With the power cut it was almost impossible to see three feet in front of us.
We had plunged into Anjuna's pitch black backroads without any light of our own. The village had already felt like a proper ghost town in the grey light of day and now, under the cloak of a suffocating Monsoon night, every shack and villa we met on the way looked impossibly desolate, like no one had occupied them in years. The twenty-minute walk would be a slow and treacherous one And then it was possible Curlies wouldn't even be open, the forbidding foot paths leading to it already laced with large puddles of cloudy water. We finally found one tiny shop five minutes in and picked up a tiny flashlight. We asked its owner, his soul-glow hair glistening in the humidity, if we were on the right track. He nodded. He then offered us everything from Cocaine to LSD to MDMA - should we change our minds and return to the hotel, perhaps. We declined politely and continued walking.
By the time we had reached the main asphalt road it was raining heavily. Puji and I switched sides so I could properly hold the umbrella and point the flashlight down in front of our feet while she tried her best to keep her purse dry. We were soaked in no time. Laughing at the ordeal still seemed right in that moment. The rain felt nice and all I wanted to do was ditch my sandals and walk barefoot to ease my blistered feet. We passed another small shack where a group of men next to their scooters were huddled by the counter, sitting out the heaviest of the rains. According to them we were still on the right track.
But then after the taking a left at the chapel the road became muddy and narrow again. We were tossed into darkness and up to our ankles in muddy water without any real landmarks to follow. In Bombay such water would have spelled instant illness. The sign for Curlies made no sense. It seemed to lead to nowhere. I wondered if it was naive to assume that the flashlight batteries would make the trek. Then I imagined what the walk would become without it.
We reached a parking lot where some twelve scooters stood idle next to a taxi stand sign. The Curlies guesthouse was equally lifeless except for one barking dog and the ominous shapes of random cows just standing there, motionless, in the pouring rain. The place was shut. We had walked nearly forty minutes for nothing. We found our way back to the last shop and asked those same men how Anjuna's most famous hippie joint could be shut. The undeniable sweet smell of hash burned like incense in the dampness and some of the men also looked pretty drunk. The place was not shut. It was by the beach some three hundred metres further down from the parking lot we ourselves had abandoned. No cab would take us there now because the roads were flooded and too narrow. We had no choice, really, but to walk back. There we could get a cab. Walking back home with nothing to show for it seemed a worse outcome still.
The way seemed even longer the second time around. My feet were absolutely screaming from the blisters. After accepting a thirty-second lift from a young guy with some foreign rock playing in his car, we were dropped off at the same taxi stand. The water seemed deeper, the mud thicker now. Still no lights or any sign of life. We were walking completely blind now and I rationally considered many different outcomes to this night. The wind seemed hell bent on apprehending the umbrella and the gushing water finally claimed my sandals, splitting the sole in two and leaving me with only a soggy tongue for a show. I went barefoot as Puji called out into the dark asking anyone for help. One man, whose flashlight we had seen only minutes ago, called back and finally appeared from his own desolate shack and led us down the proper path.
We couldn't help but laugh then. It was the laughter that we had spoken about before leaving; the one that comes from embarking on a dumb adventure and emerging unscathed, except maybe for a couple of blisters and a good story to show for it.
