Why São João is more than just a festival: It's about celebrating wells
Goa
, São João, the Feast Day of
St John the Baptist
, on June 24, celebrates water. By then, the monsoon has usually filled rivers, lakes and, most importantly, the
wells
on which many still depend. In summer, wells are cleaned so they fill easily when the rains come, ready for people to jump in on São João! The celebration is spreading. In pockets of Mumbai like Manori and Gorai, the festival is observed with lots of water splashed around and the floral crowns called koppels . Most Mumbaikars now use piped water, but old wells can be opened for the occasion. Even diasporic Goans in Australia, Canada and the UK celebrate São João, though often in a swimming pool.
The connection with wells is important. St John baptised Jesus in a spring that fed the Jordan river, but wells are vital in that dry Eastern Mediterranean region. One of the oldest has been found in Cyprus, dated to around 8400 BCE, while one of the first stone-lined wells, from around 7000 BCE, was found near Haifa in Israel, in a site now drowned by the sea.
Wells have always been seen as magical, connecting our surface world to the mysteries of underground aquifers. The still mysterious process of
dowsing
, where sites for wells are located using forked twigs, gives them an aura of magic even before they are dug. Wells often have guardian spirits, which links to the idea of wish-granting wells. Mumbai's Bhikha Behram Well, 300 years old this year, is sacred to the
Parsi community
. It is said to have been built after a Parsi trader was commanded to build it in a dream. Since the location was near the sea, his plan was ridiculed, but when it was finally dug, the water was not salty and has never run dry.
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Wells can be points of contention. Many caste-based battles in India have been fought over access to wells. 'Poisoning the well' isn't just a phrase for a type of argument but has been an actual tactic in wars. Yet, even when their water is tainted, wells have been of value, as is shown by Steven Johnson's book The Ghost Map . This tells the story of how London physician John Snow tracked a cholera epidemic in 1854 to one sewagetainted well. At that time illnesses were assumed to spread through 'miasma', bad air, but Snow proved that water was a vector as well, by tracing how victims across London had all drunk from that one well.
Fears of well contamination have been growing in Goa. As poorly regulated building activity booms in rural areas across India, the threat of badly designed sewage systems poisoning aquifers is real. It makes people distrust wells and demand piped water, further pushing wells into disuse. Yet, in times of climate change, it is a folly to give up on wells. A recent private effort to test water in wells across the Goa valley showed that, despite intense building activity, the
water quality
was still quite good.
They do need cleaning though and, ignoring the São João imperative, we hadn't done it for a few years. Early this summer, the well almost ran dry and we called in the cleaners. They emptied out the remaining water, except for a small pool at the bottom, and started removing years of silt. As the spouts for the springs were cleaned, we could see water trickling in again at once.
With this year's early rains, the well was soon full again — and, amazingly, we could now see fish in it. Wells often have them, as a sign of the purity of the water, but we had never seen them before. The cleaners told us just a few fish were there who retreated to that last pool as it was cleaned. Now, with plentiful clean water, they were flourishing again, a sign of the enduring power of wells.
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My aunt Manjula Padmanabhan remembers the food from when she worked at Parsiana magazine . 'There was dhansak , of course,' she says. 'And a very rich chicken curry made with almonds.' This was probably sau badam ni curry , which is actually made with 101 almonds, one extra added for good luck. The food was a benefit of Parsiana's peculiar location, in the Parsi Lying-In Hospital , a heritage building in Mumbai's Fort area that was built for Parsi mothers to deliver their babies in restful, hygienic conditions. This had extended to a crèche and the food for the children came from Maki Adenwalla, the mother of Jehangir Patel, Parsiana 's editor. Anything extra was happily eaten by the magazine's team. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Please select course: Select a Course Category Others CXO Project Management healthcare Design Thinking Finance Public Policy Operations Management MBA Data Science Data Science Data Analytics Product Management Technology MCA Leadership Cybersecurity Management PGDM others Artificial Intelligence Healthcare Digital Marketing Degree Skills you'll gain: Duration: 28 Weeks MICA CERT-MICA SBMPR Async India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 7 Months S P Jain Institute of Management and Research CERT-SPJIMR Exec Cert Prog in AI for Biz India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 16 Weeks Indian School of Business CERT-ISB Transforming HR with Analytics & AI India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 9 months IIM Lucknow SEPO - IIML CHRO India Starts on undefined Get Details Patel took over Parsiana in 1973, from Pesi Warden, who started it in 1964. Warden wanted to preserve community traditions, but was also a gadfly to institutions like the Parsi Punchayet. When Patel, who had studied at Yale and worked in American newspapers, took over — for just one rupee — he instilled strict journalistic rigour along with an appreciation for Parsi quirks. The latest issue reports on a Parsi Lego lover who is building a model of ancient Persepolis using the plastic bricks. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Helping Organizations Close The Gap Between Technical Invention And Commercial Innovation; Interview with Colin Scott, Senior Vice President of DownSelect® at Innventure. - TechBullion TechBullion Undo Community media is often conservative, influenced by how the most vociferous defenders of traditions tend to be reactionary. Parsiana was always firmly progressive, even in its public notices, where it published news of the interfaith marriages abhorred by traditionalists. Its opponents vilified it, yet never stopped reading it, perhaps reluctantly acknowledging its scrupulous reporting. Beyond just the Parsi community, Patel also mentored generations of Mumbai journalists, including some who worked at Parsiana . My aunt and my mother Geeta were both examples, respectively designing covers for the early issues and writing features and reviews. This meant that I spent time as a kid in the office (though sadly, never got the food!) It stayed seemingly unchanged over the decades, even as the rest of the building fell silent, a symbol of plummeting Parsi birth rates and migration abroad. Parsiana 's coverage kept pace, reporting on the diaspora as much a s the communities in India, while the office remained an evocation of an ideal small magazine office, with Patel's desk labelled 'Editor', old covers on the wall and neat piles of more current issues. The deep Parsi involvement in hospitality and love of food was well reflected in the magazine. I remember covers on Parsi bakeries and soft drink manufacturers, and reports on young Parsi chefs making their name in India and abroad. Keeping up my family involvement, I was roped in by Patel to review Parsi cookbooks, like Niloufer Ichaporia King 's My Bombay Kitchen . The food interest even extended outside the magazine when it opened a shop to sell Parsi products, like marvellous aged sugarcane vinegar from Kolah's of Navsari and their lemon and date and mixed fruit pickles. (Sadly, the shop closed a few years ago). Parsiana recently announced that it would be ceasing publication from October. In a characteristically frank editorial, it said the publication 'has fallen prey to the ills that plague the community, namely a dearth of new entrants to the profession'. Suggestions had been made to outsource or create content in other ways, but for that to happen credibly, those doing the job would need to have a deep knowledge of 'the community, its decision makers, trends, history, religion, strengths, weaknesses'. The implicit question, perhaps, was if it could not be done properly, was it worth doing? Food offers a piquant twist to this question. Cookbooks can make Parsi recipes widely available. Hospitality brands, in India and abroad, like Sodabottleopenerwala and Dishoom, can draw on Parsi food traditions to create a commercially successful simulacrum. So, does it matter if real Parsi food gets ever harder to find? Parsiana was a place where such questions could be seriously debated, and for that alone, its ending feels like a real loss.
