ZEROPOSRO IN PANJIM NOW…pictures shows a millet recipes demonstration being conducted; the store offers a host of organic or chemically-free produce as also does veggie and fruit basket delivery at doorstep. Promoting eco-friendly lifestyles, absolutely way to go for our times!

By Tara Narayan

Zero waste is an idea spreading from Germany back to India via Goa maybe…

GUESS what! One day I stepped out for shopping and came home without a single plastic bag. Wow, I thought, I’ve arrived in my dream world, I’m a plastic free housewife, I congratulated myself and all that. Where did I go shopping? At Jonah Fernandes’ ZeroPosro which arrived in capital city Panjim in November last and is today tucked away in a rental flat (near Miramar beach, next to Choco Crème down the Campal promenade) on the first floor.
The friendly Johan says they’re ZeroPosro is for the old, timeless principle of good living. Be organic, be eco-friendly, be friends of Mother Earth…so on their shelves here they have chemical-free pulses, rice, millets of many varieties, jaggery, honey, pickles and a lot more desirable, honest things to support healing and a stronger immune system.
I bought some of the best besan ladoo, yummilicious peanut chutney powder, some masur dal, country rice, ginger-infused jaggery powder and what else — savoury chakli of chana dal, and am immeasurably pleased with my shopping for the month. All weighed out and packed in brown paper bags or in glass bottles. I came home inordinately happy with myself for I had not a single plastic bag lying around in my kitchen or home begging to be recycled or chucked. I was thrilled and vowed that I’ll shopping at ZeroPosro more often from now onwards. ZeroPosro has come to capital city Panjim or Panaji, go look it up.
They’re my kind of people, these Zero Posro folk, they love and respect Mother Earth and her womb and bosom…Mother Earth is Mother Earth, the divine. Say hello to volunteer here Hannay who’s all the way from Germany, she tells me the idea of buying without ending up with plastics is a big movement now in Germany. Germans are taking their own bags, dibba and bottles to shop at the local makeover eco-friendly grocer’s store in style now! Look ma, no plastics, gone or going with the wind from the sound of it.
ZeroPosro is Panjim is a rental flat turned over into an outlet grocery store with a difference. Yes, take your tins and dibba, cloth bags, bottyle, to shop and they appreciate it. They also do agreements with organic farmers out in Parra and elsewhere in Goa where there’s still pristine farmland being cultivated and the produce is collected and put out in baskets in lots and weekly deliveries are done at your doorstep. You get a selection of different veggies and fruit and bread if you wish.
Talk to them first. Talk to Jonah, Hannah, Susmita, Manisha or staff there. These mix basket of vegetables, fruit, salad greens, eggs and bread if you want work out to say Rs3,500 for four home deliveries a month. They get the fresh green farm produce from farms in Assagao, Parra, Taleigao… “sometimes we just go and pick some things from the local farmers in Taleigao off the pavements early morning!” Bread? They get kapli wheat bread from Parra and it is about Rs160 per loaf…but it helps if you place your order in advance to get it for sure. They’re still doing small-time business for a larger cause and I will bless this cause!
Wander around at this cool ZeroPosro store and you will also spy a room full of recycled clothes, you may fall for some of them! They’re as they say pre-loved and make for economic buys…a lot of folk now are shifting to being thrifty, that is they don’t want to buy, throw all the time, they want to recycle, mend, patch up, discard only as a last resort. Something like that.
Anyway, I’ve just introduced to my favorite shopping place in Panjim. Join me in spreading the ZeroPosro idea near and far, we all need to practice this old idea back in vogue now for it is an idea to bring back life to Mother Earth’s fertile womb and bosom. It’s a bottoms-up movement which has already caught fire abroad in the suffering developed countries where life is killingly inflationary and they live far more stressed out lifestyles than we do out here in Goa or India — where I hate to say it but expectations are not ruthlessly hyped or hiked up so much yet.

AT CASHEW FESTIVAL 2024

CASHEW FEST 2024 SEASON 2 TAKES OFF: The 3-day festival was Inaugurated on May 10, 2024 by chief guest and Minister for Sports, Art & Culture and RDA Govind Gaude, along with Ganesh Gaonkar (chairperson, GTDC and MLA Sanvordem), Daji Salkar (MLA, Vasco), Kamal Datta (IFS, Principal Chief Conservator of Forest), Umakant (IFS Addl Principal Chief Conservator of Forest), Praveen Kumar Raghaw (IFS Chief Conservator of Forests) and Nandkumar Parab (MD GFDC). Poriem MLA and chairperson of Goa Forests Development Corporation Deviya Rane in her comments said that apart from celebrating the caju festival, they were embarking on a journey embodying tradition, culture and empowerment of Goa’s communities. The cashew fest is committed to preserving and promoting the rich tapestry of Goa’s cultural heritage.

