An atmosphere of black humour pervades Magsons Delicatessen on 18th June Road, the iconic shopping street which bisects the heart of Goa's pleasant little capital city, Panjim. Customers keep filing in with enquiring looks on their faces, hoping to find this most popular meat purveyor an exception to the state's chronic beef shortage. Raj Maganlal's own expression is enough to turn the regulars right around, but those who venture to ask are answered by gales of sardonic laughter. "We have duck, chicken, pork, mutton, quail and emu" he says, "you want rabbit? We have rabbit. But I think the only way we will sell beef again is if I cross the border to bring it back myself."
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Actually, there is no beef ban in Goa. There is considerable irony that across the border from Maharashtra, India's smallest state's own BJP government is instead championing the steady supply of beef for its citizens. Manohar Parrikar's replacement Chief Minister, the long-time RSS member Laxmikant Parsekar has declared "We will not ban it, regardless of what the Centre does. For our people, especially minorities, eating beef is part of their food." So his administration has promised "to sell beef across the state."
But as Raj Maganlal — in the meat business since 1983 — is well aware, beef consumption in Goa is not restricted to the state's Catholics and Muslims. "I am a Hindu, I am a Gujarati Hindu, but I eat beef," he told me. "Beef is by far the most reasonably priced protein in this state." He noted that Goans prefer fish and seafood — but those prices are getting prohibitively higher and higher. "Here I sell beef for Rs. 250 per kilo, which is enough for a family of four to eat at both meals in a day. No other meat compares."
Under normal circumstances, Magsons Delicatessen sells around 250 kilos of beef per day, with an appreciable minority of Hindu customers "from the elite" says Maganlal. He explains this is because many of the state's traditional households still maintain some taboos about cooking the meat at home. But that has never stopped their residents from relishing "cutlet pao", the classic Goan street food where crisp-fried slices of beef are layered in a fresh, warm 'undo', egg-shaped little loaves of bread that are a Panjim speciality. Everyone eats cutlet pao.
Milleniae of history and profound cultural intermingling underlie Goa's relatively easygoing attitude towards food The tiny entrepot's ports were open for global business long before the Portuguese colonial episode began to unfold in 1510. As far back as history is recorded, traders from all over the world thronged Goa's famous horse bazaars, where eager emissaries of Deccan potentates jostled to purchase trained battle steeds — the weapons of mass destruction of those times. The Adil Shah defeated by Portugal's Albuquerque to take Goa was himself a migrant from the Mediterranean, whose navy was commanded by a Polish Jew.
In the colonial era, an unstoppable food revolution burst from Goa to comprehensively remake the Indian diet. Corn, potatoes, tomatoes, guavas, chilies all came into the subcontinent via the Estado da India, along with new recipes, techniques and culinary ideas like leavened bread, and cottage cheese. These spread rapidly and inexorably everywhere — can anyone imagine any Indian food without chilies?
That kind of open-mindedness towards new ideas and influences persists in Goa, where many supermarkets now carry locally-made camembert or mozzarella cheeses, and a genuinely British butcher makes an excellent living supplying old-fashioned bangers to the chorizo set. But easy-going acceptance should not be mistaken for weakness. The distinction is important, says eminent Konkani writer, Damodar Mauzo, "it is today a matter of choice. We Goans are fish eaters. We also love chicken and, given a choice, even wild boar meat. But we do not thrust these on anyone. The actor Rishi Kapoor tweeted yesterday, 'I am angry. Why do you equate food with religion? I am a beef eating Hindu. Does that mean I am less God fearing' I feel exactly the same way."
This is why the beef ban in Maharashtra is considerably less an issue with Goans than the ongoing machinations of Pramod Muthalik in Karnataka, whose Sri Ram Sene has issued "an ultimatum to district administrations of Belgaum, Dharwad and Karwar districts to set up special check posts at all Goa border points to stop beef transportation from Karnataka." This extremist remains banned from Goa, but continues to agitate from across the border, trumpeting this week that "in case authorities do not yield to our demand, we will set up our own check posts and will not allow the transportation of slaughtered cows to Goa." Now, beef suppliers from Karnataka have demanded police protection for their trade to be resumed.
Goans recognise that the beef shortage in the state has nothing to do with them, or religious sentiments either. Damodar Mauzo says, "the last time I was in Srinagar during the apple season, I remember the people of Jammu blocked the roads on some pretext, but the main motive was to cripple the apple trade and strangle the Kashmir economy. We are facing a similar situation, another political move." A couple of years ago, anticipating this phenomenon of stark intolerance being imposed in famously tolerant Goa, he wrote In the Land of Humans, a short story about Halsid'du, who is entrusted with herding some bulls across the border from Karnataka to Goa to serve the meat trade.
Part of Teresa's Man, the latest book in translation from this most beloved of Goan writers — Mauzo's characteristically understated, powerful story traces Halsid'du's elation at crossing the border. He has always been told "see that when you're grown up, you go to Goa. You'll live like a human being there." But then the train of bulls passes a Hindu revivalist meeting, and he becomes targeted by an angry crowd. "Like a swarm of enraged bees, the mob set upon him. The great lovers of animals pounded Halsid'du to their heart's content. At the end of it all, he was left wondering why he had beaten black and blue by those who lived in this land of humans."
