An unclouded view of the sunshine state

After another winter spent wheezing, in 2023, I decided to leave smoggy Delhi after 22 years there. I consulted a few friends about where I could sustain myself professionally as a freelancer. Two suggestions came up: Bengaluru and Goa.

- Priyanka Sarkar

I checked with a Goan friend living in Bengaluru. He told me to opt for Bengaluru because “Goa has too many outsiders already”. I didn’t say anything to him then but I did give him some grief after moving to Bengaluru. Thanks to this book, I now know what to call him: titeev, the word for “uncle” among Konkani Christians. After all, this sentiment of not letting outsiders in is something we see globally too; titeevs all of them.

The Bitter Fruit Tree and Other Stories by Prakash Parienkar reflects on this xenophobic attitude. It is evident in The Crescent Moon or The Trap, which explores the treatment in Goa of ghatis or those from across the ghats / hills. In one story, a family’s very means of subsistence is taken away. What makes the story more effective is how the perspective shifts from an injured bull that can cause economic setbacks to a hungry man who had perhaps accidentally caused the injury. By the end of the story, the accidental perpetrator and his family run the risk of starvation.

The titular story examines caste discrimination by showing how some gaonkars, who are the original inhabitants of these villages, refuse to allow the burial of the dead from certain other castes within village boundaries. Caste-based violence is the subject of