“ PODER, PODER PAO”
By: Bennet Paes
The aroma that whiffed out of a bottle of “Evening in Paris” might still bring
to a Goan socialite, romantic memories of the evenings long gone by. But the
simple pleasures of life that enthralled Goans of every hue, have their roots
right inside the village bakery. Because that’s where the most enduring aroma
came from – out of the freshly baked village pao.
And the producer of that masterpiece was none other than the village poder. Few
other sounds, too, were so joyous as the jingle that came out of his club, as
he struck it hard on the ground while striding through the dusty village
lanes. He wore a cabai, a vestment almost competing with the cassock of the
village clergy. A large basket of wares magically balanced on his head, also
added to his theatrics.
Children would be seen clustering around, as the poder approached their
neighbourhoods and as the jingle grew in intensity. They were all familiar
faces to the poder and indeed, harbingers of the guiraik to follow. The
benevolent poder would oftentimes reward the children with a khankonn, which
gesture would send the children ecstatically chanting the popular lyric of
those days: “Poder, poder pao – ducra boncant dao”.
Those were the days of the 30’, 40’ and perhaps 50’, when Goans of all faiths
used to be more sussegad and less ambitious than they are now. That included
the poder, too. His morning calls were not early enough to get the freshly
baked pao on time to our breakfast tables. As a result, calcho pao used to be
toasted on the kitchen fire, to go along with the next morning’s cup of coffee.
But, on the other hand, the day’s fresh pao was seen as a perfect match for
yesterday’s atoiloli coddi. It was a make-shift affair of sorts, but it worked
magic on our die-hard palates.
Admittedly, changing times also brought about a change in customs. The poder
of today has shed the traditional cabai. He no longer balances the basket on
his head. Instead, he navigates on a pao-laden bicycle through narrow lanes,
made even narrower by a serpentine chain of durgam. The old jingle no longer
heralds his morning chore. Instead, a diminutive form of that ancient
motor-horn ‘ponk-ponks’ menacingly to wake up even the neighbourhood’s
kingfisher. He no longer has access to doorsteps, but transacts business over
the durig tops. The transactions are still conducted in Konkani, but with a
sprinkling of ‘Hinglish’ to curry favour with the growing number of migrant
house-wives. And if truth be told, the variety of his wares has somewhat
shrunk, too. The kankhon that used to be the children’s delight at one time
has receded into history, and the bakri has surfaced as a worthy successor .
Moreover, the heavenly aroma that
used to be the hallmark of the sur-blended-pao is drastically diluted due to a
shortage of Goan renders who have chosen to slog it out in Arab lands, rather
than climb up to a sur-filled damonem.
All said and done, it ‘bakes’ down to an uneasy feeling - that the traditional
poder too will some day ease out of the scene, leaving behind the already
diluted pao to be eventually replaced by a chapatti.
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