Yeh Hai Meri Kahani (Part III)

This part turned out too large to simply append to the last post...

PART THREE

Ok, about time I finish this... not that there is some climax or anything... but anyway..

So I guess, I was talking about the second night. We had planned to get an open gypsy and a jeep for travelling around (there were 19 of us and there was already an AC car for our MD)...and were initially planning to get those the minute we landed but partly due to laziness and partly due to time shortages, we only got the open vehicles on the second night, in the middle of the glug glug session. One of the guys decided to go for a spin sometime during the night, and being anything but fit to drive, managed to run off the road... Incidently, the roads around there all seem to be built at an elevation... with fields (usually) on either side and these sort of ditches/moats in between. So very fortunately I suppose, the jeep did not overturn, otherwise... screeeeeeeeeeeeech! squish. ho jata. But my friend lived to tell the tale... the jeep got a dent but whatever...

Next Morning... swam in the pool. I still love swimming underwater (Lung capacity is lower though... no surprises there!) Got enthu about starting to swim in Delhi also and gyming

Afternoon....

We went for lunch to Taj Exotica... damn cool place, posh and all... sort of too posh... since there were so many of us, we managed to order about half the menu... basically, all of the sea food... Lobster (I've forgotten what it was called on the menu exactly but the freaking thing was HUGE) cooked to perfection, Norwegian Salmon (this should come under red meat really... awesome), Calamari, Octopus in some sauce, King and Tiger Prawns (sex...), Sardinhas Assadas (grilled sardines), Pomphret, Mahi... with Port Wine (Note to Self: One more reason to settle down by the sea). And then to top it all off, the happy couple graciously offered to pick up the tab. Am sure that meal cost about as much as the rest of trip... what can I say... doesn't get any better!

Anyway, I got to enjoy the gypsy for the first time on our drive from Club M to Exotica... that was another big high. The jeep did not have a CD player but the gypsy did... I really enjoyed hip-hop for the first time in my life (without a dancing partner.. ahem)...

Honestly, I don't think rock would have been the best thing on this trip. In fact, I had a conversation with Sakshi Sharda (for the uninitiated, she's from College and now a co-worker) on different kinds of music tastes... it was a pretty good really, I was impressed when she said she had too much respect for rock to dance to it (or drive around to it)... true... rock is a personal thing... hip hop is mah bitch! Muahahaha

I still hate trance.

Ok... at dusk we were scheduled for a cruise on a river boat in North Goa... and we wren't really sure of the way... Man! I wish the time I spend commuting here was like that drive in the gypsy that day... cool air, setting sun, music beats. Goa! Take a minute here.

The cruise itself was a bit of a let down... those boats look mighty pretty glimmering in the night as they float sluggishly in the river in the dark... but the view from the boat itself wasn't particularly spectacular... we went upto where the river runs into the sea and back... could have just watched from the bridge! but no regrets... you do it all.

After the cruise, we had a couple of hours to kill before hitting the club scene (ya, club scene... I've become a total yuppie) and someone suggested we go to the Saturday Market at Arpora (or maybe Baga or maybe Calangute, don't remember)- the Goan equivalent of Janpath... and when I say "Goan equivalent", it was obviously better... the clothes and trinkets were all overpriced but the place had one heck of an atmosphere... filled with tourists, the place was the most culturally integrated place I've been to ever... everyone looked like they knew everyone else... the shopkeepers (many of them non-Indian) went about like it was a party, chatting up with anyone who walked by. Hippie is the word I am looking for... (wish I hadn't called myself a yuppie now)... there was a stage where this band was performing... Rock 'n Roll and all these white people were sitting on chairs like they were at a seminar... pretty good... there was this one young sadhu type person (long beard and saffron robes and sadhu type accessories) right up front getting down and funky in the area between the audience and the stage... and one little (like 2-3 years I guess) white girl jumping around with him... think of the excitement you felt the first time you got squeaky shoes and multiply that by a hundred... that's how happy the little girl was... it was beautiful.

