What may appear like just any other Goan roadside village, strewn across the paddy fields barely 10km from Panaji was, until the emergence of Ela or today's Old Goa, India's wealthiest city and busiest port on the southwest coast.
With Chandor being too small to accommodate his fleet of ships, Kadamba ruler Jayakeshi I moved to Goa Velha or Gopakapattana which had natural breakwaters, a safe cove and was open to the seas, historians recount.
Today, all that remains of that historic city are the ruins of the laterite brick wall of the ancient port, the site of the Kadamba palace, the 8km-long royal passage known as Raj Bidd from Agasaim to Old Goa, and some centuries-old water tanks.
While the main temple dedicated to Chamunda Devi is at Bicholim, a small idol of the goddess remains housed in the Zuwarkar family home for daily dharshan.
On Akshaya tritiya, the deity kept in the Zuwarkar household is put on an assembled palki (palanquin) and taken in a procession to the building of the Marathi school of the Chemunda Samaj in Goa Velha.
In fact, one of the village wards, Zuari, comprised mostly experts in Ayurvedic medicines and the treatment of broken bones and hence they were known as Zuarioilo doctor.