A man named Ramesh. An afternoon I’ll never forget. And the Goa I never knew....

I spent an afternoon I’ll never forget on my recent visit to Goa. We were going out for lunch with my friend the chef Bawmra Jap, and he asked me if I wanted to go a really nice new restaurant that a friend was opening. Or whether I wanted to go and eat at a fish and crab place that he had been going to for over a decade. Considering that the last time he took me to an unknown place it was Bhatti Village before it became “Bhatti Village”, just Patrick’s home where his wife cooked, I obviously chose the fish and crab place. 

We ended up in a narrow, winding back lanes of Anjuna where cars struggle to fit into until we came to the home of Ramesh. We sat outside under a tin roof, with two dogs lazing idly on the floor, while a tawny cat raised a suspicious eye at the intruders in her domain before going back to elaborately licking her paw. No signboard. No name. Two tables. A house, a basin and a backyard.  As Ramesh brought out two chilled Kingfishers and asked us if we wanted a drink (because a beer on a sultry Goan afternoon is like water) we asked for some vodka with soda and ice. There was no menu so Ramesh told us what he would give us to eat. There was no good crab in that morning’s catch so we would eat fish instead, different kinds of fish, with some prawns and vegetables and chicken. It wasn’t a suggestion or a discussion but a statement. I shall give you this to eat. And you shall eat it, starting with some smoked mackerel. 

He returned a minute later with a bottle of vodka, a bottle of soda and a glass of ice which he placed on the table and asked us to help ourselves. Bottle service Ramesh style. 

Ramesh had already prepared the mackerel, slicing it and stuffing it with cut green Goan chillies and rubbing it with some salt. As we followed him into his backyard he wrapped them in banana leaves and grilled them over a wooden smoke fire and started telling us the story of his life. 

Ramesh had grown up in this village, where he had been cooking food in his home since the mid 80s. He spoke to us of all the waves of tourists and travellers he had witnessed over the decades. The hippies and the junkies, the ravers and the trippers. The Germans and Italians giving way to Israelis and Russians. And everyday he went to the market and bought crab and fish and prawns and cooked them the way he had always cooked them. 

He told us of growing up and cooking fresh fish on a beachside fire. Dipping it in the sea water to salt it and then letting it dry on the fire before eating it fresh. 

He spoke of the Englishman who lived in his village and loved tennis. So he invited all the village kids to a makeshift mud court in his villa where he taught them to play tennis, a sport Ramesh played into his twenties and still loves. That was what he liked about the foreign travellers Ramesh said. They treated everyone as an equal. They didn’t see class. They didn’t behave like they owned you because they were richer than you. Even today, very few Indians go to Ramesh’s place, to sit and eat his food and drink a beer with him and chat with him and listen to his stories. 

Not that his stories were all in the past. Ramesh is as savvy and clued in as they come. What the trade gossip is. Who is getting fleeced by his vendor or investor. Who wants to start her own restaurant. What kind of food Edible Archives is working on. He has eyes everywhere and ears close to the ground. A raconteur, a wise man, a son of the soil, a keeper of the soul. 

When the mackerel was ready we took it off the fire, squeezed some salt, removed the bones and ate the fish whole. We also had some fried Chonak (giant sea perch), a remarkable dill and vegetable bhaji, rava prawns and a mackerel and kokum curry. Also the best xacuti I’ve ever had, light and fresh, with all the spices ground fresh at home, with coconuts from his garden, and without the slightest hint of the masala harshness that you get in almost all restaurant versions. 

But the food (while miles better than Vinayak) wasn’t even the point. The point was the magic. The memory. An afternoon I will never forget. Of time slipping away and an experience and a meal that could only happen in Goa, the real Goa. Away from the shacks and the tourist traps and the party trail. Listening to the stories of a man who has seen Goa through many iterations depending on who was telling the story. The wild children from affluent Indian families in the seventies. The backpackers on the the hashish trail. The yuppie party and beer post liberalisation crowd. The sounds and rhythm of Anjuna Deep. Israelis decompressing after the army. The kids who couldn’t make it to Ibiza or Mykanos to party. Russians escaping the frozen dark empty winter. And now the Covid refugees in Assagao/Sainik Farms and  Siolim/Colaba. 

Each of them have defined Goa through their experiences. Or tried to. But all they did was define themselves. They came to Goa searching for something, and like a mirror Goa reflected their doubts and fears and hopes and dreams and all they escaped from and all they escaped to, and they believed that through the mirror they glimpsed Goa but all they saw was themselves. They visited Goa. Some of them live in Goa. But none of them have ever seen Goa or known her.

I realised that afternoon and during the course of the week that Goa is something more timeless and enduring than any of us imagine it to be. That the only people who can define it are the people who live there and truly live there. It is history and culture and community and fishing boats riding the waves. Not just beaches and beer and swaying coconut trees. It isn’t a facsimile of other beach resort destinations, nor is it a receptacle for the fevered, imaginative (but unoriginal) dreams of the tourists that come and go. After twenty years of visiting Goa, I saw Goa for the first time and I can never experience it the same way again. 

Ps: I won’t be sharing the details of where exactly Ramesh’s place is. I don’t want it overrun and ruined by hipster tourists. If you want something authentic, meaningful, real and soulful in your life you can’t google it, you need to seek it, to put in effort and earn it. There are no shortcuts to the Soul...