When Maputo Meets Mapusa!

 

(This article first appeared in the 14th July 2024 issue of Deccan Herald newspaper's Sunday Herald section on page 14 https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/story/lifestyle/food-and-drink/when-maputo-meets-mapusa-3103088)

Ginjinha Portugal's Cherry Liqueur

 

(This article first appeared online on 29th February on Live Mint, India https://lifestyle.livemint.com/food/drink/ginjinha-cherry-liqueur-lisbon-portuguese-drink-111709175803184.html )

Feijoada: The Stew For Family & Friends

 

(This article first appeared in print on 17th June 2023 on page 6 in Mint Lounge, India and online here https://lifestyle.livemint.com/food/discover/feijoada-brazilian-pork-beans-stew-goan-cuisine-111686937941602.html)

Mangalorean Christian Cuisine

 

(This article first appeared online on 26th April 2023 in Mint Lounge, India https://lifestyle.livemint.com/food/discover/the-edible-secrets-of-mangaluru-s-christian-community-111682477016549.html)

Chinês Clandestinos--Lisbon's hidden Chinese restaurants

 

(This article first appeared online on 4th January 2023 and in print on 5th January 2023 in Mint Lounge, India https://lifestyle.livemint.com/food/discover/planning-a-trip-to-lisbon-visit-these-secret-underground-restaurants-111672832413425.html)

The OG Goan Holy Trinity of Taste

 

(This article first appeared online on 5th August on ZeeZest

https://zeezest.com/food/importance-of-coconut-in-vinegar-toddy-and-feni-in-goa-806)

Book to Book!

In an increasingly digital world, it is these iconic brick and mortar bookshops around the world that still hold great promise and hope for die-hard bibliophiles and serve as sanctuaries where they can lose themselves in the sight, smell and feel of crisp pages.

By Raul Dias

Shakespeare and Company, Paris
Since 1951, 37 Rue de la Bûcherie on Paris’ Left Bank has seen the legendary Shakespeare and Company cater to millions of book lovers. Offering them not just juicy morsels in the form of their favourite reads—which they are free to peruse through—but also a place to bed down for the night for free! Yes, this bookshop has several beds interspersed between its bookshelves and truly lives up to its motto of “Be Not Inhospitable to Strangers Lest They Be Angels in Disguise,” that’s even emblazoned above the entry way to the reading section. And while you’re leafing thr uoough the works of the greats like Hugo, Balzac and of course Shakespeare, take a moment to go through the bookshop’s very own coffee table book titled Shakespeare and Company, Paris: A History of the Rag & Bone Shop of the Heart that came out in 2016.
37 Rue de la Bûcherie, 75005 Paris, France
+33 1 43 25 40 93
shakespeareandcompany.com

Libreria Acqua Alta, Venice
Literally meaning ‘High Water Bookstore’, Libreria Acqua Alta is housed on the Calle Longa Santa Maria Formosa, next to Venice’s Piazza San Giovanni e Paolo and has a decidedly shabby chic feel to it—what with its flea market-meets-wacky bookshop appearance. But despite this, it is often referred to as the world’s most beautiful bookshop and is a repository for books like old editions of the works of greats like Dante to modern fiction of the Dan Brown kind. Interestingly, paying the ultimate tribute to the ‘water wonderland’ that is Venice, this quirky bookshop houses its books in everything from bathtubs and washbasins to… get this, a life-size gondola!
Calle Longa S. Maria Formosa, 5176/b, 30122 Castello, Venice, Italy
+39 041 296 0841

The Last Bookstore, Los Angeles
This bookshop with a rather ominous name, may not have a rich legacy to rely on, what with it having been established only in 2005. But what it lacks in years, it more than makes up for in prowess. All of 22,000 sq. ft. in downtown LA, this store is actually a collection of small stores within the main space. So, while you will find 250,000 new and second-hand books on the first two floors, including the new Arts & Rare Book Annex, it also has a shared space that house vinyl records and graphic novels. In addition to this, it also has a mammoth mezzanine level that includes The Labyrinth Above the Last Bookstore, Gather Yarn Shop, and the Spring Arts Collective gallery shops. What’s interesting about The Labyrinth is that it features a maze-like space that stocks over 100,000 used books that are all sold at $1 each!
453 S Spring St, Los Angeles, CA 90013, USA
+1 213-488-0599
lastbookstorela.com

