Fighting the tenants in Goa

                                                             Fighting the tenants in Goa

As absentee landlords in Goa we face terrible issues of trying to assert our rights on the land belonging to our ancestors. Originally our ancestors lived on the land and in a house, they had built, but slowly over time, their children did not want an agrarian lifestyle and so left for greener pastures. My Grandpa Hipolito was one such landlord who left for Nairobi to find his fortune. He was educated and decided to be an accountant and not a farmer anymore.

Can you imagine our shock to see what they have done??

The heirs of the original tenants who were meant to till the land not "grow" double storied buildings and join the panchayat decided to split the large property between the four of them! Lucky the talati of the village alerted me knowing we two old souls keep coming to look after and maintain the ancestral house in Furtavaddo. The talathi had filed SIX cases with the deputy collector and so we decided to jump in and fight back when we heard the crazy value the land had gone up to.

Stylish double story building, demolishing our family home by half.

I stood in the Deputy Collectors office, armed with just the form 1x14 showing Dad's name as owner. I was trembling but resolute. Six of them stood there with their lawyers.  I spoke up when their lawyers loudly proclaimed that they had come to 'regularise' the building! I promptly intervened, by now angry at their gall to build on land which did not belong to them. I spoke to the Deputy Collector saying " My father tried to settle with them for years, he was a Wing Commander in the IAF and tried through the ministry -- I have letters to prove it. I know, I saw all the documents Dad had drawn up and flying down from New Delhi to fight, poor guy." Today I have a legal inventory with which to fight them. 

Look at how they have broken down our ancestral house on the land   

I showed the Deputy Collector the photos I had taken. Thank God for phones today. He is a young IAS officer and immediately saw the injustice happening. He rang his bell several times and called in his staff. I want a show cause notice issued he said very calmly. Next hearing -- on --- date. See that the notices go out today. This is agricultural land -- I need an explanation."

I was trembling with his response. I knew here was an educated young man who could see us older folk fighting for our ancestral land. 

However, the fight is long and hard, and we cannot keep running to Goa. So, we spoke to Fr Valerian of the Saligao seminary who had linked us with a tough lawyer in Panjim. The case is on -- they are trying everything in the book to break us. I won't budge now, but staying in the house in Volvaddo is dangerous now. So, we live elsewhere when we go.

It's a fight, I won't give up. I understand now why my architect brother relinquished his share here and took Mums easy peasy house instead. But we are  Furtados--gauncars and I do not intend giving up in a hurry. No sibling help just threats and nothing to support us.  But I can hear the promises I made Dad on his death bed, and I hope we are able to stay their march forward and bring them to the negotiating table.  I am so grateful for the help my husband gives me. He need not, but he understands.

Hoskote in the rain!

 Look at the height of the lush grass in Hoskote

Jaffer was happy to see us on Tuesday instead of our regular Sunday visit. The grass is lush in the rains and Jaffer is happy because it will feed his flocks of goats. 

We were just back, running to Goa where we are fighting cases against Muncards who are squatting on valuable land is how we spend our trips to Goa. Now hiring lawyers will cut back on our rushing up and down to follow up cases, exactly like poor Dad did. It's scary for us older folk but someone has to do it, or all will be lost to the Ranes and Govekars, who are now squatting in the panchayat and rattling powerful swords against me.

I digress, back to happy Hoskote, I feel a sense of calm come over me when I walk among the trees we have planted in the last 35 years. The trees are all grafts and mature now, fruiting and keeping us busy selling the fruit.

Bonny taking out the ripe Nellie Kai 

It's a silly method as he rattles the branches with the fruit picker a friend gave me in the UK and the fruit fall all over old curtains we have spread out under the tree. Then the fruit plop down on the curtains and once we have taken out what we want, we gather up the ends and it's easy to slide the fruit into a bag to carry home. We took out around 1.5kg and in minutes when I put the picture up, it's bought by pickle makers! Small harvest as we have only one tree. Sadly my friend Keerti who loves to munch them fresh off the tree did not get any from this crop.

 

The ripe Nellie Kai which fall off onto the curtains

Bonny is happy taking out some mature chickoos too. We are going to get a massive crop from our 25 trees, so a tractor load of chicken waste has been ordered to feed the trees. It stinks and the farmers next door grumble, so I've decided to empty a load into the huge Rainwater pit which is dry and cover it with mud so the stink is contained. I bring small bags of it for the Hayes Road compost pit, but Robin cannot tolerate the stink he says! Look at the garden then! Its lush because of the compost!

