The Great Escape to Goa

How do you feel when you have appeared for fifteen papers in a single semester, hidden the fact from your parents and then finally learnt that you have cleared them all at one go? Satisfied yes, more importantly though- sapped of all the energy and your batteries in a state of total discharge. At that point of time, you want to put your feet up and relax for a few days at least. (If not for a few months!) Yet, with the pressing schedule of college to look forward to, you do not get the time to do as you wish. After the results were declared, I experienced an immense relief soon followed by a feeling that I was down and out and could not take any more of college or engineering. Had it not been for my friends, AV, SA, AP and KP, I surely would have gotten back into the rut of backlogs again.
After the results, AV suggested that we head down for a mini vacation to Goa where his father was working on the Sky-Bus project. That way, we could get a break from the tiring schedule of college and get to learn a few new things at the experimental project mooted at the time to be the future of urban transport. It was supposed to be a long weekend due to a few holidays piling up close to mid-week. We reckoned we could bunk a couple of days of college and have a weeklong trip to Goa. It would be the first time that all of us, with the exception of AV of course, would be visiting Goa.
For those who do not know, Goa is an experience in itself. Sun, sand and surf. The beauty of the place is simply exalting. Anyone who loves the sight of beaches (and I am sure there are no exceptions) would fall in love with the place at first sight. I am, by my own admittance, a loner and am very selective about the kind of people I would like to hang around with. So, the fact that we were to visit Goa at the fag end of August when there were to be no crowds expected on the beaches, was the icing on the cake. I love water and any water body always has me itching to take a plunge in it. I find it hard to resist the temptation of jumping into the water before tearing off the outer layer of clothes I am wearing. I lose control when I am around water as the four of them soon discovered. It was not always this way though.
Paradoxically though, I have had a near death experience in a pool when I was around nine years old. Funny, because I nearly drowned during a swimming class and that too when I was regarded as the best swimmer in the batch! I shall make the situation a little clearer. It was just after the 1st grade that I had enrolled for swimming classes during the summer vacations since I have had a profound love of water ever since I can remember. The coaches were fantastic and good teachers. I had learnt how to float in the first day itself. By the end of the first week, I was lapping the breadth of the pool propelled forward by my feet alone. Then tragedy struck. For some reason, the coaches were replaced and a new coach came into the fray. When he saw the tremendous leaps I had made in the period of a week, he deemed it would be an unfair waste of my talent by not learning more than just the free-style of swimming. He started teaching me the breaststroke once I had finished with the free-style. To discourage me trying to swim into the deeper waters he told me that there were plenty of sharks and jellyfish in those waters and would devour me if I ever went in there because I was so little. (I really don’t see the point anymore, because I was swimming in five feet deep water and my feet did not reach the floor anyway, so how would it be any different from being in ten feet deep water?) I am stumped; I guess I will have to ask the coach someday if I meet him. So that was the way it was all through the six weeks of the class.
Except the last day of the class. For all this while, I had always been swimming the breadth of the pool in five feet deep water. Never once had I even contemplated swimming the length of the pool because the sheer thought of the creatures lurking in the deep waters could scare me stiff (and I am not kidding, I mean stiff!) My father had never once come to see me swim before this day. Impressed by what the coach had to say to him, he was eager to watch me swim the length of the pool. I was not going to have any of it though. I was petrified of the sharks thanks largely to national geographic. The notion that they maybe lurking in the deep was enough to keep me away from its territory. The coach tried his best telling me that the sharks had been removed for the day so that I would be able to swim but I would not listen to any of his arguments. Eventually my mother came over and immensely frustrated by my squeamish attitude, slapped me right across the face and told me to get into the deep. I think that was the first and last time that my mother had slapped me.
Scared but also humiliated by the slap, I eventually ventured into the forbidden zone. I reached the end of the pool and hurried to climb out. The coach told me to get back inside and that I could leave from the other side of the pool and never have to come back again. Young children can have profound imaginations though. The power of the mind is great and could have you do the dumbest things you can think of. On the way back, someone who was swimming underwater passed beneath me. The sight was enough to frighten me into believing it was a shark. I have told you I would get scared stiff just at the thought that there might be creatures lurking in the water so you can imagine what must have happened at the sight of something under me. I simply froze and before I knew it, I was in the hospital. I regained consciousness a day later in the hospital and it was a whole week before I could begin to comprehend exactly what was happening.
