Sunburned

Goa does that to people. Puts them in place in the larger scheme of things. You're headed for the time of your life, pretty darned sure you'll be tempted to have your first alcoholic drink, a morning walk along the sea and the tryst with a random stranger who'll live in your mind for the rest of your life.

You want to live Sam's life in Goa.

You live Sid's.

The drinks you stick to are hot chocolate and at the riskiest, it's Iced tea when you have a sore throat. You wake up ideally around 8, when your alarm is set to 6- and find that everyone around you has no intentions of budging till well past noon. You shrug and settle into the blankets with a book you have. Very idealist-single-girl.
You're riding a two-wheeler with your eyes on the road and your mind in some internal rear-view mirror where all you can see in your past is a handful of people who might, just might be waiting for you to come back home. A friend's broken heart back home makes you want to pack your bags and rush to his side when you realise how everyone needs to heal on their own, and THIS, is your time to heal.
Then there are beaches. Blue. Untouched by plastic from Ganpati visarjans and the cores of corn kernels. On one hand women in nothing but skimpy shorts, and the other, your best friend in the waves, pulling down her shirt that keeps rolling up exposing an inch of skin. You chuckle.
A fever caused by staying out in the sun makes you retreat to the room, when four hours to yourself screw with your mind and makes you nothing but a delirious wreck of emotions that human shouldn't be permitted to suffer under.
Goa makes you take decisions.
To drink or not to drink?
To spend or not to spend?
How Goa can your vacation be?
How clichéd are you?
The cabana boy smiled at you. Run? Ignore? Smile back?
Madness has unique ways of creeping up to you.
The nights are better. You're too high on sea air and exhaustion from riding and thinking and obsessing and re-obsessing, and one of the electronic world's wonders- karaoke systems tempt you to the microphone where you turn your thoughts into pre-scripted ballads and stay happy in singing your story in someone else's words.
The next day's gonna be the bloody same, and as much as you hate the monotony, one part of you craves it- your lethargic schedule is the one familiar thing in the land of unfamiliarity and unpredictability.
And then you make decisions.
Without thinking, most of them, but that's only because thinking will make it more painful. No it isn't weed (there's no bravery in that, weed and hash). So it's yes or no time. What do you want to do when you get back?
Who do you want to see?
Who do you want to be with?
What lines to draw.
And who draws these lines.
Something like the Love Laws, as specified by Arundhati Roy.
And amidst all this thinking and rethinking, about actions of the past and plans for the future- you miss the laughter of the present and then wonder 'What if'.
So long Goa, I'm no smarter than I was before I met you. Just a lot darker- inside and out.

2 comments:

  1. interesting take...
    not the usual take on goa..
    good one...

    Goa has never intrigued me..maybe coz I dont drink and I have seen better beaches..
    but anyway I do agree "Goa makes you ..."-parts! great!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You've been awarded on Pandora!

    ~Stephanie

    ReplyDelete

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