Livraria Lello, Porto
Though we’re loathe to pick favourites on a selection of such wonderful bookshops around the world, this stunning bookshop in the portside city of Porto in Portugal is worthy of every single hyperbole! Rua das Carmelitas, a short walk from the city center is where this store that resembles the inside of an old wooden ship has been housed since 1906 (it opened at another location in 1869). A winding mahogany double staircase leads you up to the higher floors where you will find a treasure trove of books—both in Portuguese and other languages—on shelves that are set between pillars that are decorated with bronze bas-reliefs of Portuguese literature figures. Don’t miss checking out the tiny tracks on the floor that are used by the staff for sliding ladders and carts laden with books.
R. das Carmelitas 144, 4050-161 Porto, Portugal
+351 22 200 2037
livrarialello.pt


Powell’s City of Books, Portland
Besides it’s moniker of ‘America’s Weirdest City’, Portland also has one other calling card that gives it some serious street cred as a bibliophile’s paradise—Powell’s City of Books. Located in downtown Portland’s Pearl District, this bookstore is the largest second-hand and new bookstore in the world, occupying an entire city block and housing approximately one million books. Established in 1971, it has a plethora of titles ranging from vintage cookery to indigenous native American history. The store is so large that every Sunday, there is a free public tour offered. On this 45-minute tour, one is given a brief history of the gargantuan bookstore, from the Pillar of Signatude to a sneak peek into their Rare Book room.
1005 W Burnside St, Portland, OR 97209, USA
+1 800-878-7323
powells.com


The Indian Quintet
While we’re still coming to grips the recent shutting down of one of the country’s most revered bookshops—Mumbai’s Strand Book Stall, here’s a list of five other iconic Indian bookshops.
1. Dasgupta & Co, Kolkata: A virtual institution that’s part of the College Street posse of bookshops, this historic bookstore was established in 1886 and is still the go-to place to procure the first editions of various rare publications.
2. The Book Shop, New Delhi: Simply called ‘Book Shop’ this spartan, yet treasure trove of amazing reads in New Delhi’s Jor Bagh truly lives up to its name. Opened in 1970, this store may be a tad cramped and crowded, but you’ll always find whatever you are looking for here!
3. Kitab Khana, Mumbai: Located in a historic building in the city’s culture and arts hub of Fort, this large, airy bookshop stocks books not just in English and Hindi, but also in other regional and international languages.
4. Literati Book Shop and Café, Goa: Housed in a picturesque cottage in Calangute, this bookstore-cum-café is the perfect place to leaf through both second-hand and new books while tucking into a scrumptious lemon tea cake.
5. Leaping Windows, Bengaluru: A slight departure from the other bookshops on this list, in that it is comic bookstore and library, this Indiranagar shop makes the cut thanks to its mindboggling collection of comic book and magazine titles available for purchase or rent.

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the April 2018 issue of Jetwings Domestic in-flight magazine of Jet Airways http://www.jetairways.com/EN/IN/jetexperience/magazines.aspx)

12 Hours in Lisbon

A beautiful, quaint city by the River Tagus, Lisbon clings on to the past with all its might, showing you its wonders all in the span of a day, making your Portugal holiday a memorable one—however short!

By Raul Dias

With its winding cobblestoned streets and breath-taking architecture, Lisbon is much more than just the capital of Portugal. Imbued with as much history as culture, a trip to this great European city is rewarding beyond compare. And there is much to be seen and done, even if you have just a few hours in this stunning city of seven hills that sits pretty by the River Tagus! 

