Magical Chorão!

Magical Chorão!

Having worked for the Government of India for some 30-odd years, and crisscrossed the sub-continent in response to periodical transfer orders, I was raring to come back to Goa – the sunny land of my birth. The fact that my ancestors, following the mirage of greener pastures in British India, had left this tiny but wonderful piece of the earth four generations ago, was an added factor. So, as soon as I retired we moved, lock, stock, and barrel!

It needs to be told, at this stage, that Goa was under Portuguese rule for around 450 years – from the time Alfonso de Albuquerque (helped by self-seeking seamen) conquered the territory in the name of God and King Manuel I (1510) – thanks to Vasco da Gama having found the sea-route to India via the Cape of Good Hope (1498). Portuguese control over Goa lasted right up to the reign of the last king of Portugal (1910), and through the “First Republic” that stood for all of 16 years; the dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar held on fiercely to its Estado da India until Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, decided to annex it to the Indian Union in 1961. But four-and-half centuries could not be wished away: the Portuguese had left behind a culture deeply ingrained in the local population, defying description; it’s something that needs to be experienced. As the hordes of hippies tried in the 1960s – many of whom came looking for inner peace, some came looking for drugs, and attendant benefits.

I grew up amidst stories of that culture that appeared to be so far removed from the workaday, business-like atmosphere in Bombay (now, Mumbai). My parents managed to create a sort of lost paradise in my mind, where trust and mutual respect prevailed among people, where landlords and tillers and toddy-tappers worked in strange harmony with the Earth as it supported them all, and everyone knew their places in a social hierarchy, where the music was a beautiful blend of the East and West, where ballroom dances were not much different from the ones we saw in period movies like David Selznick’s production of Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone with the Wind”. An insistent urge grew within me to be a part of that culture, that life. I wasn’t aware that, with the onset of liberation from colonial rule, that life had gone with the wind. Long ago.

But, when I landed in Goa, I went about trying to absorb as much of the paradise as was still available, within as short a time as possible! It went beyond mere sights-seeing; it was, is, a yearning to find the Golden Goa that was planted in my mind as I grew up, so far away and yet ever-so-close. When short summer vacations, as teenagers, only served to whet our appetite for more …

So, when weather and time permit, my wife and I set off to see places where that paradise still lingers.

We go with little organised groups, or with a friend or two, or on our own. Recently, we discovered the magic of Chorão, an island in the River Mandovi. We left home at 5.45 in the morning and met the group in Panjim, the capital city (now known as Panaji), braving the cool breeze that awakened in us a unique kind of alertness, a sort of anticipated excitement. From Panjim, we moved towards the ferry point at Ribandar – the two points are connected by a bridge designed and built by Jesuit Fathers, in 1634, and with its span of 3.2 km, it was, at that time, the longest bridge in Asia. We were pleasantly surprised to know that its main supports are made of the trunks of local trees and the local laterite stone. It was, obviously, intended for horse-drawn carriages but has managed to handle loads of modern, high-speed traffic.

The ferry point at Ribandar was a pretty little sight! Cars and two-wheelers rolled in along with us. And the Sun rose, quietly, majestically: it was nothing less than a poet’s delight, supplemented by the stupendous scenic beauty as we approached the island. We would learn later, that the locals have strongly opposed any kind of bridge across the waters; everyone seems to be content with the ferry connection.

The pre-Portuguese name of the island was Chuddamani (for “diamond” in Sanskrit), which apparently got corrupted to Chorão.

Chorão, today, has a huge variety of attractions. What hits us first (after the positively striking beauty of the landscape) is the large stretches of mangroves reflected upon the clear waters of the Mandovi. The guide tells us to expect a large variety of birds and animals as the motorised canoe putters along...

… for instance, as we floated alongside the darkly beckoning shadows of the mangroves, while the shevtte (the Grey Mullet) kept popping up and down around us, the boatman pointed to a crocodile that, on seeing us approaching, immediately jumped off the bank with a huge splash and disappeared into the waters – scary, and disappointing! The guide also said that if we were lucky, we could spot a family of otters scurrying across the river or hiding among the drooping branches of the mysterious mangroves. And the wolves and foxes, the wild boar, jackals and porcupines, all said to be native to this island. Most of them, however, did not oblige.

We were fortunate, though, to see the Brahminy Kite, the Stork-billed Kingfisher, the Green Heron and the Black-beaked Egret and several other species like the Pond Heron, Red Shank, Sandpiper, Yellow-beaked Egret, Bharadwaj (or Crow pheasant), Cormorant, Black-headed ibis and the Fruit Bat.

And then we went on to soak-in the picture-postcard beauty of the countryside – 16^th century churches, and temples that predated the Portuguese. Little mud-houses with thatched roofs huddle together in hamlets, co-existing harmoniously with white-stuccoed churches and colourful “Portuguese” houses. St. Bartholomew’s Church (in Ambelim village) was the first one we saw, sharing the fears and the fervour of the early Christians. The ruins of an old seminary were another source of deep reflective rumination. There is a “Devaki Krishna Temple” here, dedicated to the biological mother of the Lord Krishna – perhaps the only place in India where Krishna and his mother are worshipped together. The deity of which had to be smuggled out to avoid destruction, persecution: the distances by State Highway is about 18 km to the first point of transfer; and from there to its present location was another 23 km – a sad story in itself. Legend has it that the mother and son met on this island.

While the guide droned on, the feeling of entering into a cool and pleasant time-warp is irrepressible, incredible. In that frozen time-span in the early 17^th century short and bucolic, the island was also known as Ilha dos Fidalgos (or Island of the Nobles) Terrible times struck the island with the plague of 1766 and its relapse in 1878 which all but wiped out the population of the island – thousands succumbed, many fled to safer locations …and it was not until a hundred years later that people dared to come to the island to settle down again.

From the 16^th to the 19^th century, it was also famous for its cheese: Queijo da Ilha de Chorão (Cheese of the Island of Chorão) has disappeared today, but the island has still a lot to say “Cheese!” about.  

With that smile still on our lips, we drove down 60 km south of the island; there, on the banks of the River Kushvati, we saw the ancient petroglyphs – rock art that is said to be 20,000 to 30,000 years old, showing animals and human figures. You sit, with a feeling of awe tempered by respectful hesitance, on the rocks. You imagine the paleolithic man with his crude implements, chipping away at the hard rock over which humans and animals have trod over the millennia. You see a thin string of smoke rising, disappearing among the primeval forests …and the settlements on either side of the river come alive, and… what you need to handle most is the goosebumps.