Everybody wants to open a supermarket to compete with the big departmental stores and malls! All kinds of gift and services are being offered to woo one another’s customers in the same area, for example, Caranzalem. The little mom and pop stores like Mini Super Market at Tonca which offer a lot of household produce are feeling left out and fear the big air-conditioned supermarkets which get their produce at whole sale rates will be left behind to shut shop…. but this is not going to happen for shopping is a habit and many actually prefer the smaller, friendlier ‘kirana’ or ‘posro’ of old for varied reasons!

By Tara Narayan

MORNINGS being my favorite time of the days I like to begin by visiting the Panaji gauti pavement market and sometimes I step into the market to take a closer look at the scene-scenery of veggies and fruit local and imported! When I can’t find my handful of fresh tulsi leaves outside I go in to see if one of the flower sellers will sell me 10 worth of the green Vishnu tulsi leaves which I so love to boil in water and drink first thing in the morning after getting up for the day. Some are reluctant to give me10 worth of tulsi insisting that in these times of covid19 the minimum price of anything should be at least 20! I say give me as many tulsi leaves as you wish for10, that is my daily budget; sometimes it is a no no and sometimes one of them will say here, take, and give me a generous hand full of tulsi leaves, fresh green Vishnu tulsi leaves, but occasionally there is more of the hardier Shyam tulsi purplish version available and this can be twiggy and fibrous. Both varieties are great for livening up a cup of tea and I dote on them not having a garden of my own to grow them…since tusli or desi basil leaves grow so well in Goa I don’t know why the public gardens don’t grow them?
RAIDERS
Of course there are many raiders in the morning hours with pious men and women wandering around to remove every flower from a bush be it of some hibiscus or golden alamanda or even mogra or the little zayo which blooms so gloriously and long after the raiders have departed with their little basket or bag full of flowers the zayo continues to come down like floral confetti! Lucky are those who live in old world complexes like the original old Kamat Classic I, II, III or IV plus, plus. I prefer the first three for here where I stay there is spaciousness like you will never find in the new hothouse housing complexes and I find a most interesting collection of trees have grown up with lots of frangipani and the apte or money tree of the Maharashtrian new year when the leaves are given to each other as money for auspicious good luck or something like that.
In any case I’m wondering why all the garden grounds around me should not be converted into kitchen vegetable patches too and the veggies may be sold to in-house residents economically and the funds raised go into maintenance of the garden grounds further? Since I’m in just a rental here at Kamat Classic II I’m too hesitant to make any suggestions…in any case there’s neem here and a most handsome bilimbim, a perfect coconut tree arises just outside my balcony…elsewhere on walks around I’ve seen lemon and sabja tulsi and lemon grass. There is no conscious effort on the part of the gardening staff to grow veggies though and I’m wondering if I could plant a drumstick somewhere while I’m here?
(Sigh) All these years in Goa while visiting Goa on holiday and trekking trips when my dear friend Mohini Motwane and her hubby Jaichant urged me to take a loan and invest in a place for myself, I didn’t pay attention and in those younger years even my father who was around or a favorite uncle would have even lent me money to buy a home for myself….but, it was not to be. Say I just never thought I’d grow old and in later years as came to Panaji to settle it was just a round of rental homes from Dona Paula to Miramar to Tonca to Caranzalem…youth has flown just as life has, good times, bad times.
But to continue my saga here I was quite distressed the other day when outside Kini Supermarket I found a middle-aged woman, her teenage son and husband in the background with a woeful story: She from village Maharashtra and had come to Goa on invitation of some friends to find a job here, but her friends had abandoned them and they were left high and dry on the pavements with no where to go…no money to go back home to village Maharashtra. It was evening and I was in a hurry and instead of doing my usual curiosity cat questioning further I asked how much she needed to get back to her home state, she said 600 per person. Sorry, I parted with200 and told her that was all I could do, I directed her to Panaji police station or temple or gurdwara where I presume they would get some help! Later on I wondered why I was so cursory in my interest in this family in plight and in such cases what one should do to be of some help? Do police stations, temples, gurudwaras or masjids keep open house for lost and led astray folk like these? It seems to me that post covid19 and closure of so many businesses so many are adrift in search of jobs….somewhere to earn some money to just stay alive and make ends meet at a basic subsistence level. Are we ready to deal with this kind of situations or are going to harden the heart and soul and cling on to our good fortune? A question to ask, no?
AND now to come to supermarkets and how everybody small fry or big fry who want to call themselves supermarkets, supermarts, hymarts, everything under air-conditioned roof, etc. There’s such a plethora of them coming up almost cheek-by-jowl with the big guns only too happy to tempt away one another’s regular clientele!
I was startled when Hitesh, the young man from small time Mini-Supermarket at Tonca, who carrys up the 20liter Bisleri bottle up to the second floor of my current home, who had heard of a new Tinto Supermarket opening at Caranzalen, asked me anxiously, “Abhi ma’am up tinto main jaoge aur meri choti supermarket chod doh ge?” That’s when I realized how much my small custom he depended on and the fear of the small timer of the big timer taking away business….because the big supermarkets have so much more to offer in comfy shopping!
Nothing of that sort, I assured Hitesh, although, yes, I do drop in one or other of the big supermarkets although Magson’s is my old favorite; I do also sometimes drop by at Kini’ Super Market and now there is of course the brand new Tinto, all within short distance of Caranzalen, and Big Bazaar out at Taleigao is also there…I still will continue to buy a few things from the smaller supermarkets (since all want to define themselves as supermarkets) including his brother’s Mini Supermarket at Tonca!
Come to think of it is a vile business dilemma. Basically, I do my shopping at many places at whim and fancy and I do prefer to but my rations wherever I can see them and they are sold by weight before my eyes — as at the Panaji market grocery shops where it’s most economical to buy. The fancy cool supermarkets of course have larger packaged choices and when it comes to semi and cooked foods in the non-vegetarian segment of course nobody can beat the old time masters of it all who are Magson’s, pioneers in Panaji and its suburbs; plus, Kirit Maganlal keeps coming up with new ideas and a slew of customer-friendly services. Just to say I’ve been a Magson’s friend all these years and pretty much know all their senior staff and a few of the young ones….so it helps to feel at home here.