8.30am Start your day about town just like the sugar-loving Lisbonites do — with a cup of ferociously potent black coffee and a plate of scrumptious egg custard tarts. Doused with powdered sugar and lashings of cinnamon dust, these beauties are best had at the Pastéis de Belém pastry shop in the Belém neighbourhood that has been making them since 1837, following an ancient recipe from the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos. Speaking if which walk off all the excesses of the morning with a saunter down to the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos — a stunning Gothic edifice and the attached Church of Santa Maria that houses the tomb of the great Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama who first European to reach India by sea, and thus helping Portugal colonise Goa.

9.45am While you’re still in Belém cross over the busy intersection via the footbridge and spend some time at the Belém Tower that was built in the early 16th century and is a prominent example of the Portuguese Manueline architectural style. A short walk down will have you staring at the Padrão dos Descobrimentos monument built in the Modern Classicism style of sculpture. Located along the Tagus river where ships departed to explore and trade with India and Orient, the monument celebrates the Portuguese Age of Discovery during the 15th and 16th centuries.   

12pm Hop on a local bus or better still a tourist rickshaw — just like the one’s here in India — and head into the heart of Lisbon at the beautiful Praça do Rossio square. It is from here that central Lisbon was rebuilt and laid out in a grid-like pattern after the 1755 earthquake destroyed part of the city. Today, the square — once the setting of popular revolts and celebrations, bullfights and executions — is now a preferred meeting place of Lisbonites who can be seen basking in the sunlight sitting on its wave-patterned tiled ground. A little further away, the hip and trendy Chiado area is the best place for some shopping and people watching as you catch the world go by near the statue of 16th century epic poet Luis de Camões at Camões Square.

2pm For lunch, why not go colonial? Confused? With nearly half a dozen erstwhile colonies including Goa here in India, Mozambique and Brazil, Portugal’s cuisine today bears a lot of influences from them. Serving some of the most authentic Goan food this side of the Mandovi river is the The Cantinho da Paz Goan restaurant in Bairro Alto with fiery vindaloo and chicken cafreal up for grabs. For a more exotic meal try the Brazilian pork and beans dish called feijoada at one of the many street-side cafes that dot the Restauradores neighbourhood while you nurse that glass of ruby red Port wine!  

3.30pm Trek up one of the city’s seven hills to visit a city icon — Saint George’s Castle that can be seen from almost everywhere in the city. Its oldest parts date from the 6th century, when it was fortified by the Romans, Visigoths, and eventually the Moors. It is now an oasis of peace, but just past the main gate is a statue of King Afonso Henriques and a series of cannons, reminders of the castle’s original purpose. What remains of the Alcaçovas Palace where medieval kings lived, is a stone building now housing a restaurant, and round the back, a small archaeological museum.

5pm With one of the most unusual of all structures in Lisbon, the Islamic architecture style-influenced Campo Pequeno Bullring should be your next stop to catch some bull fighting action. Inspired by the neo-Mudéjar, a Romantic style inspired by the old Arab architecture from Iberia, this bull fighting arena was built in 1892. Interestingly, unlike Spanish bullfighting, in Portugal the bull is not killed at the end of the fight. This was decreed by King Miguel of Portugal during his reign of 1828–1834 as he considered it inhumane to the animal.  

7pm Embark on a tranquil Tagus river cruise as you sail past other Lisbon icons like the Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro-inspired Christ the King statue dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ that overlooks the city arms stretched wide on the Almada on the left bank of the river! You will also sail under the 25 de Abril Bridge which is a suspension bridge connecting the main city of Lisbon to Almada. A doppelganger of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, this Portuguese iteration has a total length of 2,277m, and is the 27th largest suspension bridge in the world for those of you who like trivia!

8.30pm You simply cannot leave Lisbon without taking in the heart-breaking beauty of a Fado performance at one of the city’s many Fado venues like the famed Clube de Fado in Alfama. This melancholic form of music is characterized by mournful tunes and lyrics, often about the sea or the life of the poor, and infused with a sentiment of resignation and fatefulness....