Apparently, I had stopped paddling with my limbs and sank straight to the bottom. The poor coach was mortified by what had happened and dove straight in to pull me out of the water. It was just in time too because I had already begun breathing water. I have no memory of what happened next and all I know is that I was hospitalized for a whole week. Even when I returned home, I was inflicted with typhoid and missed about a month of school. Thanks to that one incident, I did not dare to swim waters where my feet would not touch the floor with my head at the very least, a foot clear of the water for the next eight years. I finally managed to get into six feet of water after my friends had pushed me so far with insults about being yellow that pride eventually overcame. I am an expert swimmer now (weird? Yes.) but I still fear deep bodies of water and am quite content to play in the shallow. I do love the water though, so long as it does not get deeper than necessary!
Back to Goa.
The journey was fantastic to say the least. Just the six of us in the jeep was great. We were cracking jokes, singing songs and in the true engineers way cracking sardonic jokes generally aimed at each other. The only trouble was the fact that we had left at four in the morning and I am not what you might call a morning person. In fact, I am not even a night person. I need to sleep by around 11 and I wake up around eight. Yes, 9 hours of sleep and it never is enough. Given the opportunity, I would not wake up at all. Well anyway, I was woken up at 3:30 by SA (poor fellow, must have had the worst experiences waking me up in the two years he had the displeasure of having to bear me!) and somehow, we managed to leave that early in the morning. As soon as we were in the jeep, I was sleeping like a log all over again. By the time I woke up, we were in the ghats snaking our way through the mountains. Those are the scariest roads I have seen. Deep ravines on one side and stony walls on the other, the sights are eerie and somehow at the same time very beautiful. If you can get over your fear of heights, the sheer beauty of the place will overawe you. Since it was the fag end of the monsoons when we were journeying, the Sahyadris are at their flamboyant best with the flora in full bloom and not a single patch of brown on the mountains. The peaks are green and on the steep slopes, you can see innumerable water falls gushing down the mountain, carving a way in the mountains like snakes. The canopy of trees overhead on the road suddenly opens up to give a glimpse of the grey skies overhead. From the slopes of the walls, you can see the water gush down onto the road and scurry off the other side just as quickly. Although most of the sides are well channeled, the drains are not quite adequate to carry away all the water that the skies bless us with. The beauty of the journey overwhelmed me and I could not even begin to fathom what the beauty of Goa might be like. I was eager and expectant, itching to get there as soon as possible. In fact, the main reason we were visiting Goa was the Sky-Bus project which had already occupied its place on the back burner for all of us!
The journey through the plains was not as exciting as the roads mainly passed through rather barren lands. The saving grace for us was Mallu. That boy is as much fun as a barrel full of monkeys. If you are going out on a long trip or vacation and if you expect it to be a long journey, you need not carry music, need not carry a pack of cards, just make sure you pack in Mallu and there shall not be a dull moment in your journey. His comments are hilarious more so because they are opinionated. He has an opinion about everything and not one of them is in the slightest term, dull. He recently got a job and started working 9-to-5 in a rather serious work environment. I asked him how he was doing and he said he was having a difficult time. His colleagues are all serious and he has a difficult time keeping a straight face. He says he wants to scream out at them and tell them he is not made to be a serious person, that he would rather laugh and crack jokes but the poor fellow continues in misery with a straight face. I can imagine the poor fellows plight. Back in college, I sat behind him in class and for the duration of the entire day, the whole row would burst into laughter at intervals of every ten minutes in the least. In the first year, we had our share of fun (and trouble) with all the teachers, none more than him. For some uncanny reason, the teachers loved picking on him and he was not one to shy away. His responses were quick and rapt, loaded with such dry satire that he had the whole class in splits every single time. (Poor chappy.)
After traveling for around thirteen hours, we reached Goa. It was lunchtime and we were hungry as horses. AV’s parents had a wonderful meal prepared for us and we dug in. I will confess though, that I was looking forward to trying out some of the famous prawn curry that is so fabled. Yet that was not possible because it was still Ganesh festival and meat was off-limits for another day. The food was still delicious. They had prepared veg pulao and in typical Hyderabadi style which was lip smacking delicious. You may gauge the genuineness of my praise from the fact that it has been years since the event passed and I can still savor the taste in my mouth as if it was yesterday! In fact, almost every single day of the three that we spent in Goa, we had meals that were lip-smacking, finger-licking delicious. After lunch, we went out to immerse lord Ganesh’s idol in a well and on returning headed off to one of the nearer beaches.