NEW SUPERMARKETS
Now I find the newer supermarkets are competing with one another to woo the same clientele in Caranzalem! It’s the usual story of offering free cloth bags, special offers, discount points to collect when they’ve numbered up, gifts, and so on and so forth! Free home deliveries are of course a big hit but many like me still like to go around for dekho this and that and what’s new and make new discoveries.
Of course many are cutting down on excessive frivolous shopping and I dare say business is bad even if it has marginally progressed from the covid-19 lock downs. With so many folk out of job there is less and less money to splurge and we in the print media are awe fully hit in our attempt to stay afloat and keep mind and body together…in the perennial hope that ache din will come for the people too and not just the government. It is a grim story all around and one can only wish Chief Minister Pramod Sawant’s government will stock of all these changing times and be humble enough to be on the side of the aam aadmi who have little to fall back on, than on the side of the better-offs –who have piled up enough to fall back on and see them through bad times.
I DON’T understand! Why so many mangoes in the market in the month of March, even the Goan mankurad and the little hafus of Goa, totapuri, pairi and a few more, when I last inquired this week it was a quote of three and five malcurad or mankurad or malcorado for 2,000! Even the green mangoes are plentiful along with fresh caju biyo in the market these days selling three for50 and 100 pieces per `200, respectively for green mango and caju biyo. I suppose some folk buy these fresh cashew nuts to dry roast for their own needs and of course tender fresh caju biyo curries are all the rage come the cashew season in Goa. It’s hard to find the fresh juice of the brightly ornamental caju apple though be it fresh juice called neero which is a super thirst quencher when the heat builds up and it is building up early this season although Shivratri is still to arrive on March 11 — a friend of mine has gone out to Coimbatore to Jaggi Sadhguru’s big jagran or all night celebration in praise of mahadeo, god of gods in Hinduism’s pantheon. Wish I had gone too! Life is fleeting and I’m stuck in a routine rut unable to make up my mind about whether I live or I die.