Pics: Raul Dias and Turismo de Portugal

FACT FILE

Getting there
While there are no direct flights from India to Lisbon, the best way to get there is via a major Western European city such as Paris, Amsterdam, Munich or Zurich. From there, there are several daily flights to Lisbon on airlines such as TAP, Swiss Airlines, Air France, Lufthansa, KLM and Easy Jet. The super-efficient metro, buses, trams and reasonable taxis make travelling within Lisbon a piece of cake… or better still, have a go at it on foot! Indian passport holders need a Schengen visa to visit Portugal, which can be obtained at the Portuguese Embassy Delhi or at the consulate in Mumbai.

When to visit
Spring and summer are the best times to visit this sun-soaked city by the River Tagus, with the months from May to September being jam-packed with street performers, carnivals and other fun activities!

Accommodation
Lisbon has an excellent selection of hotels to choose from to suit all budgets and tastes. Two of the best value-for-money options include Palacio Belmonte (www.palaciobelmonte.com) and Pousada de Lisboa (www.pousadas.pt).

(A shorter, differently edited version of this piece was first published in the July 2017 issue of The Week's Smart Life magazine)

Foodprint in Lisbon: Colonial Cousins

From the ubiquitous vindaloo to the not-so-well-chronicled scrumptiousness of bolinho de peixe, Goan cuisine abounds in Lisbon and thus finds a firm footing for itself as Portugal’s most loved colonial ‘return gift’

By Raul Dias

The moment seems way too epiphanic to be real as I sit at the tiny, rough-hewn wooden table that’s covered with rice sack cloth with a bowl of steaming caril de peixe plonked atop it. Next to it, jostling for space is a small salver bearing a two-by-three matrix of small, freshly-baked paos, whose concave tops glisten in the light of the wall sconces, that also highlight a colourful mural of Lord Ganesha. I’ve just had my first morsel, mopping up the marigold orange-hued curry—laden with the tender, almost quivering white flesh of the pampo (pomfret) fish—with a scoop fashioned out of the bread that gives us Goans our de facto moniker—paowalla!
Suddenly, an apparition in white enters my peripheral vision. Jesus is standing beside the table, arms akimbo. “How’s it going?”, he asks with a beatific smile. “It’s just like mum’s fish curry back home,” I hear my filial reflexes taking over, as I go in for a second bite. And then it happens. For the second time in my life, I feel tears well up in my eyes while eating (or at the very least, attempting to eat!) a meal. The first time was at a nondescript hole-in-the-wall in Sydney’s Chinatown called BBQ King, where I literally sobbed while tucking into a plastic tub of sublime char siu pork, roast goose and sesame oil-spritzed, blanched gai lan that was hitherto the best meal of my life. But that sunny June afternoon, Jesus Lee, the Goa-born chef and owner of Lisbon’s Jesus é Goês (Rua São José 23, 1150-352 Lisbon)—which is perhaps, in my opinion, the best Goan restaurant this side of the Zuari—had had me for a goner.
But then, with Goan food currying (do excuse the pun) fond favour with Lisbon’s food cognoscenti over the last couple of years, Jesus has little option but to stay true to the culinary antecedents of this very complex chimera of a cuisine that places the triumvirate of spicy, tangy, pork-y dishes on its highest altar, something he learned by observing his mother Paulina cook back home in Goa. So, while his stash of malt vinegar is flown in every other month from Goa, his annual trips back home to India help replenish his spice stockpile—something he uses deftly in everything from a far-from-ersatz take on shark ambot-tik to a transcendent camarão (prawn) reichado.
“There’s absolutely no room for faking Goan food. They’ll be caught out in a second. By now, we all know our xacuti from our xec xec,” laughs my friend, fellow food writer and proud Lisbonite, Xavier Colaco, who sees the burgeoning number of Goan restaurants in Lisbon as a great way to pay homage to both Portuguese and Indian cuisines, the fruit of whose coupling is Goan food. “But this has not always been the case. Though we’ve had Goan restaurants ever since the 1961 liberation of Goa from Portugal—that saw nostalgic Portuguese returnees from Goa yearn for a taste of their ‘other home’—the hip quotient of ‘going for Goan’ is a recent phenomenon, brought on by the younger crowd.” 

