Among the cherished memories of my youthful past, that of the Friday fair remains unsurpassed. Hardly had that weekly day begun, we were up and about with unusual wont beginning our juvenile hurry-scurry with unbecoming alacrity
Poised at the window of the first floor, we watched the scene unfold below as the world went by in a pale imitation of a Son Lumiere spectacle First came the nimble women bearing loads of earthern pots and pans with seemingly effortless ease and grace, bobbing in space like wanting to levitate, their flowery skirts tucked up and in at the back as if to accentuate the swinging hips and rears. There followed the sprightly fisherwomen delighting us with dextrously balanced baskets on the heads adorned with lovely, sweet smelling'jellos'(flower arrangements) woven round the chignons behind,and shockingly coloured floral blouses risque enough to allow glimpses of tantalising cleavages. One of them would invariably detach herself from the group and open our gate,crying out 'Batkarni,nishtem zai aj?'(Ma'am, do you need fish to-day?),a mere rhetorical question as the sale was a set weekly routine.No sooner did we see her opening the gate,we darted for the front door down below in time to oggle the 'ganton'(fish threaded in a string of palm) of shiny,silvery 'xeutaeo'(mullets) she was holding up,a favourite of my grandmother's, while our eyes focussed more intently on the 'vanto'(portion) of prawns she had spread on her matted pad,already envisioning the forthcoming, mouth-watering 'xeqxeq at lunch!The habitual friendly banter and haggling confrontation ensued until the two had arrived at an agreed price and the maid came and collected the fish.The woman would rush to rejoin her group and find her assured place at the fishmarket. It was now time for other women always women,what were the men doing? - dressed in garish costumes or skirts and blouses, who had left their villages at break of dawn to trek to town in time for the market. They carried baskets with their produce, be it fruits and vegetable or squirming,squealing piglings or cackling hens.When the baskets opened accidentally with the force of the windthey revealed variegated fruits of vivid hues and tints, a tempting invitation to a painting session of a Goyaesque 'Still Life'! Finally bringing up the rear, in slow motion, came the 'carreira'(schedule) buses bringing along the important customers and a few private taxis for those who could afford the luxury. By now the crowd in the heart of town was starting to thicken as people poured in from other directions too and the pace quickened rapidly: vendors install and on the open ground bellowed their wares to the scurrying customers, putting their sales talents to the test in a most disorderly order, never a sign of rascality.As three Government offices almost hugged the market, viz. Municipality, Registrar's and Revenue , many of the visitors availed of the early morning hours to go there settle pending problems,pay property taxes,etc before the start of the queuing agglomerations later in the day. It was now past ten o'clock and the bustle had grown much more intense, the activity more frenetic and the cacophony more deafening: the tinkling of the earthenwear to prove their physical integrity in concert with the dissonant tintinambulations of copper utensils was aggravated by the frequent sibilant fizz of the soda bottle being opened and the grating rattle of the handle of the wooden pail churning out the ice-cream before a waiting crowd of 'aficionados'speaking volumes for its gustatory appeal, and amidst it all, the constant clamour of the ubiquitous lottery man trying to drown all the other noises with 'Sort,sort, somar abertur, sort', and the occasional flute of the snake charmer. On occasions, when from our vantage point of view the show had tapered off to a conclusion because all who had to come had already come, we might be allowed to wander to the actual scene of action, to take in the sights and sounds in loco, admire the chromatic display of the syrup bottles arrayed on the ice- popsicles' man's cart to witness the amusing, at times playful, bargaining between buyer and seller, or, best of all, stray to the jaggery market where we marvelled at the mounds of pyramidal jaggery or the special concentric cones from Goa Velha and even better, the parallelograms of the 'bellios', the unique jaggery sweet from Saligao by now possibly a relic of Goa's history and lore just like the sugar coated cashew-nuts and cashew-sugar khajjims, all victims of economy over quality, I understand on very rare occasions we might have the chance ,on the outer limits of the fair, to wonder at the caparisoned cow brought in by the ghantti, that could allegedly understand and answer question with a nod of the head,either positively or negatively. The stomachs were now starting to gnaw, and the townfolk , who intended returning home for lunch, might opt for some light snacks like bhajjas, samoosas or batter dipped chillies topped with a cold drink or falooda(all of which could be taken with total peace of mind with no concerns about health hazards:hepatitis, cholera, etc would have to await the influx of outsiders from India after 1961).A piece of 'cotcotem' could help assuage the sweet tooth ( a delicacy now sadly no longer available due to the difficulty of procuring the required quality raw materials,I am told) Visitors from the countryside needed to consider something more substantial and would thus drop in for lunch at one of the known places, 'C.D'SOUSA' being a favourite in those days. People came to the fair to buy a variety of goods: some came for fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables like mangoes, papayas, chicos, etc; others came for staples they did not easily find in their village market; still others might be looking for durable goods like garden vases, utensils, etc; in April and May they might be starting to provision for the oncoming monsoons. There were those who need not have faced the rush of Friday but chose to do so because, apart from being an important commercial event, the Friday fair fulfilled a social function: in those days of precarious transport and communications, the fair acted as a sort of unsophisticated, informal club where people met and chatted and gossiped and exchanged news about friends and relatives, in the market corridors or, over iced beer in a nearby Cafe.This was possible because the market was in the heart of town, providing a warm venue for the insiders and outsiders to coalesce. The move of the market to its present site was thus a tragedy in this respect: the market has been left as an extraneous appendage, a kind of excrescence, cut off from everything and everybody. On this score, one is reminded of a phrase used by Mr.Nehru in regard to pre- invaded GOA as a pimple in the face of India. So is the new market in relation to Mapucs. From a town planning point of view it is a disaster, distancing most of the folks from their shopping and evening distration. The old market's lay-out in three parallel rows also contributed to the flow of people specially once they knew where the items they sought were located. Moreover the light downward slope was instrumental in helping drain the water and prevent accumulation in the monsoons. So, it was always a pleasure to shop. The present location by contrast makes the market incredibly muddy and filthy in the monsoons, worsened by the influx of slum-dwellers in the neighbourhood imported from India, fortunately a non-existent phenomenon in my young days. The last row of the market was the least frequented because it harboured mostly flour mills and shops with products of less interest. But, almost everyone that came to town, and even townsfolk, would unfailingly pick up a packet of 'chonem' (furnace-fried gram).In those days when plastic was not yet on hand, the gram would be packed in a cone-shaped paper. Gram was almost a trade-mark of Mapuca.At home, we never failed to have gram after meals even if had already had seasonal fruit or 'doce de festa ( the miscellany of laddus, kaddio-boddio, khajjim, etc sold at the fairs at imprtant feasts like Milagres, Reis Magos, Espirito Santo, etc) for dessert. My uncles often dispensed with the other items altogether in favour of 'chonem'. Slowly, the activity commenced tapering off as more and more people departed and the itinerant vendors packed their belongings. By three o'clock quiet had descended. Later on the garbage men would come to clear up the mess left behind, bringing the place to normality. They would be followed by the Municipal water tanker which watered the roads and market in order to 'settle' the dust. And so came to a close another eventful FRIDAY FAIR (pun intentional). _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
