CARXETTA, SMALL ward of Velim village in Salcete taluka in the
western Indian state of Goa, is not a tourist village;
villagers are
selling their ancestral houses. The Schofields from England are the
first ones to set foot in the village this year. The Russians are also
on their way to settle in the village. Many are on their way to buy
houses in Carxetta.
The
villagers of Carxetta have welcomed a new neighbour in their locality –
the Schofield family. The name may seem strange among the predominant
locality of the Colaco’s, D’silva’s, Fernandes of the area, but a stark
reality.
Carxetta, like all
villages of Assolna, Velim and Cuncolim (AVC), is experiencing an
economic boom of a different kind. The ‘dollar boom’ you may call it. A
ward dominated by men who work as seamen and others who have found
greener pasture in the Gulf or in Mumbai.
The
new generation has shifted to the more comfortable life of the cities,
and with it, a chunk of the old ancestral houses is up for sale in the
village.
This is the new
India, which is emerging, especially in Goa where the villagers are
abandoning their village houses and chasing their dreams of prosperity.
The surging economic boom has forced some Indians to abandon their
village houses and shift to more urban areas in search of jobs.
The
chase for dreams has seen many a Goan youngster migrating to Mumbai and
elsewhere in the world. With passage of time, the pangs of separation
from the village life ease out.
The
trend of selling village houses to foreigners has not started here at a
hectic pace like in north Goa, but the Schofield family is the first
one to have set the trend.
The
village is connected by road and the nearest city Margao, some 16
kilometres away, and the nearest bazaar is three kilometres away, in
Velim village.
Yet the Schofields fell so much in love with the village house that they paid to the original Goan owner Rs 27 lakhs.
The
1000 square metres property on which stands the house, which now has
been renovated giving a novel glitz to its rugged exteriors, has been
dotted with a swimming pool as well.
The
Schofield family is from England and they have moved into this sleepy
village on the banks of river Sal, last March. The white-skinned couple
stands out among the crowd, among the predominant brown skinned Goans.
Carxetta
is not a usual beach side village that one associates with, but a
global picture of tourism. Mobor and Cavelossim are the nearest beaches
(some three kilometers away), and the villagers have to cross the river
Sal to reach there.
Cutbona,
a village that is one kilometre away from Carxetta, has been engaged in
fishing business for ages and with modernisation has a fishing jetty,
where the numerous trawlers berth to unload the fish.
The
retired English couple has selected Goa and specifically Carxetta, as
its destination for rest and leisure. They join an increasingly number
of English middle aged people, who have bought houses in Goa and are
preferring to settle down in the coastal sea-side beach resort infected
Indian state, former Portuguese colony till 1961.
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