Goa II

Two years ago, when the first faint visuals of The Trip had begun to manifest in our minds, we had planned to spend the entire month simply soaking in Goa.
Slowly we came to agree that it might not be a bad idea to include some more actual traveling in our vacation. The list grew longer, and the point where our journey would culminate stretched further and further south... but the point of it's origin remained the same.

It was natural then, that while we delegated a maximum of four days to most places on our list... Goa should deserve an entire week.

Now we needed that time to shake off the Sonic Experience:

"In spite of the painfully obvious fact that we are it's only patrons in a month which will see scarce business, the staff continues it's bizarre behaviour. Everything seems to have acquired an increasingly insidious tinge since the Night of the Leering Wolves.

The Sonic is located right at the end of a strip of markets and hotels. An entire beach separates it from Curly's. This doesn't stop us from making a daily trip there anyway.

We spend as much time outside the guesthouse as possible.
The scooter and taxi guys yell out to us every time we cross the market. Every day, they have a new sales pitch :

"Hey, take a scooter...very romantic, sit very close, brake very good!"
"Take a taxi sir...your girlfriend get tired otherwise!"
"Too hot to walk man...why you not take cab today?"

But we like being on foot. Exploring, soaking, watching, smiling at strange strangers, gazing at the sea and trying to decipher it's undulating song.

Eventually, we get tired or too excited...I forget which, and return to our room."


On the fateful day we finally decided to abandon Sonic's sinking ship, I remember waking up feeling ...too far away.
Everything I knew was half a country away, intact only in intangible memories. An inexplicable sense of panic quivered just beneath the surface of my thoughts.
What we needed today was something familiar. Comfort food.
So Kshitij decided to go with mashed potatoes. How much could they possibly screw that up, we naively wondered...

Until a steaming bowl of potato mulch arrived.
Unsalted. Un-creamed. Mostly uncooked, too.

The waiter/cook responded to our aghast expressions by smashing a clenched brown fist into his hand, bizarre and ominous warning.
"I hate Indians."

Dr. Shankaran appeared,blazing in a theatrical aside in my head:

"Have you not read Fanon's account of negroes who would burn their skins with acid to bleach it white? Why would a man do something like this? Not because black was the colour of slavery...but because white was the colour of the masters. The colonized longs to become like the colonizer."


This was our first encounter with one of the myriad variety of mental roadblocks we would meet along the month. The futility of pointing out that he was, infact, Indian was obvious. So was the futility of staying put at the Sonic.
It took us forty minutes to pack our bags, pay our bills and trudge off to find better lodging. The universe with her twisted sense of humour led us straight this time, to the (now more significantly named) White Negro Guesthouse.


........................





You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever,
But you rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun.

And the colors of the sea blind your eyes with trembling mermaids,
And you touch the distant beaches with tales of brave ulysses:
How his naked ears were tortured by the sirens sweetly singing,
For the sparkling waves are calling you to kiss their white laced lips.

And you see a girls brown body dancing through the turquoise,
And her footprints make you follow where the sky loves the sea.
And when your fingers find her, she drowns you in her body,
Carving deep blue ripples in the tissues of your mind.

The tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers,
And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter.

Her name is aphrodite and she rides a crimson shell,
And you know you cannot leave her for you touched the distant sands
With tales of brave ulysses; how his naked ears were tortured
By the sirens sweetly singing.

The tiny purple fishes run lauging through your fingers,
And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter...

Tales of Brave Ulysses
Cream


















"Beautiful, breezy Palolem. Lazy drooping palms on a crescent beach. I've loved you since I first laid eyes on you, a sunny winter day, many years ago. My once-sister and I tasted freedom in your wine then, and vowed to return when we were wiser and older...our minds and bodies mature enough to taste the temptations that lingered in your sands."


While the sister and I no longer shared lives, my love and I were rediscovering the world together. We had nearly perfected our strategy of picking out the most eccentric and interesting people to talk to. Along with this we began to develop a shared understanding of who to stay away from. But more on those later.


