On Wed, 10 Mar 2004 09:38:51 -0000, "Gabe Menezes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Subject: BAKER (PODER) THE MOST JOYFUL TINTINNABULATION IN THE WORLD By Stanley Pinto Many decades ago, when the world was very much more innocent than it is today and the simple pleasures of life were largely the only pleasures that came our way in Goa, I decided, with all the precociousness of youth, that there could be very few aromas in the world as wonderful as those that floated out of a bakery at work. Few tastes as heavenly as honest-to-goodness country bread. And few sounds as joyous as the tintinnabulation of a village poder's bell, as he perambulated around on his bicycle, a large round basket of his wares providing it a precarious balance. As children we waited anxiously for the sound of that bell and then, at it's first distant pealing, ran squealing with pleasure down the road to meet it. And then we squealed all the way back home, this time with half a dozen kankhna strung on our little hands. Later, as teenagers, pimples sprouting and hormones raging, how often we'd wend our way home at dawn, our latest young flames in tow. Enroute, bodies exhausted by jiving to Johnson's band and living it up lavishly to other slightly more nefarious activities of a night on the tiles, a stop at the poder's bakery for a fresh pao straight from the wood-fired ovens was a nutritional must. And later still, a new wife in one hand and all the world in the palm of the other, the second most liberating joy of life was to dip a hot pao into a steaming plate of sorpotel. Bliss. Nirvana. Our very own, very special, entirely exclusive Goan Karma. Today, in the afternoon of my life, returning to Goa after many years spent in various countries, I have rediscovered the poder. And my joy is boundless. We in Goa are blessed. There is a poder in every village baking fresh, nourishing, wonderful, hand-made paos and gutlis and poios and kankhna. Anywhere else in the world, they'd be called designer bread and sold in fancy patisseries for improbable prices. But we're twice-blessed: our poder delivers his delights to our door. When as a newly landed NRI I first purchased a popular brand of sliced bread from the convenience store next door, and lived through the horror of it coagulating into an unspeakable mess in my mouth, my first instinct was to pull up stakes and return to foreign parts. An extreme reaction, you might think, gentle reader, but consider: while Man may not live by bread alone, honest-to-goodness bread is a staple of life for me. All thanks to my early experiences with the poder in Goa. The Farmer's Loaf in America, the Baguette in Paris, the whole-wheat breads of South-east Asia, I had revelled in them all. How in heaven's name could anyone possible tolerate this mass-produced assembly-line mess called sliced bread? The delicious fact is that in Goa we don't have to. We still have our poder. Admittedly, things have changed but in a way that is perfectly reasonable. Evolution, not Revolution. His bicycle has given way to a mechanised two-wheeler. The transactions are contracted in English as much as in Konkani. And if truth be told, the variety of his wares has somewhat shrunk, the butterfly and the kankhon often notable by their absence. But the heavenly taste, laced gently but unmistakeably through with freshly drawn sur, is undiminished. And yet, for reasons redolent of that first serpent in Paradise, it isn't a perfect world. Suddenly, alarmingly, a new controversy is building up around the village poder. Yesterday's Herald reported that my fellow Goans are finding a proposed increase in his prices unacceptable. Never mind that it is the first increase he's asked for in five years, despite constantly rising prices of sugar, maida, transportation, wages. Or that gram for gram it represents a measly 25p extra for a 70gm bread, or that weight for weight it still is 40p less expensive than the execrable mass-produced sliced bread. My fellow Goans are protesting it. They'd rather put the hapless poder out of business than give him a fair chance to make a decent return for his skills. So, some twenty bakers have already closed shop, the report says. Several among the rest are seriously considering it. And I am sitting at my breakfast table, my head in my hands and my heart in my mouth, wondering what is wrong with my Goan brethren. Have we sat on our brains for such long periods that we've squashed their ability to think? To feel? Must we be penny wise pound foolish, refusing to give to brother poder next door what we repeatedly and unquestioningly hand over to the faceless industrialist bakery? Must we throw away the cheaper and infinitely superior option and settle for a measurably more expensive, more distasteful, almost synthetic replacement? Please, dear friends, let's not. Let's not give up on our good old country bread. Our children may never forgive us for frittering away a tradition that's as Goan as Goa itself. Let's not grudge the village poder a measly 25p price increase, his first in five years. In this day and age of bi-monthly price increases, no other food producer has ever been so loyal to us. Isn't it time to return the favour? When you want bread, gentle reader, call your poder. Ask him to deliver, and he will. Day after day after every single day. And he'll deliver not merely bread but a way of life that simply must not die. In the end, it all comes down to one fervent truth. Our poder is a metaphor for the Goan way of life. Please let it live. ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################
