I woke up this morning to the sound of steady, pouring rain. The curtains made it so that it was always so dark anyway but I got the distinct impression there would be no sun today. Even the dogs and roosters sounded muffled in the rain.
Maybe the good days were behind us. Or maybe the weather would turn in another two days or so.
Dolly's had been closed yesterday. Today was Tuesday and those small bags of local Chaitanya milk I had come to crave had 'gotten over,' to quote Puji. I'm not sure what it was specifically about this natural milk that I loved so much. It had the faintest smell of vanilla and something else my brain had instantly associated with freshness. And that freshness, my brain reasoned, was such that it could bypass my body's own lactose aversion and somehow be good for me. Today there would be none. Whatever Espresso I had managed to coax out of the coffee maker I drank black and with only a small spoonful of humid sugar. My free Barista cafetiera had died this morning. Its orange plastic handle had melted under the duress of the gas stove and become fit only for the small Coffee Day paper bag (poetic justice, was it?) which, by now, was surely teeming with fruit flies and those giant mango tree ants I had been spying around the door frame the last couple of nights.
The Internet was functioning at some kind of normal speed now. Maybe I was just getting used to it. Or it was getting used to me. Connectivity in Goa was not to be taken for granted. That much I knew. I sat and I wrote. The plan today was to take the local bus to Calangute to get an idea of material prices, used furniture options and to get some shopping done now that the fridge had become bare. I searched for the Cinematic Orchestra's 'To Build a Home,' the song that had been on my mind all morning. The tears welled almost immediately as the video struggled to buffer and then played in fits and starts. As it did I thought there was nothing more frustrating than having to restart a beautiful song halfway through.
Puji wasn't convinced we should go out just yet. It was cold. We would fall sick. I agreed. We could wait it out a little. I sat on the swing on the balcony and watched the rain for the first time in over a week. Such a nice spot to enjoy the monsoon. And hadn't that been the plan? She wanted me to read that Come September article by Arundhati Roy and I promised I would, but only after I convinced her to sit down with me and enjoy the dampness on display. Then we sat and read and hummed approvingly and gestured at our favourite lines. She had transcribed the entire lecture on a Word document to internalize its message. It was really well written and well argued - the kind of piece we both hoped we could one day write, if only in our wildest dreams. I prepared some fried rice then and ate while Egypt's Revolution 2.0 unfolded somewhat anti-climactically on CNN International.
It was well past four when we finally left. Most of the heavy rains were behind us now. We caught the empty bus fairly quickly and kept an eye out for different roads and towns that might become useful once we had our own transport. In town I got my Crocs and she got plushy pumpkin slippers for the house. We walked over to Coffee Day and bought a new cafetiera and two more Espresso packs; its contents black gold in a place that was big on football but small on good coffee. We found some random plywood dealer amongst a group of men sitting behind one semi-abandoned building. I questioned another man at another hardware store about mosquito nets and drain pipes and silicone and shelf brackets. We bought our fruits and vegetables in the same little market as last time and then ventured into the pungent fish market to pick up some fresh chicken that was then hacked into small, unrecognizable pieces on a cutting board swarming with flies. We were looking for the bus back when some guy on a motorbike insisted we hop on. He'd take us back to Saligao only because we were both skinny enough, he joked. A dollar for the ride seemed like a good deal. Puji mounted sideways and sat sandwiched between the two of us. The only thing keeping us anchored to the bike was my left arm very casually gripping his left shoulder. It started raining again. Getting wet had not been calculated. Joe Gonsalves took a different road back and we got lost on the way. We dodged random questions about how we met and answered others in no great detail. People had been nothing but friendly here but then divulging too much information in such a small town was sort of like updating your status on Facebook. Word got around fast. He finally dropped us in front of Rosario Chapel and gladly accepted the extra dollar for his troubles. We got some last minute stuff at Dolly's - including milk - and then came home and made a coffee. Later there would be delicious Bengali chicken curry over more CNN, its ticker eventually left to snake quietly on the TV over the chorus of frogs and crickets.
It felt like a productive day. But then that seemed very hard to measure. Everything was so frustratingly slow here. Puji would often tell me to relax and take it all in stride. And when it was her turn to freak out I would do the same.
For some reason I had been thinking about Coco and the talk we had had in Punjab Palace just before I left, the one about truly living off the grid. I was very capable of falling off the grid right now. All the elements were there. Only I was resisting. I wondered if I would look back on all this one day and kick myself for trying so hard to keep in touch with everything else.
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