Shrimp Koliwada

The sky is overcast — thick with the smell of incoming rain and ferns growing wild along old compound walls. A single-storey yellow-tiled building rests quietly amid swaying palms. In Flat 1B, a couple in their 30s, Rina and Jayant, are wrapping up a slow morning with newspapers, shared filter coffee, and the promise of cooking something special.

They live in a flat that feels more like a villa — wide windows with wooden shutters, a balcony that looks out to paddy fields and narrow streams, and the occasional egret flying past. It’s Goa before the rush. Unhurried, briny, tender.

The kitchen is generously equipped for people who love to eat:

• A chimney hood imported from Bombay,

• An old tiled outdoor kitchen slab under a coconut tree where frying is done without smoke alarms,

• A manual grinder, rows of ceramic spice jars labeled in Rina’s rounded script — "Teekha," "Haldi," "Sookha Masala,"

• And a large fridge that hums with jars of pickled raw mango and tiny dried fish wrapped in newspaper.

Today, they’re making Shrimp Koliwada — their version of celebration. Of closeness. Of thunderclouds and hunger.

Rina begins by cleaning the kolambi (shrimp) — fresh from the Mapusa market, still smelling faintly of the sea. She lets them marinate in a mix of:

• Red chilli paste,

• Freshly crushed garlic and ginger,

• Kashmiri chilli for color,

• A squeeze of lemon,

• A whisper of vinegar,

• And a pinch of ajwain and chaat masala.

She sets the marinated shrimp aside while Jayant readies the frying pan outside — a cast-iron wok blackened beautifully over the years. The breeze carries the scent of salt and crushed wet leaves. Somewhere nearby, a neighbor’s radio plays Laila O Laila faintly.

Jayant dips the marinated shrimp in a light batter made from besan (gram flour), a touch of corn flour, and rice flour for extra crispness. The oil bubbles and pops as he slides the first batch in — the prawns curl into themselves, the batter crisps to a rich red-golden hue.

Meanwhile, Rina is plating a Goan fish thali to go with it — steamed rice, solkadi, bangda rawa fry from last night’s leftover, and cabbage foogath with grated coconut.

They eat on the balcony — sitting cross-legged on a thick straw mat, brass thalis balanced on their laps, the plate centered with hot, crunchy shrimp that smell like street-side Koliwada meets home love.

Outside, the rain finally starts — softly at first, then with a clap. Jayant tears a piece of chapati, dips it in solkadi, and says, “We should bottle this masala. Sell it to tourists.”

Rina grins. “Only if they promise to eat it barefoot, in the rain."