THE GRASS IS GREENER

Flipping the cliché of susegad Goa, Srimoyi Bhattacharya, the industrious PR maven, is rebuilding her practice from a paddy view home by architect Ini Chatterji, finds Megha Mahindru

- Megha Mahindru

Olaulim is one of those charming Goan villages that inadvertently never shows up on tourist guides. Far from the beach but not exactly secluded (it’s a 15-minute drive from buzzy Mapusa), a drive down its winding road opens up dazzling views of fluorescent fields on either sides and into the horizon. “It’s a very special village,” shares PR professional Srimoyi Bhattacharya of Peepul Consulting, who left the capital earlier this year to settle into a 110-year-old home with a field view from its glistening pool. “I first visited Olaulim in 2016 and its carefree, rolling hills reminded me of Gene Kelly’s Brigadoon (1954), which was set in a fictitious, bucolic village. It’s a tucked-away secret, yet easy to get around.”

CHANGING LANES

Born and brought up in Paris, Bhattacharya reached the sunny state through a circuitous path—working at agencies in New York, kick-starting her own practice in Mumbai and expanding it to Delhi, before moving here with her husband Sourabh and their daughter, Dayani (nicknamed Nimki). Goa was a distant, long-term dream—the sort that most people imagine as their retirement plan—but the lockdown and its ensuing work-from-home order accelerated the move. “The retirement plan became a mid-life plan,” smiles the 48-year-old. “Neither of us was ready to leave Delhi so fast, we really loved our life there, but the lockdown was the perfect opportunity to do this. Why wait till 60 when you can enjoy the life you built today?”