A quick five day trip to Pilerne on work

The family chapel built by grandfather and usurped by a relative. So I get a call from the builders of the flat we are buying in our Pilerne in Goa. “Do you want a powder room or not?” Powder room in a Studio apartment. Not likely but we wanted to check the lie of the land before saying no. “ Others want it but we want to ask you to decide because we know you would rather have space than a boxy room.” So off we went to buy air tickets with Air Asia which was the cheapest to Goa. We always drove down in the past which really wasted a day going and coming and was exhausting. This way we do waste a lot of the day as both airports are an hour away from home, but it’s less exhausting for us as we age.

We land in the airport to glowering monsoon clouds At the airport, Aldrin waits with our self drive taxi which we keep for the five days we are in Goa. His smiling face greets us as we land in Dabolim, coming out into a really crowded airport. Half of North India has arrived, as I can’t hear any Konkani, only Hindi! Never seen so many cars too on the roads. The buses that ferried us as teens seem to be a diminishing race.

The old 300 year homestead which has housed generations of Furtado's who were tillers of the soil We drive to the village where a smiling Bhujang awaits us with open doors and whirring fans. The old homestead needs work as we could do nothing earlier with the pouring monsoons. “ Still raining heavily madam. Kya karna, never seen such monsoons before, not stopping,” says Bhujang, propping his rattle trap bike against the gate, which he opens to let the car glide past. “ We can’t do any roof work, no one will work in the rain,” he says. That’s fine, let’s work on the electric lines and the plumbing. Old tiled mansions need continuous work as the monsoons destroy all that is done in them, year after year.

We drive through lush green fields which Pilerne is still known for The house looks better because he has fitted the LED bulbs and tube lights we bought on our earlier trip. The grandparents and parents smile down at our entry and we start unloading our stuff and taking out the kitchen implements, which Dad had stacked in the cupboard over the years. My sister added a skillet and I a pressure cooker and now a brand new flask for tea. If we can do any work in the house let’s do the fencing of the front properties I say. Already the cousin who is a skillful encroacher has built his car park on our property. Thankfully I had brought the survey maps, which the government surveyor had marked out for us. Using a pipe a hole was dug and wet cement poured in to make the outline.

Sand, jelly and cement arrive along with the poles to mark the boundary We decided it was time to buy the poles and mark our boundaries. So along with Bhujang my husband drove up to Mapuca and ordered the five foot tall poles. Sixty poles was a lot and the guy said the vehicle could only carry 30 at a time. After which a load of sand, three bags of cement and a load of stone jelly was ordered. We prayed hard that it would not rain the next day and the men set to work. A nice plump Raju from Tamil Nadu, who is now a domiciled Goan and his team of three began the holes. I did not dare walk up too many times to check on them, because the mosquitos, the size of mini dragon flies would swoop in a swarm on my bare legs and arms. Or the fire ants would crawl up my legs, dared I stand still for a second. One chomp can literally light a fire of itching which takes days to leave you.

The solid concrete poles arrive and are lugged to the plot by Raju and team Raju was a massive immobile target for them and he had devised a method to keep them at bay -- light an aggarbathie as he worked! I was hysterical when I first saw his modus operandi. The others were more practical with long sleeved shirts and pants with shoes. They worked quickly and rapidly and by the time the first load of poles came they had completed the first round of holes. Each pole must have weighed at least 30 kgs each and needed two of them to lift onto the plots. It was exhausting work just watching them, imagine how hard they worked each day. The next day while I quickly shelled the huge tiger prawns bought by the men from Verem, I enjoyed hearing the Golden Orioles flit above in the teak trees, calling out their signature raucous call. Once in a while a blue streak of a Kingfisher, would go shrieking by and Drongos and the Oriental Magpie kept an eye on what I was doing, from the overhead branches. I fed the shells to the rose apple and lichie which I had planted and are way taller than the house.

The freshly shelled and cleaned Tiger prawns simmering in a coconut curry While the curry simmered on my single burner gas stove, I sat outside on the bench which had been Dads favourite too and sipped my chai and downed my buttered pao stuffed with a fried egg. Nothing tastes better than Pao in the early morning in the village. Bought fresh from the Poder who parps his horn, with his fresh and warm load. I think of my Mum as he wraps the ‘butterfly’ shaped paos in newspaper. She loved them with butter and Dad always carried home a bag of them for her. The men arrived and I gave them a mug of steaming hot tea to sweeten their work ahead. Pick- axes, mumtees and the bandlees which have become plastic basins from our days of tin, they dug and carried and erected the poles, steadying them with pebbles and stones. One of the men set to work on the second plot, clearing it of its dense undergrowth. “ Stay away as snakes will come out of the undergrowth,” shouted the neighbour from the next house, and I quickly heeded his advice.