"We trudged toward the beach dragging our backpacks and our sore behinds. As the stretch of huts, abandoned shack sites and assorted rubbish cleared, we stepped into a postcard.
An old man sat on the sand,in tattered shorts and a grey t-shirt, building a sand castle and brushing damp hair out of his eyes. A beautiful woman with golden hair, ocean blue eyes and a silver nose ring bent over near him, playing with a frisky little beach dog.

I liked her at once because of the dog and the nose ring and the fact that she was barefoot. I think the blue bikini won her a few points with Kshitij as well. She offered to take us to the nearest establishment that would provide us with what we needed - a cheap and clean room.
Said establishment turns out to be a hut, or rather, an independent part of the hut which belongs to a man named Fransisco."

(Every time I say his name I involuntarily begin to hum
"If you're going to San Fransisco...
be sure to wear...flowers in your hair...")


"...Fransisco is the perfect example of Goan hospitality. He loves his family and he loves tourists. He looks after all his guests with paternal concern. Every morning he cooks and feeds us a complimentary breakfast of bun omelette and chai, while enquiring about our parents, our jobs, our lives back home. This is the first of the many times we are told that our situation represents a bit of a cultural cliff. Neither Fransisco nor the foreigners we meet seem to have come across such a thing in India before.

Unmarried and backpacking together as a couple? In the South?
Did our parents have no objections? Were we of the same caste?
Was it okay for me to wear these shorts where I came from?"


Answering the wide spectrum of questions posed, I found myself wondering where exactly the typical urban upper middle class family fits in. Where do we belong, in the Indian scheme of things?
Our march towards increasingly "modern" lifestyles and values is based almost entirely on what the world markets our way. Indian soaps supposedly based on the middle class seem sickeningly kitschy. The world of saas - bahus and balika - vadhus is not one we relate to, it is nothing like the world we inhabit.
But switch on F.R.I.E.N.D.S., Grey's Anatomy, Sex and the City and you'll find us swooning with empathy.
Show us Amitabh Bachchan in a movie about the eternal patriarch - who lives in the U.K., prances about with half nekkid chicks but delivers monologues on the importance of "parampara" - and you'll have us nodding along.
We are stuck in a phase of transition...between two classes, between two worlds
and neither claims us as their own.

.....




"In the middle of not-so-sunny Goa, I wonder what's going on in your head. It feels so stupid being insecure when we have the luxury of this entire month together, but I am tearing your silences apart to see what lies behind them.

The paranoia begins to flood my mind so easily it's almost predictable. Would you rather have made this trip with someone else? Would you rather have made it alone and hooked up with someone along the way? An image of you with the blonde Marta sharpens into focus and I realise this is a one way street to insanity.
I need sleep."


.....


The Morning:
"Divesting myself of unhealthy thoughts, I woke up ready to party today.
We have found an entertaining ally in the old man from the beach. He claims to be a Spanish playwright on a working vacation. He is always in search of, in the act of consuming, or recovering from whiskey.
Through our varied altered states of consciousness, we have a considerably hard time understanding one another. We know we are all very high and only wish to get higher, and in this purpose, we are united. He claims Kshitij and I inspire him, and every now and then looks up from the whiskey to blurt out a famous name at us.

"Iggy Pop!"
"Genet!"
"Buddha!"
"Juliette Binoche!"

If he finds even a glimmer of recognitionon our faces, his eyes light up and he launches into an incoherent monologue on said individual, punctuated with "rat-a-tat-tat"s "parrrrum!"s and "PWOOF!"s and accompanied by frantic hand movements meant to indicate everything from sexual tension to nuclear disarmament.


The Afternoon:

Kshitij (shaking me awake) : Baby, there is this dashing naked young fellow sitting under our bed and I don't know what to do with him.

Me : What a clever ruse. I'm still not getting up.

Kshitij (laughing) : I'm serious!!

Five minutes pass and I become aware of a strange scratching thumping sound under the bed. I'm jolted out of semi-sleep.

Me : WHATTHEFUCKWASTHAT??


I leap off the bed and grab a knife. Kshitij is still laughing. I pull off the sheets to see this guy


















staring at me with an irate expression at being interrupted in the extremely private act of chewing his tail. In some time he comes out and sups on biscuits before leaving for the outdoors to perform his toilet. When he is done he scratches on the door and returns to his bed-under-our-bed, nodding at us in polite acknowledgment on the way.