Lisbon-based Goan food historian Anna Philomena Dias é Lobo, whom I meet up with for high tea at Lisbon’s Time Out Market spends half her year in Goa, trawling though ancient recipe books and manuscripts of crusty old Goan matriarchs in order to distill the very essence of the cuisine that she feels is influenced by a number of Portugal’s other colonies. “Take for instance these pastéis de bacalhau,” Anna says, pointing to the three differently spiced zeppelin-like fried orbs of flaked dried cod fish that is reconstituted with milk and then mashed with boiled potatoes—a play on the typically Portuguese-Goan bolinho de peixe or fish croquettes that eschews bacalhau in favour of local Indian fish like ghol or ravas. “While one is made with fresh coriander—a throwback to Goa, the other has in it piri-piri chillies from Mozambique and the third gets its reddish tint from Brazilian annatto seeds! Speaking of Mozambique, did you know that the famous Goan chicken cafreal owes its genesis to the west African nation?” she says of the fiery hot, dry greenish-blackish roast chicken, that she lets me know was prepared by Mozambican slaves who were brought to Goa by the Portuguese colonists to work in the palm groves and who were called ‘cafirs’—from where the dish actually gets its name.
Dinner at the Resturante Cantinho da Paz (Rua da Paz, 4, São Bento, Lisbon) in Lisbon’s historic quarter of São Bento teaches me a lesson to never judge a restaurant by its shabby doorway. A rather loquacious server had me know that the restaurant is owned by a man of Goan origin who came to Portugal in 1964 and worked his way up from plongeur to owner eventually. This casual dining Goan restaurant serves modestly-priced, home-style comfort food like chouriço de Goa (spicy Goa sausages), pork sorpotel and an absolutely divine, if a tad commonplace beef vindaloo that one can find these days on restaurant menus around the world from Vienna to Vladivostok!
But this ubiquity should in no way take away from this highly complex dish that has gone back and forth a fair bit from Portugal to Goa and now back to Portugal, before it eventually evolved into what the Portuguese know and love as vindaloo today. Apparently, it was seafaring Portuguese explorers who carried with them on their voyages a simple dish of pork marinated with wine and garlic called the carne de vinha d’alhos, with the red wine helping to preserve the meat and with the pungency of the garlic masking odours, if any. They would then stew this over low heat and eat it with dried loaves of chewy bread.
But with the conquest of Goa coming into the picture, this well-travelling dish underwent a sea change with palm vinegar standing in for the wine and with more spices like Kashmiri chillies and toasted cumin seeds adding to the fray. The Portuguese version today, is, to use an oft-flogged Thai idiom “same-same, but different’, in that, it is a lot less spicy and a wee bit less vinegar-y than its Goan Sibling. 
But, as I was to soon discover on an emergency grocery supplies run to Lisbon’s Lapa neighbourhood branch of Pingo Doce—Portugal’s largest supermarket chain, Goan delicacies have even found a firm footing for themselves in the country’s mass produced, FMCG sector. So, while I noshed on an impulse purchase of a two-pack of the spicy-prawn-in-white-sauce-enrobed-in-breaded-pastry risole de camarão, that were exact doppelgängers of the ones we Goans eat as hors d’oeuvres at ‘house parties’, the also-spotted-and-gourmandized right away seven-layered bebinca though less sweet, was almost the real deal!   
The ‘real deal’ being a calorific, egg yolk-butter-sugar-coconut milk-redolent diet-buster, that we have a group of canny 16^th century Franciscan nuns in Goa to thank, or so my grand aunt Tia Antoinette would have me know. With no apparent need for the leftover yolks once the egg whites were used to stiffen their wimples, the resourceful Mother Abbess conjured up this recipe that the nuns then baked with seven successive layers representing the seven hillocks that they had to ascend and descend every day in order to reach the church from their hilltop convent in Old Goa.
Imbued with legends and stories, the veracity of which are at best a moot point, the mélange of the Portuguese-Goan cuisines has resulted in something so tangible and real, that it exists not just in the yellowed, dog-eared pages of old recipe books, but celebrated as a living, edible bite of history that’s so very hard to resist, be it in Loutolim or far Lisbon. I’m sure Jesus would agree!    