A path in the red soil

The pump seems to have stalled so I'm helping Jaffer water the trees with water from the massive Rainwater harvesting tank. empty 5 litre bottles are filled, and we lug them to water the younger trees who are not mature yest to help themselves! A lot like little children, once they are around a year old, they are able to snake their roots to underground water pockets or aquifers or even as Jeff Dlemos told me -- underground rivers. Mainly butter fruit trees I have brought grafts from the Goa Duler nursery which Mr Dhuri, architect on my gardening group advised me to buy.

The Ashoka blooms straight from the branch

I had put down two Ashoka trees from the Hebbal nursery, and they bloom extravagantly in the rain. Strange bunches of vibrant orange flowers which pop out straight out of the branch or trunk. I saw a Redwood tree do that in Tennessee and was fascinated! The Ashoka is a medicinal tree and considered sacred. To me all trees are sacred and an integral part of the world we live in. Without trees we would all be dead but how many of us understand that?

The calm of our Bella Vista in Hoskote

 

The calm of our Bella Vista in Hoskote

Monstera brought by Dad from Shillong

We drive down early any day of the week to the farm in Hoskote. Its a little paradise for us after working on it and transforming it from barren to fertile. Today I spent my time carrying 5 litre bottles and watering the young fruit trees while Bonny picked star fruit. I am particular checking the young fruit trees which normally are gifts from various gardeners in Bangalore or Goa. They are all grafts and so we hope to see fruit in a couple of years.

Stange Shampoo Ginger flowering - brough in by the nurseryman caretaker.

A patch was put down by our nurseryman caretaker of what looked like regular ginger. They grew and last week I noticed the weird shampoo ginger flowers which sell for a good price in the flower market. Can you imagine my shock seeing these expensive flowers growing in abundance in the patch? Let them grow, then I'll see if Nikhil the St Joes Old Boy who runs a florist group would be interested. Or just sell it off my own organic group. I just put up stuff and it's sold in minutes.

Wild passionflower vines all over the acreage

What I enjoy in the fresh early morning trip is searching for wildflowers amidst the grass growing wildly now in the rains.  Jaffer the grass cutter comes in on his scooter, and I allow him to cut and take away large bundles of fresh and juicy grass which he sells to farmers with cows and goats. He cleans up the land for us for free and he earns by selling the grass. A sensible arrangement which we enjoy with strict rules about no stealing my fruit. The chickoos and dragon fruit have begun so I'm not happy if he steals them! 

Organic star berries 

Meanwhile Bonny put down sheets to pick star berries. I could hear him shaking the branches while the fruit plopped on sheets put down on which they dropped. A crude way of harvesting like they do Olives in Spain which I witnessed on my UNFCCC conference trips in Zaragoza. They had a machine that caught hold of the trunk and shook all the fruit off.  Instead, Bonny uses a long bamboo and whacks the fruit off or shakes the branch. Then there's a rain of fruit down on the sheets. I was busy checking the Jaffer limes and the young coconut trees. The Sour sop seedlings have shot up in the rain, and it swells my heart to see these babies grown from seed happily thriving in the red, fertile soil of Hoskote.

The only fruit which Ive not had success with is a papaya. Five years ago I did have success and grew a huge crop. Now its time to put down some seedlings and grow a forest of them like the Bashas next door. 

Driving back sipping the hot tea that I carry we are at peace. The flask is new, bought for me in the US by Andrew.  The tea is made with Dilmah brought by David from the UK and we think of our sons and chat about them as we drive home to Bangalore.

 

Hydrangeas in S Carolina

 

Mum loved hydrangeas. I never understood her craziness over the flower in New Delhi till I saw them in Davids Garden in London and in Andy's layout in Cleveland Forest. As I went for my jog everyday up and down the hills, I couldn't help but admire the pristine white hydrangeas in most gardens. Just the uniform white flower in boring similarity in all gardens.  I particularly liked the huge hedge of them in one garden on the way to the kids school. 

A bank of white hydrangeas!

Then the senior guy who lived in the corner massive house decided to do up his garden. A whole team was called in to landscape his garden and last year I watched the whole garden being ripped apart including trimming of the massive oaks. I loved watching them work putting in a crazy paving path and lawns were unrolled in carpets of emerald, green. Of course I had to jog past as it was on the way to Mr Fig tree loaded with figs that I gobbled up by the hands full, beating Mr and Mrs Cardinal to the biggest and the best figs.

Look at them up close. They are breathtaking!