The Night
A fire on the beach under stars frozen in space. The taste of smoky fish. Holding your hand while we stood in the ocean, wondering what held it in. Trying to be quiet in our room when we wanted to scream and then collapsing into laughter when Fransisco's voice tore through the darkness
"Marta, when you are going to get married and have babies?"
Going out in search of dinner and returning with cigarettes and biscuits which Hampu insisted on sharing again.
We leave tomorrow. Palolem has been different this time. I've been different too. The only thing that hasn't changed is that I still leave it hoping to return someday.

"The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure.It saves on hellos and goodbyes"

Goa I

With a trip and a bang and a sprinkle of magic dust...I am finally home.

I had ambitious plans of blogging through the month. How hard could it be, I reasoned. You can access the internet everywhere in this day and age.
It's true that most places we went to had atleast one cabin sized dingy room somewhere that offered a portal into the Wonderful World Wide Web, but I simply found myself unable to convey any coherent thoughts. I wrote every now and then, interspersed with sporadic picture-taking; but I think I have only just begun to see form in the jumble of myriad experiences.

Which means I must, with immediate efficacy, find a beginning. Sort through entangled dreams conversations hills oceans stars smoky skies...oh yes. I think that's where it all began.

Smoky Skies:

Through the haze of smoke - blue black traffic smoke and blue grey smoke curling from our lips, we looked at the city spread out before us. It had it's days. Days when the rain would scrub it clean and the people would seem inane yet endearing in their familiarity. Simple, rather than stupid.
But today, Delhi was at it's snarling best. The heat had turned the people into a pack of wild dogs. They snapped and foamed at each other with bared teeth at every traffic intersection. Sped past vehicles a hair's breadth away just to see who would dare to try and stop them. A raging sun tore through blinds, vents, curtains, skulls and plunged it's burning hands inside everyone.

But we didn't care. We were getting out of here. My backpack felt like a ton of bricks but I felt stronger than I really was.

Looking back, I think my mother considered the trip an elopement of sorts. Everyone gave us knowing smiles and snidely muttered "honeymoon" when they heard the plan. Ma always looked especially disbelieving when I told her about all the other people we would meet at various points of our journey. Of course we were excited about being together...but rather than making a romantic getaway, I think we were both setting ourselves up for a test of endurance.
How would we hold up under the intense pressure of being alone together in previously unexplored parts of the country, across the language barrier, away from our music, our computers, our dogs, our friends and our comfort zones? How would it change us?

I couldn't wait to find out.
(All pictures courtesy Kshitij Bal, Magician Extraordinaire)
...............................















" First Stop. Anjuna.
The air buzzes with excitement here. Non stop. A futile attempt to reach Lonely Planet's highly recommended White Negro, we decide to stay at the Sonic Guesthouse. The room hovers on the thin line between quaint and plain weird. The bathroom however, decisively crosses that line into weird. The view is fantastic. We check in."


At this point, our land weary eyes are seduced by the ocean and we choose to ignore what are quite evidently bloodstains on the wall above the bed. Yep, welcome to Junkie Heaven.

"The food is tolerable to begin with but progressively becomes worse. Maybe the management is expressing it's disgust at having to serve two relatively innocent and unexciting guests from Delhi, rather than Russian men with cold blue eyes and pale women aglow with intrigue. Although I'm uncertain if these people would favour the Sonic even in peak season.

[Note - "Management", at any hotel off season here usually refers to a maximum of five waiters (the young turks) and the eldest thus most experienced of them all, who heads the show.]

