Goa : Faintly familiar and flippantly familial

Mom came up with the idea that the entire family should get together in Bangalore and go for a family holiday to Goa. When I was a kid(d) then the Maskara family would invariably go for a summer vacation to the hills. It's not like I remember those trips vividly or anything. There are remnants of those times in the recesses of my mind. Of looking at sheets of snow for the first time at Rohtang Pass in Manali, of doing wall rappelling at a camp organised by Aurobindo Ashram, of ploughing through snow at Changu Lake in Sikkim and of walking along Kodaikanal's famed Coker's Walk and admiring the smoke that one's breath forms in the mountains. These are the sights I can pull out now from the top of my head.

So anyways, the trip was planned and they arrived here last Friday. Memories are strange friends aren't they? The minute I saw Mom, I instinctively had a broad smile and it just felt so good to see her! No reason, just feeling. While Dids was collecting her luggage, Dad gave me company. Are father-son relationships always a touch subtle? I immediately asked him something which I had been mulling over for quite a bit; the reason for him having been a smoker for over thirty years when he always came through as a health freak. The answer was surprising and when i thought over it, it made perfect sense. So anyways, that issue dealt with, we had a nice, healthy pause. Something which characterised our exchanges over the next week or so.

Dids and I are like two differently alike peas in a pod. From the airport we came to the PG and had one of the few but precious conversations that made the past week so flippantly familial. Not surprisingly, the first one started with a cigarette :)

The guest house that we got to stay in courtesy of my sister's company (Dentsu : A Japanese advertising agency) was beautiful to say the least. A wonderful duplex setup. Comfortable rooms with high ceilings, nice sofas, well designed interiors that gave us a passing flavour of Japanese culture and a small swimming pool with a nice porch to go with it! Probably the most comfortable home setup that I have ever seen.

Just the first dip in the pool and the initial headiness that Goa gives was enough to convince matre and patre that one requires more than two days to experience Goa! We decided to extend our trip by a couple of days. Off to Kalangute beach in search of a travel agent who could bail us out. As we approached Kalangute I began to get a whiff of old times. The guest house where I had stayed on my first trip to Goa three years back, the Kalangute circle where we had sat on the morning of 31st December kicking ourselves for not having made prior arrangements for spending the two most awaited days of a year in Goa and the stalls where I had gone shopping for a Goan sarong for an elusive person. We got our trip extended all right. (It would have been hell for me if we hadn't done so considering that the train ticket which I had got for our return was for May and not April!)

I remember the Saturday Night Bazaar at Ingo's which had so captivated me. It had seemed like a different world to me then! Foreigners selling exotic wares, exquisitely worded alcoholic beverages, wonderful music and ambience! Unfortunately, Ingo's was done for the season and we made it to Mackie's which disappointingly turned out to be a poorer version. It wasn't a patch on Ingo's. It was still nice, what with the family sitting together, having some pints of beer and enjoying some live performances.

We settled into a kind of a routine at Goa. Waking up by around nine or so. (That's for me of course. Mom and Dad are earlier risers. Comes with age I guess :) ) A dip in the pool, kind of home cooked lunch, a bit of rest in the afternoon and then off to the beach by four or so. Fortunately, we chose to go Arumbol on Sunday. If ever you decide to go to Goa, don't forget to visit this beautiful beach. Arumbol is close to being the perfect beach. The air has a certain freshness about it, the sea isn't too rough or calm and the beach hasn't been commercialised as such and neither has it lost its virginity.

I will never ever forget the afternoon that I'd spent at this beach on 31st December 2005. We had heard that one can get Multani Mitti at this beach. (For the uninitiated, Multani Mitti is mud that is supposed to be good for the skin and gas. It's probably originally from Multan or something like that) And we had also heard that one can get naked foreigners applying the Multani Mitti at this beach! So that's what had drawn us to this beach. We admired the beach and the locale on reaching there but had no luck with the Multani Mitti bit. And then the hand of God led us along in a guessing game where we walked along mountain trails in Enid Blytonesque style. As we followed our instincts and just went with the flow of things. As we skipped over the pebbles and stones that lined the brook in which flowed the mitti, ignoring the absence of the sight that we had been lusting for and simply following what appeared to be a slightly well worn trail. We passed settlements of foreigners which consisted purely of hammocks. We met a foreigner who was sitting peacefully on a small boulder who languidly responded to our query of what lies ahead by saying, "Oh, up ahead is the Banyan tree." At that point we didn't pay attention to the article that he'd used. We continued ahead. And then it came upon us. An old old Banyan tree which had a platform of mud alongside it. Bookshelves lined with books on religion and mythology. Some foreigners who were 'resting' over there. A child with glazed eyes who was walking around aimlessly clutching an orange in his tiny hand. An Italian and a man from Puri who were equally at ease there. Unfortunately, the remaining memories of this beautiful day cannot be unraveled on a public platform like this. Sad but that's the price we have to pay for this wonderful mode of expression called blogging ;)

Flashback over! At Arumbol we reached that idyllic lake which is unique to this beach. The family obviously wasn't in a position to engage in Enid Blytonesque skipping, so we asked a shackwallah to get it for us. Last time we had seen the brook but not applied any of the mud. It was a real experience! Covering our bodies with the paste, laughing at ourselves as we saw ourselves practically as ghosts with bodies! (The mud forms a creamy layer on the body as it dries) And then washing it off in the peaceful lake. Taking pictures, laughing, having fun, pulling each other's legs! It was a family :)

Bathing and cleansing over, we settled at a shack for a bit to rest. As Mom commented, the beach had a certain serenity and peace about it. Came with the waves, the locale, the air. Everything! It was a wonderful Sunday afternoon.

Doing the water sports was an experience too! Water scooter, para sailing, the funky banana boat ride. The best part was that we were all in it together. I like to think. I like to think about thinking too. And when I was doing those water sports, it seemed to me that there are moments in life which are meant to be simply savoured. One doesn't know what to do. Or what to think. One simply smiles. That's what happened to Mom, Dad, Dids and I. Same family remember :) As we each felt the fresh sea air and the rocking waves, took off while para sailing, dangled our legs in nothingness, felt like birds, admired the blue expanse and the palm trees that suddenly seemed different. To be honest, I expected the para sailing to be much more exciting. Once in the air everything just seems slower. Nonetheless, it was a good experience!

"Staying OK" is a wonderful wonderful book. As Dids and I discussed, it's not really supposed to be read on a family holiday ;) But it just makes a lot of things very clear and it got me through this flippantly emotional trip. It was good exchanging A-A conversations with my sister and I guess I'll just have to live with (at least for the next few years) the largely crossed transactions that parents and children have when the two parties don't really shake hands on how old they actually are. ("Staying OK" deals with transactional analysis. It's a wonderful concept.)

Fond bye byes were said at the airport. They were an interesting six days all right. At the end of it all, I would call it a beautiful time. Not beautiful because it was amazingly memorable or anything. It was beautiful because it stoked the fire of memories. That's why.

Aaaah... long post isn't it... I had promised to not indulge myself with them, hadn't I? Well, I have and what's more, I like it too :D And, I don't think this comes under "what happened in my day and crap like that" does it :)