As we bounced along the road with our wily taxi driver hunched over the wheel, I stared wide-eyed at the eclectic houses around us, big and small, new and old, nestled in palm groves and banana trees. Shops lined up the street. What a sight! Tye-dyed psychedelic flags fluttered in the wind, the remnants of the psychedelic voyagers who made their obligatory journey to the east so long ago.
We had no such illusions that we were going to find some cosmic truth in India or that we would discover some ancient secret. Those ages of discovery had come and gone. Naturally, the impetus for exploration was there underlying our journey because the search is never truly over. The grooving never ends, and for those western cats with a philosophical bent, the trip to the East was (and still is) essential to our training.
The driver beeped at a herd of cows that were slowly ambling along the middle of the road. Other drivers joined in with more beeping, but the saintly cows would not budge. A frisky young one tried to enter a cafe but a man shooed her away with a stick that he kept near the entrance. The gentle manner in which he treated the troublesome creature was wonderful to behold. Bikes and tuk-tuks swerved around her. A dog yawned lazily on a nearby food shack, disinterested in the mayhem around him. Everywhere I looked there was some new surprising sight or sound.
Tourists perused the shops along the road that had piles of clothing, shoes, knick-knacks, and tech goods arranged in the little bit of sidewalk available. I loved seeing the Indian women darting back and forth wearing their colorful clothes and slick braided hair that shone so gorgeous under the radiant sun. Their skin beautifully tanned and their mysterious dark eyes staring behind seductive high cheekbones.
Above us, webs of tangled electricity cables crisscrossed the poles along the street like a precarious protective dome. As if from a vision, a Christian church gleamed white under the incessant sun. Then a slinky blond dressed in a tiny rose bikini sprinted in front of our vehicle like a gazelle, and with a mischievous smile she jumped across the road and disappeared down an alleyway. The driver murmured something under his breath, but I couldn’t hear what he said.
He stopped the taxi and exchanged a few words with a local man then looking back, the driver asked me for the piece of paper with the address to the resort and handed it over to the man, who perused it carefully with a couple of his friends. After much discussion, they pointed down a sandy road.
We followed the road and came up to a gate, and the driver hopped out of the vehicle, disappeared around the bend, then came back after a couple of minutes.
“This is it!” he said through the window with a triumphant grin.
“Excellent!” I said shaking his hand. “Great skillful driving!”
He smiled and tilted his head from side to side. I paid the fare and gave him a bit extra for his impressive effort in getting us safely here.
We grabbed our bags and dragged them across the sand. A lady had been sweeping the sand with a grass broom to smooth it out. I gave her an apologetic smile as I left tracks on the smooth surface. She nodded her head in that most delightful wobbly way and kept on sweeping.
The small rustic cabins were lined in a row along a sandy lane facing the Arabian sea, which I could hear murmuring through the palm trees.
“Well, what do you think of your fancy resort?” I asked Bianca.
She looked around with her face turned to the bright sky. The Goan sun fell on her cheeks, and she smiled at the dancing shadows of the palm fronds.
“I love it! It's like a cute little village.”
Everything else was booked up for the holiday season, so we had no choice in any case. Here it was, our slice of paradise in India, like the abode of ancient gods in the eternal holy quest of hedonistic intelligence. We did not have millennia to pursue the art and science of pleasure, but we did have this eternal now to enjoy it.
Dive into another day:
All images by @litguru