The "eldest and most experienced" turk(ey) at the Sonic is a senile man of about eighty. Kshitij believes he is permanently attached to an LSD drip, but I am of the opinion he is in need of no drug except the television. Watching the last few overs of the IPL semi-final with him is like watching someone's needle induced moment of epiphany. His eyes shine, glazed. A toothless grin gapes at the centre of his face and his eyes well up with tears as the ball flies over the boundary. He throws up his hands and mutters a prayer to God. He nods fondly at the actors in advertisements. I cannot stop watching him watch T.V. I feel unbelievably sad and suddenly irrationally annoyed.
And then I realise, I'm the one being watched. It's past midnight and while we were playing Sinbad the sailor and his Ship-wrecked wench, watching the old man and the sea...we failed to pay attention to a local drinking session that had begun to fester beside us. There's something about the insolent leer in those bloodshot eyes. I don't want to play anymore. Even the old man begins to seem sinister all of a sudden. It's time to close this day shut. Back in room. Goodnight."




The Sea:















The ocean breeze carried echoes of spells cast at a time when you and I were mere dreams in the creator's mind. It drew us close with a voice so ancient we felt it in our bones. At night, the ocean is a primal temptress. Thirsty. A giant mouth slavering to swallow the world. The rhythm of the waves caressing land lulls you into senselessness, until all you want is to be one with that sound.

As if the intense natural beauty weren't enough, the Goan flavour is made unique by a population of natives and tourists whose culture is centered around having a good time,whatever the cost. Even in off season, there isn't a day when the booze doesn't flow, or when someone with dilated pupils isn't watching the sky turn into a mixing palette of neon colours.
It's also easy to see the point where things can start going wrong. Everyone seems nice and friendly when you're high. I start wondering if they're being nice and friendly because they know I'm high. Paranoid, much? Nothing a walk on the beach can't cure. On the way back to the guesthouse a man with greasy hair sings us a tune which I later learn is Goa's favourite song:

"You like hashish? acid? ecstasy? Some co-caine may-be?!"

We step over a syringe in the sand and walk into the molten sunset.

....................................

Into the Horizon

And so the gruelling trial by fire, otherwise known as the Second Term Examination has come to an end. My deliciously unholy libertine, the Marquis is away on a pilgrimage (wonders never cease), my mother is asleep and the zen monk has abandoned me for the cooler climes of a room where the temperature remains at an unnatural constant. I do get the nirvana is samsara, and samsara is nirvana deal...and that therefore to the enlightened being it doesn't matter whether the air conditioning exists or does not exist(or both exists and does not exist, or neither exists nor does not not exist) but I do believe Bono is taking the ascetic life a little less seriously this summer.

In upcoming events the Marquis and I have planned a month of mayhem, travelling through the heart of South India in the month of June(or atleast the places we have heard of and our eyes now long to see).
I am a firm believer in not jinxing events by overtly sharing my excitement, but let it be noted that I have looked forward to this for the last two years. The stars are aligned in our favour this year- having evolved from a complicated friendship to a union the gods must dream of. So with the end of this month, we leave the city.
As always, apprehensions surround the periphery of my thoughts.

A month is a long time.

We are warned every day about the merciless and humid southern summer, or if we're really lucky; the unrelenting rains. About touts and thieves and sleazy hotel owners. We are reminded every day of the comforts we'll leave behind and everything that we'll miss.

As the days go by, we come to terms with the fact that the journey will also test us as us.
(I see visions of myself waking up in an empty room, bereft of his luggage and him)

These thoughts need to go back to the periphery now.
To truly venture outward you must be courageous enough to face what is within.

See you soon.

"Human, All Too Human..."

What does one have to do to find inspiration where there is none?





All it ever took was one good class. A stimulating conversation. The right mix of herbs. A decision.

There are days when you wake up and you just know it's going to be a good day.
The muses will sing to you. There will be no more of this insipid inanity.
Today, things will fall into place. The endless torpor will be crystallized into a conclusion and placed on the Shelf of Things Learnt.
These days of inspiration are usually cloudy days, or windy nights. I find they provide a better backdrop to exorcising the seething restlessness that simmers just beneath unaffected exteriors.

(This however, is a hot still summer afternoon. Unquestionably the worst time of the day and year.)

But what IS it with my generation and constantly trying to appear unaffected? Bring on the lust and ugliness, the greed and the jealousy, overwhelming love and it's invariable concomitant - pain.
Why bother dressing your wounds and locking away your desires when all you are is exactly what I am?

