Goa

Would anyone in the right frame of mind visit tourist-infestedinfected Goa for less time than one has spent traveling to/from the place?

I reckon one would, if one were crazy or if one had ulterior motives.

I had both, so it did not matter. My strong ulterior motive–meeting my friends from Bangalore–was motivation enough.

Additional reassurance arrived a day before the trip, as my train ticket to Goa flashed Confirmed status. My weakness for traveling by train is well-known to the point of being exploited. Give me a train ticket and I’ll follow you to the nether regions–especially to the Nether-lands, where I can sublimate my other weakness, cycling.

The train chugged into Goa on Saturday morning, but not before I could indulge my many moments of indecision. I alighted the station at Madgaon on a whim or rather a co-passenger’s poor judgment. Until I had stepped out, I did not realize that it was early morning in lazy Goa and that my brain was not ready yet for haggling with rickshaw drivers. Another co-passenger pointed me to the motorbike stand from where some willing soul would waltz me into the bus stand (not without charging me, of course) wherefrom a bus to Panaji would bring me within striking distance of Calangute beach, according to my friend.

Thankfully, the EMPTY motorbike stand decided for me, that at the last minute I should rush back to the train and alight at the next station, Vasco. I beat a stampeding crowd of student-tourists to Goa to catch the same train. I eventually reached Panaji, so I’ll end this train of thought here.

At the guest house, I caught up with my friends. Not-so-sweet nothings were shared over tea (and lemon tea). The day saw us like it sees any other tourist: checking out temples, churches, and the beaches. Nostalgia struck me, and with full force at that: I had visited the exactly same temples, churches, and beaches more than 15 years back, and in the exact same sequence. Eternal reccurrence, anyone?

The day ended with me sampling some fenny mixed with Limca. I find it difficult to describe its taste and can only offer an analogy. It was to lemon tea what Goa’s caricature of misal-pav is to Puneri or Kolhapuri misal-pavs. The word bad hardly does it justice. What fenny did to me, however, was invaluable. Before it doused put my friend into a nightmare of puking, and drowned my other house-mate into a nightmare of choking, it had induced in me a dreamless sleep that forgives all because it remembers nothing.

The next morning I headed to the beach,  my mouth awash with sublime lemon tea. I was dreading what would happen next, and for good reason. I am in water what the fish are out of it.

Luckily, my friend Devu is in adventure what I am in water. While my other friends had, a couple days back, gorged themselves  on paragliding, jet-skiing, and other water sports, Devu had remained a spectator, a staid observer of this leela on the beach.

Put the two of us together, and you’ve  got a recipe for disaster. But our fear-y combination worked like none other would.

We competed on fear and completed in cheer.

Like the chime of Goa’s Mangeshi temple bell, our cheer hung over the surrounding air and followed us into the fading evening light.

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