Cooking is an Art, Goa is heaven and there isn?t anything better that a chilled bottle of beer on a summer afternoon right after you have spent three hours in the blazing sun?
And how do you manage to do something that magically combines all these three and still remains real, affordable and lasts for more than a mere moment??… well go to Goa in off season of course !!
I admit that these memoirs are a bit stale now? I having visited Goa in late June. We had gone there for our ?Honeymoon?..( this is somehow one of the corniest words invented)?
The cost cutting had started fairly early? with us having booked tickets on the day Spice Jet debuted on the Indian skies. Everything was planned for, the hotel, the travel arrangements, the finances? but even then we barely made it from Lucknow to Goa?
One cancelled connecting flight-detour on an international liner from Jeddah-7 hour wait at Indira Gandhi International- stale sandwitches for breakfast-lunch-tea & dinner later? we finally found ourselves circling above the clouds at Goa?
And trust me, it was all so worth it?
The weather was moist, and the ground smelt of fresh rains when we landed. It was not our first trip to Goa.. but definitely the first one during the monsoons
An hour long ride in the hotel cab brought us to our hotel on Cangute Beach. The rooms were fine, but a bit further away from the sea than we would have liked. The next day? we moved to a Cottage, right at the beach, next to the lagoon created by the Baga creek
We could here the waves as they crashed on the shores a stones throw away from our doorstep? spraying salt into the air?.
There were hardly any other tourists at Baga? the only joint open was the trust Britto?s? serving us with steaming platters of seafood and thick bottomed glasses of whiskey? well a correction here? I ate the seafood? she is a vegetarian? Gastronomically, Goa means endless plates of Daal and Rice to her. As Obelix would have so aptly said? ?These Vegetarians are Crazy!!?
So we had our rented Activa, and 8 days of doing nothing ahead of us. I do not know what made me happier then? the thought of being in Goa again? or having made it through a two day ordeal called a Tamil wedding in one piece !
So we went to all those places where no one goes in June?empty beaches, an empty Inox at Panjim where we watched Parineeta ( loved the songs), bookstalls where we were the only buyers, roads so shaded with palm fronds that you could not see the sun even if you craned your neck.
We got drenched in the rains? on a regular basis, and promised ourselves that before we are through with this world? we will build a house in Goa?. Retire early and teach at some college in Goa
Maybe we will not? and just maybe? we will?.
Sussegad.... 