The Brazilian Feijoada Trail in Lisbon…
Just like cafreal, another edible colonial vestige with deep-rooted slave underpinnings is the hearty Brazilian black bean, chouriço and pork off cut stew called feijoada. Served with a posse of accompaniments like boiled white rice, deep-fried collard greens and a dry farofa sprinkling made from toasted cassava flour sautéed in a bacon-onion mirepoix, and jazzed up with orange wedges for an acidic hit, this antipodean iteration in Lisbon, is more often than not preferred over the indigenous Portuguese version that is plated up sans the collard greens and farofa, and with red kidney beans standing in for the feijao negra or black beans that lend the dish its rather onomatopoeic name. 

Here’s a pick of three of the best places in Lisbon to sample this notorious Brazilian siesta-inducer!

* Babete Gastrobar
Channeling typical Brazilian ‘botecos’—that are informal neighbourhood restaurants dishing out hearty, simple fare—this bright and cheery four-year-old eatery in the Calçada do Duque area brings the infectious Rio Carnival vibe straight to your table with its pulsating samba piped music and steaming hot plates of feijoada with all the trimmings! (tel. +351-21-1513339)

* Páteo Restaurante
Located on a leafy street along the tony Avenida Joao, this rather modern-looking restaurant belies the rustic Portuguese and Brazilian fare served within, that has earned it a legion of fans, who think nothing of queuing up for hours on end—all for a pool-sized bowl of its sublime, five-hours simmered Brazilian-style feijoada. So, line up and drool… (www.pateorestaurante.pt; tel. +351-21-8687208)

* Comida De Santo
As one of the oldest Brazilian restaurants in Lisbon, this Príncipe Real neighbourhood icon has woven itself a permanent place in the Brazilian food tapestry of the Portuguese capital. For those with a yen for the two lynchpins of Brazilian cuisine i.e. feijoada and caipirinhas, this is the go-to place that pays special homage to the food of northeastern Brazil, which paradoxically, is itself a confluence of Portuguese and African styles of cooking. (www.comidadesanto.pt; tel. +351-21-3963339)

(A shorter, edited version of this article appeared in the 20th May 2017 issue of the Mint Lounge newspaper, India http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/8msOyB4lu3IFHgDAkXbJCK/A-Goa-state-of-mind-in-Lisbon.html)

The Blues—Lisbon Style

No visit to Lisbon, Portugal—however abbreviated—can ever be complete without taking in a pathos-saturated Fado performance, characterized by mournful tunes and lyrics that speak of the sea and of lost love, especially when melancholia and nostalgia are the leitmotifs of the trip…

