Field of Dreams

As a great blogger once said. It may be Mumbai in Marathi but its Bombay in English. Always. What we see in the map of Italy as Florence will always be Firenze to the Italians. And the people who live there are Forentines. Unless you’re an Italian in Goa. Where if you’re a Florentine , you’re in Saligao.
Head down the CHOGM road from Calangute towards Mapuca. On the left you pass houses with tile roofs, pigs in slumber for the night and 20 foot wide buses roaring down a 10 foot wide road, occasionally. You see a blot on the landscape called Cottage Industries or Cottage exposistion or some similarly named tourist trap. Next to it is a field. Next to it is a field. Full of cars and motorcycles. Somewhat eerie. Lots of vehicles. No people. Quiet. A Maruti Tourist taxi van emerges from the lane next to it. You had’nt even seen that there was a lane on this new moon night. Park in the field. Walk down the newly unveiled lane. Dirt track actually. You can feel the buzz and around the corner you see a ten cars and thirty bikes in a space meant for three. Bikes i.e. The parapet of the well on your left has a few Ronaldo and Beckham fans sipping beer. Their fan-ness being proclaimed by their T shirts. Green and yellow and blue and white against a backdrop of red laterite. The unfortunates, of which there are many who cannot find a slot on the parapet wall are condemnded to stand. And wait. Wait for a seat in this backwoods restaurant. Where the seating for the Beckhams and Ronaldinhos and Perpetua and Augustine is in front and to the right of you. Where tube lights wrapped in green and pink cellophane paper provide the mood lighting. Where music is not played because it gets in the way of conversation. While you stand near the well which happens to be just outside the kitchen. Platters of food pass in front of you. So near but yet so far. Don’t worry, as Aunty Aggie says” Hunger is the best sauce”.
People move out, satiated. You glare at the table in your field of vision.
For crying out loud, do you have to take such small bites of your bibinca.
The heavens part and you are called to the table. The menu runs to two pages. Ignore it. Order Chicken Cafreal. And poi. And Feni or Urak if it’s that time of the year. Yes Feni and Urak are proper nouns in my lexicon.
While you wait admire the plastic furniture, the fake flowers, the beer glo signs. Because once you taste the cafreal you will remember nothing else. The Feni comes first. Home stuff. Not that factory made stuff they sell in the wineshops or at the Fort Aguada. { The Fort Aguada bit is hearsay } . And then comes the cafreal slapped down with not even an iota of the respect it deserves. If you use a knife and a fork to eat it then leave now and never return. Chunkofy [ break into bite sized pieces] the poi. Dip it into the gravy and go straight to heaven. Where as the flavors become a part of you Lorna bursts into song, you property dispute with the neighbour pales into insignificance and your neighbours daughter who was a runners up for Miss Tivim asks you to dance with her. And that’s just the first bite.
Repeat order soon enough for the food and the beverage. There’s a family at the entrance glaring at you. Murder in their eyes when they hear the repeat order issued. “Damn Bombayites” you hear in angry undertones.
So in a spirit of charity you forsake the bibinca and call for the bill. The crowd at the well has gotten larger. Some of the parked bikes have been commandeered as waiting benches. The glasses perch nicely on the flat tank of the hero Honda. They tend to slide on a Bullet. But the Bullet seats are wider.
Back to the field. Home and back to your dreams which till just last night were real.

Disclaimer. :- My friend Jack[ who first took me to Florentines thus making himself eligible for canonization] tells me that the competition is trying to give Florentine a bad name by claiming that pork fat is used to cook the chicken. Of course the appropriate response to anyone who tries to malign the said restaurant with the aforementioned statement is “ Who Cares?”