OF COURSE I couldn’t stay away from the Cashew Festival 2024 because it was in Panjim where I stay! Didn’t make it for the VIP inaugural but on the finale third day went for some dekho-ing to cheer myself up. My expectations were low but I was pleasantly surprised and shocked!
I mean like if you put a peg of fresh cashew apple juice or sour urrack or fiery feni in a fancy cocktail – you’re paying Rs250 plus, plus for a tacky plastic glass of say…er…Urrack Cocktails with names like “Kothimbir Collins” or “Aamtaan Sour” or “U-Turn.” Most of the stalls were doing cocktails big time and I couldn’t find fresh neero for money or for love! Caju neero is a thirst-quencher to beat all thirst-quenchers in a Goan summer month and I love it…but hard to find.
In any case I will refuse to pay Rs250 for a glass of fresh neero, okay. Paying Rs150 for a much diluted neero sherbet at government Govan stall was bad enough! For sure there was lots of urrak and feni cocktails going, also Borecha cocktails, lots of Goan and exotic oriental food featuring caju liquor or nuts. It was a very educative Cashew Festival 2024 with some of the big timers of Goa represented. Plus, various presentations showcased the caju business and how it works; plus entertainment galore of music and dance.
It was drink, eat and win some prizes if you followed the host or hostess chat on stage reeling out details of caju stalls to visit and what to drink and eat…many dishes featuring the cashew apple beverages non-alcoholic and alcoholic, and of course caju or cashewnuts. I took an interest in some mocktails pet named “Susegado” kokum syrup with basil leaves, “Minty Kokum” with kokum syrup and strawberry crush, “Bimbli Cooler” with bimbli syrup and sugarcane juice, “Goan Breeze” with bimbli syrup and watermelon and “Spicy Cashew” with cashew syrup and Tabasco sauce – at Stall No.29 I think. Sugary beverages just make one feel more thirsty and fatigued so I avoided these.

But a friend made me take a free shot of this spicy cashew feni and for a moment my throat caught fire as it warmed me up more than I wanted to be warmed up, that too at the end of a sizzling hot May evening. I did my usual wandering around, saying hello to friends here and there, appreciating the superlatively tasty hot toasted buttery cashewnuts selling out Rs100 a generous cone at the centrally located “cazhewtree” stall. They doing gourmet “natural and nature identical” flavors in cashewnuts — Jayraj Cashew Industries, Navelim, Goa. I took a cone full of the warm buttery roasted cashews home for a friend who loves caju nuts, this was one great idea at the fest.
The Aangan folk were doing some “Modern Goan Cuisine, Modern Indian Cuisine, Classical Indian Cuisine” dishes but I’ve renounced spicy foody these days…there were the Casanoni pizzas featuring cashew crumble/puree/pesto, quite inventive cashew desserts. Most were swigging the bottled Rosita Kokum & Lime cashew feni (Rs100 only). Cashew nuts there were plenty to buy at Rs450 per half kg pack) and there were the Zantye caju katli boxes. Never mind that a lot of the caju katli packs more sweet dairy mava than real caju mava…on the whole they’re too sweet.
The Regional Fruit Research Station Vengurla offers all kinds of Konkan coast fruit tree seedlings and they also offer free information seriously. I said hello to mango farmer Ashok Y Joshi of Joshi’s Agro Industry Research & Development, he had a bag full of hefty green tota mangoes and I got three for Rs100 — to make the season’s fresh “miskut” perhaps. Although tota tends to be naturally more sweet-fleshed than the sour-fleshed green mangoes. I can’t bear the oily pickles anymore, although I suppose a wee bit of cold-pressed mustard or gingerly oil offers terrific flavors! There was no aam papad, jamun papad or jackfruit papad to buy, at least I didn’t see any of these useful buys around…or even Goa’s rich mankurad mango jam which is priceless and one dare not eat too much of.
At the Lemon Chilli restaurant and bar outlet I reveled over this serving of savoury long thin banana wafers, and avocado dip – covered over with herbal greens, Very pretty and at Rs150 affordable, I fell for it and could have had two of them…but I wasn’t really hungry. The glamour oriental food put me off, don’t ask me why! This is to say I came home happy. Next outing, mango festival coming up. Goa is a state of innumerable festivals and of the good life in India, you may die enjoying yourself here if you have money burning a hole in your pockets or rather credit cards nowadays!