You guessed it, no sooner had I reached the beach, I headed straight into the water. No, I did not enjoy being in the water though. The waves in Goa are strong, they could pull in an unsuspecting fool like myself. When the waters recede back towards the ocean, they literally sweep the ground under you. It is like having the carpet pulled from under your feet and if you are not careful and venture too deep, you will be swimming with the exotic aquatic life of Goa! I was cautious but was among people more scared of the water than I (I had never dreamt it possible for such a species’ existence but I stood corrected!) and was the most adventurous person on the beach that evening. The beaches are simply magic though. The sand is what could literally be termed as golden and if you take the time to notice the beauty of the whole scenery especially during the sunset (this is the west after all!) the whole package of sun, sand and surf is complete in all respects. I had not enjoyed watching the sunset as much anywhere before in all my life. My best friends next to me as the sun slowly began dipping into the ocean with the sound of the waves lashing against the sea wall and the sight of the surf breaking as the waves swelled closer to meet the land made for the perfect spot for the perfect getaway. Is it a wonder then that one of the best teen movies of Bollywood set itself in the beautiful locales of good old Goa? I think that evening was when I had almost the perfect conversation with those guys. Amazing how sometimes the best conversations are had by listening and not talking!
Well, we had dinner at a beachside restaurant at another beach and after dinner were squatting on the beach when we saw the biggest crab anyone of us had ever seen in our lives. We spent the rest of the evening talking to each other about myriad things that I don’t think we have ever spoken about again. We went home late at night and took bath in turns to get rid of all the sand stuck in all the wrong places. Then after a nice soothing bath, I sat down talking to AV’s mom and somewhere during the conversation, drifted off into a deep sleep.
I was the last one to wake up the next morning of course and though we had planned on getting up early and making it a point to visit all the beaches possible in a single day, there was a spanner thrown in the works because they couldn’t get me to wake up and I suppose after a very few feeble attempts they must have given up. They know better than trying to wake me up!
So we ended up visiting some of the more popular beaches and as soon as we had gotten to the first beach, we learnt that the next beach was also connected to it and although we could drive there, we decided to let the car drive down there as we walked along the shore. One of the decisions that truly make your vacations memorable. We ended up burying me in the sand along the way. Walking barefoot, the heat of the sand truly troubled our feet and to escape the heat when we walked in the water, we discovered how truly dangerous and aggressive the waves were. A slipped step here, a careless foot there and we could have ended up being pulled under the waves. My love for the water though kept tempting me to try and walk through the waves. We walked together chatting endlessly and collecting all types of shells and conches. Occasionally, when a crab would leap out from under the sand and rush towards the water, we would all run behind it. We were having fun, by the buckets.
As we reached the other end of the beach, we were welcomed to the sight of a beautiful house hanging over the edge of a cliff that marked the end of our walk. After playing in the water for a little longer, we walked away towards the car. Lunch was one of those meals I will not forget, period.
We had some wonderful prawn curry that tasted like it had been bathed in the best of tomatoes and the most exotic condiment of spices. I licked my plate clean, literally. I ate more than I had intended to and although I was expecting a whopping bill, I was pleasantly surprised to see a rather modest amount, considering all of us had eaten twice the amount we would have otherwise.
Bellies full and with sleep drugging our eyes threatening to wreck havoc on our plans for the afternoon, we contemplated out next stop. It would be unwise to get into the water given our present conditions and so we decided to visit the Fort Aguada. We walked around the perimeter of the fort for the rest of the afternoon exploring the structure or what was left of it, clicking pictures and running around. The view of the ocean from the watchtowers of the fort was spellbinding. Soon, it was evening and time to head back.
We still had not visited the Sky-Bus project, which was the reason we had arrived in Goa in the first place! The plans for a token visit to the site of the project were put in place for the next day. So, the evening was once again spent at Colva beach and we had a blast climbing into one of the angler’s boats lying at the end of the beach. Needless to say, I spent most of my time in the water. Dinner was again fabulous at the beachside restaurant and another day had ended.
The next morning, we were unable to go to the project site due to some meetings that uncle had to attend. However, we did reach the site late afternoon and the project was indeed fabulous in it’s execution. The long stretch of the mile long test track and the two buses literally hanging off the over-way. A wonderful piece of engineering, which could prove to be a boon in cities, like Pune where availability of land for expanding the existent roads is a thorn in the leg. Moreover, the buses are automated so the need for drivers is eliminated and the room for passengers is maximized. The other safety features made it seem to be a truly tempting option if only it would escape the red-tapism of Indian bureaucracy. Once again, we clicked many pictures and marveled at the engineering genius of the men that were responsible for the inception of the idea and its further development. It would be wonderful to be able to work on a project of this magnitude, or would it? The Indian Railways funded the project and obtaining funds for development work in a nation like India is a painful task. The project had run into its share of trouble with the Indian bureaucrats soon and the development slowed.
We left for Pune the next morning accompanied by AV’s mother. The journey was once again a lot of singing and cracking some rather sorry jokes. All in all, the vacation left me recharged and although I had missed quite a few days of college (like it really was going to make a difference), I had enjoyed myself thoroughly! I felt wonderful when I arrived back in town and was ready to face the surprises that another year of Engineering held in store for me.