Yet another mundane, descriptive post - people in search of higher planes of realization are asked to re-navigate...
I'll begin with a line about my own memory, which I have just forgotten. This makes it imperative to continue and I shall not mince more words...
Goa was an amazing place, in the simplest sense of the word. The people seemed extremely outgoing and footloose, and generally inclined to play it up a bit, in the form of drinking or gambling or whatever. There were a couple of amazing things we could do at reasonably affordable prices. This list included parasailing, water-scooter rides, playing billiards at a club, going on a river cruise on the river Mandovi at sunset, go-karting, gambling. Etcetera etcetera...in short, a lot of fun.
The big bummer was that the eye candy, so to speak, was largely missing. This not being the peak season had its advantages - in the form of low rates for almost everything, but the general wisdom given by people had been: 'Goa me jaake sab tharki ban jayoge'. Unfortunately the same did not happen. The sprinkling of foreigners and (ahem)babes we spotted on our initial sojourns rapidly vanished as the monsoons made their way into the state, much to our chagrin.
Am feeling drowsy right now. Can't write much really. So here go the PS1 Goa Test highlights.
Dudh Sagar Falls: The falls are fundoo, straight out of a fantasy storybook, makes you go all poetic/romantic/cacophonic and all that, but the real fun was going to and coming back.
What happened was that the rain had washed over the road that leads to the falls. The alternative route involved a 12-km-long trek along a mountainside railway track, featuring long tunnels(neeche dekho) and awesome scenery all around. No, that in itself was not the big deal but the mountain itself was infested with snakes, huge crabs, leeches and yeti. A couple of leeches actually got stuck into my leg. Luckily, we'd brought salt along :)
And then there was THE return trip. Stuck on a quaint hillside 'station' where no tickets were available, with an unhelpful station master and irate maalgaadi-drivers who believed we were daakus, for God's sake, we finally convinced a sympathetic lone-engine driver to give us a lift back. In technical terms we stood on a flimsy ledge at the side of the engine and held on to an overhead handle for our dear lives as we chugged along the mountainside.
Water Scooter blues: This happened in Calangute. After trying a few tricky maneuvers on the waves, and having gone quite far out into the ocean, the driver of my scooter obviously began to get visions of Tomorrow Never Dies, and probably in a fit of euphoria, turned the scooter a hundred-and-eighty degrees in a blink to face a huge oncoming wave.
Well Nature met us head-on. The breaker sent the scooter, him and me flying in 3 different directions. My life-jacket snapped partially open and I was swallowed by the ocean. This was a good distance into the water, mind it.
The driver was bobbing in the water a few feet away from me. I reached him somehow and started to get a hold of him hoping he'd pull me back - however this guy angrily shoves me back into the water saying: "Chhod mereko, [insert suitable expletive] !!" and swims away towards the shore.
I floundered for quite some time and feasted on a lot of salty water while two rescuers came, first saved the upturned scooter (the obvious choice: I am worth much less than some 8-10 lakhs to them) and then pulled up close to me and took me back.
Bidit ki buddhi: Trying to discover a secret path to the river behind our college, a PS-mate named Bidit Kumar and myself scaled the campus wall and made our way across some arid fields to a wide, nicely paved path. The catch, which is always there, was that this path actually was part of Zuarinagar Police Reserve, which twenty-year old guys are never supposed to be encroaching upon. The scariest moment undoubtedly was the one when this grizzled policewala came running out at us, provoking in my mind horrific images of police induced torture, etc etc. We were scolded by the police and severely warned (and spent the next few days thinking if they would contact our homes or not). Finally, however, everything was sorted out and we hurried out of the reserve without a backward glance. And we spent a few moments taking snaps at the riverside.
The second catch was, we couldn't return through the reserve and the gate chowkidars were too strict, which meant that we were stuck! After wandering for about 15 minutes and thinking we were done for, we found this meandering goat-trail kind-of thing on the hillside we'd just descended, and putting our trust in God we climbed up through a load of brambles and thickets, and finally reached the campus wall again.
There is a lot more that happened. But I trust I have given you the feel of it.
Janus ko neend aa rahi hai...
