Roots November 30, 2009 By Roselyn D'Mello
Four months ago, when I moved here, the fruit on the banana tree in our backyard had just begun to grow. Every morning when I’d wake up I’d watch the two bunches increase in shape and size. One eager bunch veered towards the neighbour’s territory while the other hung over home turf. Two weeks ago there was a raging storm. The weather bureau warned of an impending cyclone. I was away in Reis Magos when the sky fell apart. I returned two days later when the rain-drenched earth had started to dry and I noticed that the prodigal bunch had disappeared. The next morning I heard someone calling out loudly. I peeped and saw it was the lady who lived in the plot behind us. She explained in konknni that the bananas had fallen down with the weight of the wind and offered to return the bunch. She lifted the huge cluster over the boundary wall while I struggled to bring it back to our side, amazed at how something that was so slight had grown so big and heavy. The bananas were green and unripe but long and plump. I locked them in the cupboard so they would ripen with the heat, hoping they wouldn’t rot instead. Two days later I dreamed of ripe bananas. When I returned to Navelim and I unlocked the cupboard I was overwhelmed. That passionate shade of green had mellowed into a beautiful sunshine yellow. I took a single banana and unfurled the peel. I bit into the flesh and was surprised by the tangy, ripe taste that settled upon my tongue. If you lived here long enough you would know that any Goan would tell this story very differently. You’d be sitting in a taverna sipping on an extra-large peg of feni or whiskey and you’d probably overhear the unraveling. And suddenly, no matter how mundane the content, you would listen as though you were being told the story of the beginning of the universe. The voice will ebb and flow and you’d be caught in the tide, unable to breathe, so startled by all the intricate details that would suavely slip in. The gestures will mesmerise and you’d be hypnotised. The suspense would build as the ranconteur stops mid-sentence for a swig of feni and a bite of fish. And after he’s done you’d soon realise that you could never retell what you just heard. Like that story of Minguel’s aunt who tore open a man’s langoti while he was still wearing it because his balls seemed larger than usual and she therefore surmised that he was hiding wads of cash in his groin; or why nobody will buy the house across that field even though it’s dirt cheap, not even the land-hungry folks from Delhi; or how Maria had a baby boy though her husband has been away at Sea for more than two years, or the first time Xavier took to the bottle when his brother hanged himself from a banyan tree. Here in Goa stories sprout like paddy, on the highway or in fields you thought were barren. Each tale is tall and is watered by secret rivers that run underground. Once a year they are harvested and stored in warm kitchens to be told on rainy days when the lights are out and the sea rattles like a bag of bones. Men tell me stories of the secret lives of fish; of sting-rays that flip in the water while giving birth, of dolphins that swim in pairs, of needle-fish that can be out-witted by torchlight, of mussels that grab anything that moves sinuously, like hair, of how the full-moon is the best bait and of the hundred different ways to grill mackerel. I listen intently. With wonderfilled eyes I relish the details; I grasp all the sound effects they engineer with their tongues. The women, too, have me spell bound with retellings of their first night of marriage or how their bodies surprised them at child-birth or how they entered menopause or how vinegar is made when toddy is kept in a sterile container for at least 21 days. I live in this world of stories knowing I can never recount to you all the pleasures they contain, knowing I could never capture the universe of their songs, the rhythm of their feet or the rush of blood from the heart to the head. I don’t know if the magic lies in the fertile red of the iron-rich soil or the pregnant waters that hug the coastline, on the white-washed facades of the church or in the sleepy winds that seep through the leaves of the breadfruit tree. Something utterly mysterious makes this land different from any other. Some strange concoction keeps my people wondrously alive and hopelessly in awe. My feet continue to wanderlust. I write this on the second floor of a hostel in JNU. The sky is drenched with the unwavering light of the full moon, peacocks wail in the cold silence of this Delhi night and in the near distance I can hear the moan of traffic passing through the city. I have a painter for a room mate and every night instead of dinner she fills my plate with stories of her childhood in Hyderabad. And when I’m at my envious best she tells me of how she has lost all sense of roots because the land she grew up has passed into history. It is then that I realise that no matter where I may one day wander, in the streets of Paris, in the staircases of the Vatican, in middle-eastern palaces, in in the high waters of the Atlantic, it is to Goa that I will return to die. There I shall be buried, in the red earth of the coast. And even if no one comes to honour my bones with heaps of candles or garlands and wreaths, there I shall rest in peace. --------- The blog entry above can be accessed at: http://wanderlustingfeet.wordpress.com/about/ Roselyn can be contacted at: <roselyn dot dmello at gmail dot com> =====