David's hydrangeas are a pale Robin egg blue. I sank a pile of old nails near its roots and the blue grew darker! He's not too fond of them but agreed to buying one, for a cheap one pound, in a local market for me. The plant is 10 times its size now growing in his compost like soil. And I sink iron bits around its soil to enjoy the changing flower colour.

Its Avocado year!

 Its avocado year!

Yes after so many barren years, the avocados in the farm have fruited. FOUR trees in all, one of which or maybe more were Dads germinated in his famous broken buckets! He had those tin buckets which split at the bottom and instead of throwing them out, he filled them with compost and pushed Rose apple and Avocado seeds in them. The seeds germinated and remained in the bucket not growing beyond 3 feet height.

Then along came my farm and all his famous buckets were planted in the farm. Each tree has different leaves and differently shaped fruit. He even had a purple African variety which sadly I did not get. However I recognise the provenance of  the four trees on my property.

The last of the avocados from one tree.

The first tree which fruited had round fruit. They were perfectly spherical and not very large. Those were the first fruit we harvested as we found some fallen off the tree, lying in the grass beneath. The 

leaves of this tree are dark green and large and flappy.

The next tree had pear shaped small fruit like the Haas variety Andy buys in the US from COSTCO. These fruit I took to Goa and my Goa friends bought them and sang their praises for weeks after they ate them. They remained green when ripe and just got soft. It was so heartening that we took them out correctly in time for them to ripen. That is the biggest worry for a fruit farmer. Have you taken out the fruit immature? Then your harvest is wasted.

Arpans stash have ripened in a week.

A smaller tree got a rash of fruit but sadly most of them fell off when there was a storm. It was really sad that only five fruit hung on and grew to maturity.  It was sad, but we realised a fruit farmer can never be sure of the harvest as the trees are open to the elements. Happened with our mango crop last year, but luckily we grow a lot of Mallika with thick stalks even though the fruit are large.

 

The fourth and last tree - Sunday harvest is a ritual.

The fourth and last tree was bent double with the weight of the fruit on it. I had got Sundar to chop a V branch from the Jamun tree and prop up the branches which were almost touching the ground with the weight of the fruit. However the fruit took much longer to mature. I carried home a apple and peach picker from the UK, a gift from a gardener on my group. JP brought the picker to David's house, and we picked apples off the neighbour's tree, which they don't mind. 

The Goa gardeners were begging for the fruit, but before I could advertise all 4 kgs were gone.  Infact I bought a new weighing scale as the older one had done its time. We have an Indian fruit picker off Amazon and this British picker which is also good. I like these simple tools which make harvesting easy and there's no need of extra labour like Dad had to employ.

This year has been a good year for both Lychees and avocados. Hopefully it remains for next year as well. Nothing like good harvests for us organic fruit farmers.

Dragon Fruit on the farm

 

The caretaker in Hoskote got a couple of Dragon fruit cuttings from a nearby farm. Then in typical fashion he pulled out a few kucchas from the side of the land and built a pendal. He knew I would not allow him to pull out the kucchas, as they marked the boundary. 

Anyway, I left the pendal as he built it and we started feeding the cactus looking plant with a lot of compost and chicken waste. Until then, I found dragon fruit tasteless and fine in a salad or fruit salad. Not eaten alone.  

The plant spiralled up especially in the rains and we were so very happy seeing it begin to flop over the pendal as can be seen in the picture. Last year we got two or three fruit. But this year there are many all over the plant.

Fruiting Dragon fruit in Hoskote

What was interesting to see was the flowers were huge and exactly like the Star of Bethlem-  white waxy flower! The flower barely lasted one night and then hung downwards and dried up. One can see the dried petals of the flower in the picture. From the base the fruit begin to grow.

The petals of the flower dry up like straw and hang downwards. We don't remove it, Just let it dry along with the growing fruit. Slowly the fruit grow larger and turn their signature pink colour. Once they turn a deep pink we harvest. So far, I have not sold any of the fruit. They are deliciously sweet and I cannot let any be eaten apart from us. Maybe once Steve leaves. For now we are enjoying them as they are totally organic and shop bought does not compare.

Hahahaha!

SOME TIMES LIARS CAN BE EXPOSED!!

My farm is still mine dear Rashme and Michelle Cherian , Mathew Cherian  the tattle tales!!!

Hahaha!Im so glad you fell for my bluff!

I would NEVER sell what I dearly love!! 

Her grubby paws were slapped off!

 I am a fiction writer! 

😇😅😈