Hard work erecting 60 poles on either side of the chapel The second lot of poles arrived for the second plot and Raju decided they needed to ramp up the work as the morning marched on. He yelled and ranted at his team and I was scared he would burst a blood vessel. “ Why do you shout Raju?” I asked. “That’s the only way these donkey’s will listen,” he said. The other two men in his team were older and so just smiled at his rantings. Steve and my husband took over while I went down to cook some rice to go with the prawns. I usually come prepared with everything from Bangalore in a separate provisions check in bag. Right down to oil, tea, sugar and hold your breath -- onions! Going out for all meals is too expensive in Goa and not really great for our constitutions, plus four prawns swimming in curry is not my idea of eating prawns. We sit and demolish a kilo together, swimming in a delicious rechardo curry spiked with Maggi coconut powder!

Mixing the cement concrete mix in the heat of the noon day sun The men break for lunch and a siesta under the trees. Marvelous how they can sleep anywhere and for a full two hours, on the cement gunny sacks. We too eat lunch and stretch out for an hour, before its time for tea and they begin mixing the cement to pack the poles. I make them another round of kadak chai which they gratefully enjoy and share their chillie pakoras with Steve. In minutes Steve charges indoors to hang his tongue under the tap, as the chillies have made him cry with their pungency and turn his tongue on fire! By the end of the day the poles are up, the cement patted in and I feel thrilled that the job is almost complete. Once the men wash up and leave for the day Bonny and Steve drive down to Mapuca to buy wire to treadle through the poles. Rolls and rolls of wire is bought and kept for the men to put through each hole and enclose the properties.

The beach was crowded with domestic tourists driving the guards crazy trying to control them “ Are we never going to the beach? “ grumbles Steve, so we jump into the car and head for Candolim beach. The crowds and definitely less than the madness of summer and he gets an hour to jump in the waves and enjoy the sea. I stand at the edge in the rough breakers which sometimes slap a large, unruly wave which wets my shorts. Clutching everyone’s wallets and slippers and ofcourse specs is my job, as the waves give me a great pedicure. Again selfies and selfie sticks rule the beach and nothing can be eaten or bought unless its on instagram! Thankfully the idiotic lounging beach chairs are not out in the monsoon season and people actually enjoy sitting on the sand. It’s one hundred bucks to park now in Candolim, but the whole place has been given a make- over by the government.

The food in Fishermen's Cove is as tasty as it looks We drive down to Fishermen’s Cove, our favourite dining spot, to enjoy fried King fish and salad, washed down with fresh lime soda and feni for the men. A beautiful woman begins to croon and then one really gets into the mood a la Goa. This is a popular eating spot and crowds fill up the tables in a jiffy. Our David loved it and ordered all he could see on the menu, when we had come earlier. We are fairly judicious, when we order.

The Golden Orioles are iconic of the Western Ghats and our village. The next morning the men arrive early and we leave them with instructions. We need to go and check on the apartment. Happily we decide against the powder room and request for a basin to wash hands rather than blocking off the limited space for a powder room. I want wardrobes in the single bedroom and cupboards in the kitchen. “ I promise you will get it by July 2020,” says the builder. He loves Pilerne and his previous projects in Pilerne are sold out. I am worried as I sold my apartments in Bangalore to buy this. We cant keep looking after the house, as we are just three siblings supporting it’s upkeep. The others want their share doing *&^% all nothing -- don’t pardon my french. But as another Pilernekar says, do what you can and as long as you can. Then you can walk away knowing you have done your best and you kept your father’s promise. Don’t grab what suits you greedily.

Dad's love for the village and the homestead lives on through the three of us siblings People in the village respect me for what I am doing, for the old ancestral home.They all know me, from the Panchayat to the Communidade. “ Your Dad would be happy, how he loved this place,” they reminiscence. “He would come by bus and struggle here alone”. But I feel glad I am the son he expected to uphold family ancestry.And I feel glad that when I visit, the charlatans are scared, not showing their faces, knowing I am tough. And that I intend enclosing what my forefathers bought, for future generations.