Of bull and man

     On the way to check out a scooter, Amit pointed out one particular bull in the fields whose frame he hoped his own young Mario might grow into someday. He had the protruding hump and slender stomach of a potential champion. They briefly stared at each other. Then he drove on.

     The fact that Amit shared many of the same physical attributes he looked for in a bull was not lost on me. He too was short and stout, his thick shoulders resting on a slim torso. Full power, as he liked to say. Krishna, the owner of the nineteen-eighty-something Vespa, was the exact opposite; a tall balding man with a sizeable paunch resting on an otherwise thin frame. About as threatening as a dairy cow.

     He showed us the bike and my heart sank. The original paint was faded beyond recognition. It looked like one of those retro green pastel fridges the US army furnished in model towns used for nuclear weapons-testing. The left side of the platform was almost entirely chewed up by rust. I wasn't exactly sure what spray painting was going to do for this vehicle. Amit failed to get it started and then told Krishna we'd think about it. He gave me the lowdown in the car. This bike would need a lot of work (no shit) and wasn't worth my time. The other problem was that I had no licence and no registration. He suggested I get all my papers in order first. I immediately thought of Kishor's brother-in-law and then quickly erased any notion that I might be able to fast-track my way out of this one. Goa had burned me too many times already. 

     I wanted a motorized two-wheeler as soon as humanly possible. I explained this very simple fact to Amit over Chicken Cafreal, which we had in a small shack next door to the same nursery that had yet to deliver my ivy creepers. It was a cozy little joint. Behind the counter a newspaper pinned to the wall had an ad that asked if Now was the right time to invest in a small-cap fund? He suggested I bring 'the Puja' to eat here sometime and dipped his roll into the curry. I looked at Amit. He knew exactly what I was talking about too. This is the same man (we were the same age, I always kept reminding myself) who had told me he loved nothing more than to just ride endless roads to nowhere when he needed to clear his head. The stuff Harley-Davidson commercials were made of. My ambitions were milder. I just wanted the freedom to travel on my own. And I wasn't about to go exploring South Goa on those rare days the sun decided to show its face on a bicycle. I made that much very clear. 

     Amit smiled and his childhood friend did the same, displaying a mouthful of crooked teeth. He was looking happier now. 'The Amit' did not problem solve very well on an empty stomach. 

Monsoon 101

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. 

if only it could rain everyday

everything seems to go crazy here when it thunders.
the cats start fighting. the TV snaps on and starts whipping out static.
and I get out the acoustic and start singing.
contact friends, long forgotten

wade in the fire

what a day. what a night. what a weekend. hard to sum up all the emotions of the last two nights into proper sentences so I'll just lay it out it in fragments. pad barbecue. solar eclipses we never quite caught but some beautiful climbs up to the roof anyhow. tennis balls and power lines. delicious slices of salty Argentinean beef and plenty of beer to wash it down. music talk, protest talk. and more Lafleur hot dogs than I'm proud to admit. not enough sleep. and before i know it, Piknik Electronique. packing coolers in the metro with Davey Cleinfeld. not quite like old times but always good times. the unmistakable rumble out Jean Drapeau and the giant Star-Trek-looking monument overlooking the deceptively blue St. Laurence River. a perfect Montreal summer day in Spring. beautiful people and perfect strangers soaking in the sun. butterflies for Dubfire, sharing beer and water bottles. getting lost in the crowd and dancing like no one's watching. and that shit-eating grin you just can't wipe off your face.