You poor thing, did no one tell you choice is an illusion?

Speaking of the insidiousness of mass - marketed illusions, I must pause and take a deep bow at the imaginary camera that follows me around. For I am finally free of the Curse of Social Networking.

(---: THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE FROM STUDIO AUDIENCE!:---)

---:Sudden Flashback:---
Girl enters arched gates of the Carnival of Painted Faces / clicks on LOGIN while El Tango de Roxanne blares from the speakers.

The colourful signs scream at her
Social Utility! fun way to communicate! share your memories! find your old classmates and neighbours and all the people you ever fucked over and ADD THEM TO YOUR FRIENDS LIST!


Several of my friends are self confessed Social Networking Addicts, and I have nothing against them and the ways they choose to spend their time. Perhaps they are simply better adjusted, more fulfilled Beings and do not carry the twittering monsters inside their skulls that recite wall posts and news feeds to them long after the screen has been minimized. Maybe they have never experienced that feeling of emptiness and self - loathing that creeps in through your fingertips, as minutes melt into hours and you lose your self in the voyeuristic labyrinth of Someone Else's life.
Slowly but surely, you forget what you're seeing is only a carefully edited and well phrased version of a Real Living Person... who doesn't always spout apt and lyrical quotes, who isn't really adored by everyone who wishes them Happy Birthday and someone who probably doesn't like what they see in the mirror just as often as you do.

The monsters cackle in glee:
he never looked this happy with You!
(I never looked this happy with Him.)
Did you know they were together last night?
(Stars.Exploded.In.My.Head.Last.Night)
Has she wasted as much time as you today?
(Ha. She's deleted her activities for the day.)
she's so much prettier than you!
(Hmmm. true.)
so many more friends!

a better body!

a better life!

will YOU ever be good enough to go to college there?




No, not if I spend all my time on Facebook.




The Girl stabs the monster in it's scaly green flesh and runs out of the arched gates / Clicks Deactivate to the rambunctious Finale...




...into the arms of better days and healthier ways to channel inherently masochistic desires.

Birthday Blues

According to my memory...

(...Which may just as well belong to some other person, whose brain was once dissected into two neat halves, one of which was placed inside me while the other lives on in it's original body. Are this person and I then the same? If all we are is the sum total of our past experiences, this fiction of the Self that we create by stringing together stories collected through the senses, and remembered through photographs - then, yes. Were this person then to meet me and fall in love with my charming physical exterior coupled with their mental being, would this be the ultimate act of narcissism or of self-loathing? But that's enough fantasizing for now.)

So where was I. Oh yes, according to my memory, I've always been the sort of person who starts getting excited about their birthday six months before it actually arrives. I usually subject my mother and anyone else patient enough to put up with this sort of idiocy to a monster countdown...

"FIFTY SIX DAYS TO GO! ARE YOU EXCITED? ARE YOU???"

And the strange thing is, the excitement was never anti-climactic, for me anyway. No matter what I did on past birthdays seemed just perfect. Or rather, it didn't matter what did, because the day just felt so fucking special from the moment I woke up.


Here I am. It's less than forty eight hours away from what I used to herald with as much enthusiasm as the second coming of Christ...and I'm about as thrilled as Immanuel Kant, and roughly as much fun to talk to (i.e. No Fun At All).
The idea that I am perhaps too old, jaded and cynical to manufacture the required amount of adrenaline for my birthday this year keeps seeming dangerously possible.

That can't be it though.
I don't feel that old. I'm still full of plans of world domination and the delights of debauchery like any self respecting Young Adult. Numbers never DID make that much of a difference to me (Stop with the hissing, Pythagoras.)

WHY then, to the chagrin of my friends and The Marquis (purveyor of endorphins and dopamine) am I unable to muster even a wan smile thinking about Tuesday? What is this mysterious miasma that is suffocating my usual birthday cheer?

I feel like asking you to tune in to the same bat-channel at the same bat-time, but the truth is I may never figure out what's going on and be able to offer you a cathartic resolution - of - conflict type post.

Agony Aunt services are welcome. Uncles are a bit creepy, but mustachioed Beatniks will do too.
Ciao.

