of time as one gets familiar with the joy ride on the overcrowded buses.

 

 

There are no fixed bus stops, no fixed times, and irregularity is the order of the day.

Mind you, there are bus shelters at bus stops built by the local self-governing body, or Panchayats, as they are called locally at the village level. In Goa, the bus waits for you at your door step, even as you put on finishing touches of make-up or finish getting dressed for about five minutes.

The road transport authority has a schedule which has to be adhered by the buses. Traffic rules only exist in the rule books. The whistle blower and the driver are the bosses of the road.

People wait for the bus to make their way as the timings fluctuate with the whistle of the conductor.

The whistle blower is also a conductor, or ticket collector. But it might be better to call him a money collector. Seldom are tickets issued to passengers. No records are kept of how many people are riding, and his boss would have a hard time keeping track of money he pockets at the end of the day if tickets are not issued. A benefit for the bus owner is that because there are no tickets, he does not have to pay the passenger tax.

If the owner is honest, he cannot survive in the business. He must also bribe the local police to keep them from harassing him. So, at the end of the day, whatever the amount of cash the whistle blower doles out, the owner must accept it. Antagonizing the police and RTO officials is like killing the hen that lays golden eggs.

The driver envies the whistle blower, as he has a horde of college girlfriends ready to profess their love if the whistle blower makes a move. The pretty lasses are bowled over by the enormity and sweet talk of our whistler friend. At sunset, when it is time to return home, the conductor has a larger kickback for the day, while the driver has to settle for whatever his friend shells out to him.

The lusty-minded have forbidden desires released as they are sandwiched between two members of the opposite sex. Some more daring ones try different tricks and end up getting a slap on the face for their antics in the crowded bus.

A cause of concern in recent years has been the increase in transport on the narrow roads, which have remained the same for the last 20 years. Old timers recall 20 years back the public transport system was much worse. The craze of drivers speeding on the narrow roads has led to violent deaths.

But for all the pushing and jostling in the bus, Goans are thankful that they do not have to face the situation where one travels on the crowded bus top of a private vehicle or inside trucks, as in other Indian states such as Bihar and Orrisa.

So at the end of the day it was a unique experience traveling on the Goan bus with my wiling friend — the whistle blower — a character which I am trying to play before my Goan friends, sitting as I am in a small village bar frequented by the elderly men and young people seeking their quota of liquor.

The decibel level of the sound in his whistle is a mystery for some, but fortunately I understand it just like the driver. I can blow a whistle standing on the roadside to bring a moving bus to a halt. The passengers, onlookers, and conductor, along with my friends, have a hearty laugh. The driver gets red in the face having to make an unprofitable bus stop and for having being taken for a jolly good ride by the new Goenkar in Cavelossim town. A Goenkar who speaks to the driver in the local language Konkani while everything falls in place.

 So it is time for me to put my legs up and have another beer as the bar man puts finishing touches to the fish dishes in his kitchen. The aroma is difficult to resist after tasting the spicy fish dishes over the last five years in what is known as Susegado (laid back) Goa.