By Raul Dias

At home in Mumbai, almost every single halcyon Sunday of my childhood was spent paying reverential obeisance to a triumvirate of ‘deities’ whose ethereal voices filtered in from the vinyl records, played on the only working condition Jensen 3-speed stereo turntable in the neighbourhood that had magically survived the onslaught of the CD player. While Ella Fitzgerald urged us to ‘Dream a Little Dream’ of her, Egyptian songstress Umm Kulthum sang to us about her absentee lover with her 1965 ballad ‘Baeed Anak’. But it was always the third diva who managed to strike a home run straight into my music- and nostalgia-obsessed father’s heart.
Amália Rodrigues, the legendary Portuguese fadista (female fado performer) always achieved the impossible by bringing a tear or two to the eyes of the otherwise stoic man, as he listened to the velvety timbre hit of those impossibly high notes only she could scale. As the undisputed high priestess of the Portuguese style of signing called fado—characterized by mournful tunes and lyrics, often about the sea and of lost love—she managed to distill Dad’s favourite Portuguese word—saudade, or longing, symbolizing a feeling of loss. A loss of cultural identity that he experienced having being born in pre-1961 liberated Portuguese Goa and living in a city like Mumbai since. A loss he felt with Rodrigues’s passing in 1999, having always wanting to, but never having had the opportunity to see her perform live in Lisbon…
But it was certainly not sheer happenstance or to use that oft-flogged word ‘serendipity’ that found me in Lisbon one sunny June afternoon waiting under the triumphal, marble Rua Augusta Arch on the Praça do Comércio for my Fado Walking Tour to commence. Almost exactly six months to the day of Dad’s own passing late last year, I had boarded a flight from Zurich, Switzerland to Lisbon with the mission of partaking in all things fado in this short, one-day tributary trip that was beginning to get tinged by a certain shade of melancholia thanks to the many reminders of Dad’s favourite things—from the old Portuguese architectural style to the deep-fried cod fish cakes called pastéis de bacalhau.
Having pre-booked my spot on this three-hour walking tour earlier online, I clutched my 30 euro receipt print out, thrusting it under the nose of the guide as he ticked my name off his list. Accompanying our motely group of 10 tourists, besides the guide who called himself Pedro, was a fadista named Maria de Barboza whom we were told would give impromptu fado performances as the tour progressed along Lisbon’s famed alleys and public squares—each a vestige of a bygone era.
Recently elected as a Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO, fado and its history continue to be an important part of everyday life, we were told as we took in the splendour of the Praça do Rossio square. It is from here that central Lisbon was rebuilt and laid out in a grid-like pattern after the 1755 earthquake destroyed part of the city. Today, the square — once the setting of popular revolts and celebrations, bullfights and executions — is a place that sees both organized fado performances in summer and impromptu ones like the one that Maria had begun to put on for us as she belted out Rodrigues’s 1945 single ‘Mouraria’—a lilting ballad that I was familiar with.
A little further away, the hip and trendy Chiado area is generally the best place for some shopping and people watching as you catch the world go by near the statue of 16th century epic poet Luis de Camões at Camões Square. But that day, it was where Pedro chose to give us a lesson in the basics of fado. As it so happens, the etymology of the word fado has its underpinnings in the Latin word fatum, from which the English word ‘fate’ also stems forth. He also had us know that there are two types of fado, one found in Lisbon, one in Coimbra. The style heard in Lisbon is the most popular, while in Coimbra, it is a more classic style. And to illustrate his point, he had Maria demonstrate the difference, that, even to a tone-deaf person, appeared apparent.
Our next stop was at the Museu do Fado or the Fado Museum in the neighbourhood of Largo do Chafariz de Dentro. Set up only in 1998, the museum is a fascinating place to get a more hands on insight into the world of fado with its well-maintained permanent exhibits and collections of musical instruments like the tear drop-shaped Portuguese guitarra (guitar), the four string Portuguese version of the acoustic bass guitar developed in the 1960s called viola baixo and ornate costumes worn by fadistas for their performances.
It was here that I learnt more about Sonia Shirsat, a Goan fadista who is currently considered one of the top performers in the world of fado and regarded as “the ambassador of Goan music to the world”. Generally, a rather insular world, I was told by Pedro later, Shirsat has managed to kick open the door to non-Portuguese fado performers of her milieu with her sheer, transcendent talent and mellifluous voice.
Our final pit stop of the evening was at the famed Clube do Fado in the historic Alfama area that I was told by my Portuguese friends undeniably offers the best live performances of fado in Lisbon, nay Portugal even! This club located a short distance away from the Sé de Lisboa (Lisbon Cathedral), is kitted out with solid stone walls, columns, arches and a huge ogival ceiling. And it was here, over a couple of glasses of ruby-red port wine, unending bowls of the green caldo verde soup and a platter of spicy barbecued chouriço sausage, that we took in the spellbinding performances of the club’s resident performers like Christina Madeira, Diogo Clemente and Isabel Figueiredo.
As I was leaving, a waiter drew my attention to what has come to be known as the club’s most unique feature—the Moorish Well in the middle of the dining hall—that abounds with legends related to its ‘wish-granting’ abilities. But having already had my most immediate wish of immersing myself in all things fado granted, I had no apparent need for it. And so, I slunk into inky black night with the new-found knowledge that melancholia isn’t that bad after all!

(A shorter, edited version of this article appeared in the 4th December 2016 issue of The Hindu newspaper, India http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/travel/The-feel-of-fado/article16754673.ece)