"Sit back and enjoy the ride. Remember to scream if you want to go faster."

As the eloquent and insightful Therapy caused me to realise, sometimes one must simply live instead of trying to capture life through words.
Sometimes words can do no justice to the simultaneity of exhilaration and pain.


But I finally decided to stop being a lurker on my own blog, and in cyberspace in general. After the silent perusal of at least a gazillion blogs I have come to the conclusion that I love the voyeuristic ones that give you random and intimate glimpses into peoples lives. Of course there are Blogs About Things, and they are especially helpful for the unhampered individual or group perspective they offer...but those aren't the ones I'd choose to spend my time savouring.

Perhaps the only reason we have any concern for the other is that we see the fragility of our own beings reflected in their moments of strength and weakness.I'd rather read about what the priest wrote when he questioned his faith at lunch today, why the mother felt like crying when her three year old made a fish face at her from the window and why you feel like you can never love again.



A smiling boy who's face I wouldn't have missed otherwise, died in a car crash a few weeks ago. Suddenly, he's tinged my thoughts a dull unwashable blue. Every time I'm in a car that picks up speed, a knot tightens in my stomach. I think about that smile, the few conversations we had scattered over the years and the last few moments him and his girlfriend spent together in the car...the image is searing because it's so familiar. Alcohol fumes laughter and your hair flying in the wind. The lights flash by faster and faster but you never once doubt the false sense of security that comes with being young and feeling free.


It still doesn't seem to make sense. Standing at the memorial service of someone I saw every day at school, I found myself clinging to the same strange metaphysical explanations I've heard Adults offer.

"Perhaps he was only meant to be with us for this brief time to teach us something."

I'm not entirely sold on the idea of a Divine Design. But I believe his death has taught me something. That life is precious and whimsical. That it is entirely what you make of it, yet it is frighteningly outside of your control.

Is it a normal reaction to death? This sudden lust for life? Wanting to hold on to every moment of bliss, boredom, thirst and inspiration?
I feel insatiable and unapologetic. I'd rather be brutally honest than speak in well chosen words. I'd rather be ravaged by Nietzsche's carefree, mocking, courageous warrior than mother the tortured existentialist.
Maybe it's because I'm turning twenty two in eight days.


Or maybe it's just spring.

Kerplunk!

I believe it falls within the realm of propriety to wish people until about mid - January anyway, so I DO hope the year brings you whatever you may desire, or not, if like me, you like to keep your distance from objects of fantasy so that delicious veneer of perfection never wears off them.

Not that I didn't have the time of my life bringing the year in, but there isn't that much that's new about it, really. I still use too many commas and write self indulgent prose. I have decided to start answering my phone this year though - mainly because I am tired of being emotionally blackmailed by people (which incidentally, is my no. 1 reason for not picking up in the first place) but also because I need to Get Real and stop being a space cadet.

But, returning to the self indulgent prose, I've been scribbling this one on and off for the past few days so I decided to put an excerpt here. Be gentle.


"Deep within a space time continuum that existed within the philosopher's mind, lived a princess trapped in an ivory tower. So high was the tower, that eagles alone befriended her. Them, and an Extraordinary Golden east that fed on love and fresh air.
Every time the moon waxed, the eagles would fly down to earth and bring the princess a young man for company; as they knew young women of a certain age must learn the rites of love.
The princess's room was a hall of smoke and mirrors. Anyone who entered would be entranced at once by their own reflection, and so cunningly lit up against the bare brilliance of the sky, would believe themselves to be Gods. They loved the princess for the image of their selves that they saw with her, and standing beside them, each loved her as a different reflection of himself. Him in female form. To each, she was a different person.

A cynic.

An incurable romantic.

A whore.

A mother.

A fool.


And each, upon his return to the earth, would tell a different story. A memory of her that was carefully airbrushed like the pictures of women in beauty magazines. Blurred to fit. Faults dusted over. Statistics exaggerated. All in preparation for that single moment when it would be presented to an audience - a roomful of drunken friends, a jealous bride, an excited brother.

The princess in the mean time, watched on, confused. The eagles were worried. When would this end?"