Mario Miranda couldn’t keep them out of his drawings, they are the fisher-folk without whom Goa would be as incomplete as it would without its beaches
Sounds that area quintessential part of a village in the morning: the sound from a rubber hornmade by a fisherman, with a cane basket full of fish on his bicycle and thehollering of a fisherwoman with a cane basket of fish on her head, supported ona rolled up piece of cloth. “Nishtem zaighe? (Do you want fish?)” She calls out, so the ladies of the houses thatshe walks by hear her. “Kitem hadlam?(What have you brought?)” comes a reply from one of the doorways. And thenthere is the village marketplace, where a group of fisherwomen sit togetherwith their baskets of fish.
The fisherwomenat the Cansaulim tinto sit in a smallrundown shed in the middle of the market. They know most of their customers byname. “Inacio, yo re, pamplet ghe mare(Ignatius, come, buy pomfret),” calls out Valeriana Rodrigues, a fisherwoman inher 60s, to a passing customer. “I wake up at 4 am and catch the 5.15 am bus toMargao, near KTC bus stand, from where I buy fish,” she says. The otherfisherwomen go to Margao at 3.30 am with a hired vehicle. “I bought 25 pomfretsfor Rs 1250 and a kilo of shark for Rs 1500. Now fish is more expensive, in theearlier days, we used to buy 100 mackerels for Rs 150 or Rs 200. Now, 60mackerels cost Rs 1000,” says Valeriana.
Among them sitsRosada D’mello. She has lost all her teeth and she sells dried fish. “Today Ihave not made any sales,” she says ruefully. She breaks for tea and goes out tosmoke a beedi.
“Selling fish ismessy, I’d rather stick to my job as a salesgirl in a shop in Margao,” saysPriscilla, the daughter of Antonette, who sells fish from door to door.Thankfully for Goa, we still have the fisherwomen of Cansaulim and their soulsisters all over Goa, who keep Goa going, literally.
