Those childhood days of waking up as late as 10 am with the only schedule being to meet up with the neighbourhood gang and engage in play—right from cricket to blind man's bluff to a card game of UNO—have ended.
Running around the village, those were the summer holidays when, no matter where Goans lived for the rest of the year, these months meant returning to their native village in Goa. And, the children played with their neighbourhood friends and extended cousins, who’d come on a visit.
There was a different kind of ease and comfort that came in running across the house, and sometimes, relishing meals prepared in kitchens that weren’t your own.
A vivid memory of those days was taking a moment to admire the water that emerged from the 'rooster’s' mouth.
That’s right, the rooster-shaped clay water dispenser was pretty common in most Goan households, especially in the era when there were no fridges. It was called gurguret and was the only source of having cool water to fight the summer heat.
Now, in her 20s Shannia Azavedo remembers visiting her grandmother’s house in Divar during her summer vacations, where she’d been told that her grandmother owned a cute little fridge, where she stored water, that ran without electricity.
The first time, Shannia had sprinted to check it out herself, and then discovered the earthen pot with a spout in the kitchen.
The disheartening part was, as a kid, she and the others were never allowed to touch the gurguret as her grandmother was sacred the kids would accidently break it.
“She (grandmother) would often say that this water is very healthy and the water, in fact, had quite a different taste,” Shannia says reminiscing those childhood days of pestering her grandmother to pour her some cool water from this no-power-required fridge as she took a break between games.
The gurguret was tilted a bit, and out of the rooster’s mouth gushed water in a steady stream, and filled the glass that had been perfectly placed below.
As Abraham D’Cruz recollects, the vessel always commanded a prominent place on the table.
“I remember the humble gurguret that used to be in the kitchen, the firewood kitchen of the 80s,” he says and adds, “For us, it was like having one more kombo (cock) in the house—one in the kitchen and the other one on our roof top at Ilha de Rachol, which is there today.”
Abraham was always fascinated by the ‘red’ gurguret giving out ‘blue’ cool water. He notes that while other kolsos (earthen pots) would gather moss when water was stored in them, the gurguret never did because of the special quality of soil used.
“As kids, back then, we had to be very careful with the gurguret as it was made of clay and especially the earthen lid that covered it,” he remembers and adds, “Those days, if there were any mistakes, if anything broke, a quick slap or a tight pinch followed!”
Often being assisted, sometimes we’d try pouring the water ourselves, often ending up breaking the neck or breaking it entirely. The next was to find a replacement at the market.
Although with modern refrigerators taking up space in the kitchen, this essential piece of earthenware has lost its charm, Abraham still owns one at his place at Shiroda.
“I’m happy that my (now) 22-year-old son grew up asking for kombia uddok (water from the rooster), and is aware that earthenware like our Goan gurguret exists.”
