I went to see the Taj Mahal two Octobers ago. It was my third visit, the first in six years. By the time we were a couple of kilometers off Delhi, I had already made up my mind: the Taj Mahal was heavily overrated and like most overrated things, it stole the limelight and left many equally brilliant, if not better, wonders of the country in the shadows.
By the time I got back, twelve hours later, I kept wondering: what was I thinking?
Under-estimation had acquired a whole new dimension altogether.
Goa. I had seen it all, I thought. The Sun, sands and the beaches; the rivers, the greenery, the hills, the plateaus; the water-sports, the food, Old Goa, the churches and the carnival atmosphere: yes, I had ticked them all off my list of things to do/see in life. This is my fourth visit, I found myself telling a friend—the place in itself holds no excitement. And the greenery, the hills and the beaches? I grew up there, yessir, right amidst them. I am going there for my friends and because it's close to home.
What was I thinking?
Goa: where do I begin? We stayed at Calangute. A thriving tourist-town, south of Panjim, but nonetheless, more north-Goa than south. The beach at Calangute, like the one closest to it—Baga—is crowded in the daytime. It's still a wonderful beach: scenic, with hills on either side, waves that bounce up and down like a maniacal ping-pong ball; then there's the guiltless blue sky dotted with colourful parachutes; pale grey ships rest where the sky meets the sea; water-scooters race along the coast, with banana-boats and rocking circular thingies for company ..
The nights on the beaches are something else: the majestic roar of the sea and the relentless chilling thrashing of the waves contrast the easy softness of the sand; the sky is a blanket of black studded with twinkling diamonds; and, even at three in the morning, when most of India sleeps, the beach is alive: men, women, children even, dancing gaily, singing, drinking, lost, happy. One never tires of walking along the coast in the nighttime ..
We did what most people our age do: we rode through Goa, on Bikes of varying makes. The road-maps are precise, the roads perfect—the highways are large and spacious, the smaller ones are pot-hole free and beautiful. And every now and then you come across bridges, some so small and low that only the faint gurgling of the stream below is an indication of there being one and others so big and panoramic, that you can barely keep your eyes on the road: a ship on the horizon, an island with a solitary tree, a boatman makes his way silently across the river, a fisherman has his net spread out wide, a few bathers swim and near the banks, a colony of houses with typical sloped tiling roof ..
There are three things the Konkan coast has to offer in Goa which, though individually may still be found elsewhere, together is both unique and quite a heady mixture: escape, freedom and life. The fort of Chapora, for example, is atop a small hill. The climb up is through this rocky pathway that brought back memories of long ago, when Manipal wasn't all artificial green and prim and proper lawns. To get to the hill, we drove through thin roads, dotted with small shops, the odd petrol bunk, a string of tiled-roof houses, a couple of shops again, trees and farms. Once atop the hill, we were somewhere else. An escape in an escape. The fort is nothing much to look at, you don't feel the sense of history you feel in other historical sites. But, the fort has got something else—something indescribable, something I haven't felt before: I first ran like a school-kid from one end to the other, racing along with my friend and then fell into a deep reverie as I reached the opposite end of the fort and looked beyond. Maybe when I am a few hundred books older or when I take an entrance test that requires me to improve my vocabulary tremendously, I'll be able to do justice to the view from atop ..
And all the while the sea-breeze, that carried the faint trace of the scent of fish and salt, blew across—it gave me a distinct sense of floating, of going past the fort, beyond the hill that looks over the sea, clear of the tiny sleepy fishing village with its birds and rocks and waves and sands and above the infinite expanse of blue, below and above ..
And the picture of those white sea-birds, some settled happily on the stretch of land that inexplicably emerges a few hundred metres off the coast, some gliding above perfectly aimlessly was the one that symbolized Goa for me …
Pico Iyer once wrote this meandering, soporific, constrained novel called Abandon. It was only my respect for the man that prevented me from abandoning it half-way through. Maybe he should go to Goa someday …