There were quite a few food stalls... practically all run by foreigners (except a couple which belonged to some enterprising Mallu women), all selling food from all over the world... there was egyptian, german, israeli, vietnamese, punjabi, even a Sushi bar... needless to say, i hogged...

I could go and on about this place but alas, life is short... so moving along...


Around 10:00 we went off to Club Cubana (or was it Cabana?)... but that was closed for renovation I think... there was also Tito's but there had been some police trouble there (oh by the way, there were communal riots in Goa the day before so the situation was supposed to be tense... but we never saw much of that and if anything, everyone, us and others, were probably even a bit excited), so we didn't go to Tito's... we drove into and out of a couple of places... but none seemed good enough.. either stoned hippies or empty dance floors... usually both... so the clubbing scene was also kind of a washout... i still had a good time driving about though... a couple of the girls standing on the back made quite an impression upon the locals as well as the tourists... I don't blame them.
Anyway, we decided to stop our club hopping at Cafe Paradiso... they had only trance, and the scene was pretty ravy... I had this strange sense that I was experiencing a cabbage... (this is no Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds innuendo, I actually felt like i was experiencing a cabbage)... its there, its ok if you don't pay it any mind, its not intersting enough to analyse, and if you force yourself to analyse it, you'll just taste cabbage... hmmm...

But one end of the club was a open gallery facing the beach... so I (and everyone else) just took a beer (or ten) and sat on that side... Sakshi managed to have the best time, she was jumping around like a frog between all the tripped out people on the dance floor... ya, she had a lot of fun... I was pretty impressed again.

We got lost on the way back... drove around for 3-4 hours... I don't think anyone minded (though some of the females were bitching about the cold in good spirits) but I totally enjoyed it... we even got pulled over by the police in Panjim coz Sakshi and I were standing up behind... I felt like a schoolboy... pretty embarrassed at causing trouble to everyone... fortunately, Vikrant (the male half of the Happy Couple) stepped in to save the... well, night... the cops let us off with a warning...

phew, is anyone even reading this far down?

I hit the sack once we reached the hotel... I was tempted to join some of the people who were going the beach but in the end decided to just get some rest.

Last Day.

I went Jet Skiing... first time i did that... and it was really really good... Initially I thought I'd do it coz I simply hadn't done it before... was under the impression that it would be like driving a bike, but the thrill was like driving fast on land without being afraid of hitting someone else and a really good roller-coaster ride. Highly recommended.

Ate for the last time at the Beach Shack, listening to a bunch of foreigners exchange news of their experiences in India (not all that good, I am afraid). Was about to leave when the rest of the gang showed up... they ordered a really good fish, whose name I can't recall now... had a bit of that... then went for a swim in the pool before going to pack and leaving Club M. We had to go to Exotica first coz someone had left their cell phone there the day before, and we stopped on the way to pick up wine and fenni for the people back home...so we had to rush to make the flight.

Minor excitement happenned right at the end as it turned out that my cabin luggage did not have the necessary security clearance. They ran it through the machine again (everyone except me had already boarded) and were freaked out by a couple of (really cool) magnets I had picked up at Arpora (or maybe Baga or maybe Calangute). They are pretty sleek... could pass for some sort of nuclear fuel (at least, I imagine thats what nuclear fuel looks like) pellets... but they relented in the end, accepting that I was as innocent as I look. Hmmm...

The flight back was fun too... I just stared at the sunset for the first half and chatted with others later. There was this really cute kid running about the aisles, so I challenged him a couple of times... he was a cool kid, didn't get shy or whiny... just smiled his cool baby smile and asked me to come see him outside if I was such a big shot. (well, he didn't say it coz he was too young to speak but I get what kids say). One year old dude, he was.

It took us as long to get out of the airport as it took us to fly back from Goa... I am offically pro-privatisation on this (a yuppie's gotta a do what a yuppie's gotta do)

Anyway, I had some time to kill coz my parents were out that night, so I went to Punjabi by Nature for dinner with some of the others... really good food again.

Mom said I looked good Bronzed.