Go Goa

After giving one of the worst exams ever, I was a bit relieved that it got over. I had mixed feelings going on in my mind. My exams were over, dad was going to give me my bike, I was gaining tremendous weight in the gym, so I was quite happy. But at the same time I was all alone, my bike was getting delayed for some or the other reason and somehow there was nothing to do in the holidays.

Suddenly one day Samson comes up with the idea to go to Goa. Like a lightning in the cloud everyone got excited. Everyone came up with different plans on how to go with the trip to Goa. Most of the X-E guys had their colleges resumed except the engineers. So they started finding out days they can take off. But the excitement was short lasting. Most of the people backed out as they were busy with their colleges and assistantships. So the idea lost its steam. I was a bit upset as nothing good was happening. My bike was still delayed and no Goa plans. A week later Samson calls up asking will Monday to Saturday Goa trip would be fine. Without a second thought I said yes. Same day evening I got a call from the showroom that my bike was ready for delivery. I was overjoyed. I immediately got to packing and discussed the trip to Goa with Samson and Darryl. Darryl booked the tickets for five people. Darryl, Samson, Nimesh, Alister and me. All were ready and raring to go.

Finally the day of departure arrived. I was already very happy as Spain had won the world cup. We were going to board the train from Mumbai CST at 22:15 hrs and I was going to get my bike delivery at 18:30 hrs. We had planned to meet at Malad station at around 20:00 hrs giving us a good 2 hours to reach CST. Around 17:30 hrs I left my house for the bike delivery with my mom my dad had already reached the showroom. The bike was ready and we just had to finish the paper work. Just when I thought everything was smooth, the power went off at R.T.O. Damn I did not have a registration number for my bike. We waited till 19:00 hrs but still we did not get the number. Finally I told the showroom to give me a temporary number so that I can take my bike home. The showroom arranged for that and we finally got the bike. My mom did all the rituals for the safety of the new bike and we were set to take it home. But it was already 19:30 hrs and I knew I was late. I took the bike home somehow quickly and reached home by 19:45 hrs. I parked it and covered it. It was so hard to leave my love there and go but I promised it I would be back soon. I had my dinner and I left home in a hurry. I gave a very quick and short good-bye to my parents and left for Malad station. The traffic was doing no good. The rest of them had already reached and were waiting for me. Somehow I reached by 20:35 hrs and we all boarded the local at 20:40 hrs. We knew we were going neck-to-neck with time. We reached Dadar at 21:30 hrs and ran off to the central side. We caught another local at 21:40 hrs and reached CST at 22:00 hrs, 15 minutes before departure. We boarded the train and it finally left at 22:15 hrs on time. The trip had begun.

After the train had left we started to discuss how we were going to go about the trip. Darryl , Alister and Nimesh were discussing booze and I was just listening. Darryl asked me what I was going to drink and I replied I don’t drink alcohol. He was a bit surprised to hear that but I told them don’t worry I’m fine with it if you all drink. Nimesh I guess had a bottle of whisky in his bag which they planned to drink on reaching Goa. The train had gathered excellent pace and was running super fast. We were all sitting together in a cubicle and there was another man Jose Duarte (m0#$^r f*#$%ng ba%$@rd..... you will come to know why). We were all very excited and having fun during the journey. It was pitch dark outside but the breeze was awesome. We kept talking late into the night and then after 02:00 hrs we decided we will go to sleep. I usually don’t get deep sleep but maybe due to the breeze I slept instantly and dreamlessly. We all were asleep and quite suddenly that Jose wakes me up. I look at the time 04:45 hrs. I was so bloody pissed off for he woke me up from my sleep. He was shouting “Where is my wallet? I lost my wallet.” I immediately stepped down from my berth and asked him how did he lost it. We all woke up and tried to help him. But instead of taking the help that idiot started accusing us that we took his wallet. His main accusation was on Alister. I was a bit angered by his behaviour but didn’t say anything as he was old and must have genuinely lost his wallet. But he was adamant on his accusation and didn’t seem to stop. I suspected something fishy and told everyone to look into the bags not for his wallet but for the possibility that he might have slipped something into our bags. We checked our bags and showed him that we had nothing to hide but still he was not ready to accept the fact that he might have lost it due to his fault. We told him to complain it to the Ratnagiri police station then and there but he was too stupid to take any sage advice. He continuously kept accusing us and that just blew me off. We told him to stop accusing us and that we are not robbers but I guess he was just not ready to have his wallet back. I decieded not to sleep anymore even if I was longing to go back to sleep because I thought that he would do something stupid. Alister and Nimesh also did not sleep. The sun was just rising and we had reached Chiplun. The scenery outside was beautiful. All greenery everywhere and wet red soil. A river kept flowing below the train which just added to the beauty. We tried to experience nature’s beauty at its best but that stupid weirdo kept chewing our ears all way long. He was getting on my mind. I finally decieded not to pay any attention to this man any more. It was 08:30 when we reached Madgaon station and got off the train. Unfortunately that Jose (I am running out of permitted abuses) also got down with us. We thought it was over but he again came and said something to Alister . That was it for him and he told him to get lost. We knew that he was not going to go easily. We climbed the bridge and there he was standing again. He complained to the police there and the police stopped us. The police were a bit surprised at the suspicion. But still told us, politely, that they would like to see our bags. We had nothing to hide except Nimesh’s bottle of whisky. Oh my god what if they find that??? Still we did not want that accusation of robbing someone anymore. So we agreed. They took us to police station. What a start, first time in Goa and first stop the police station with an accusation. The Inspector in-charge was a nice man he told that ch**%^$ya (sorry people) to check our bags himself till he was satisfied. The fear of the bottle was still there. We kept quite till that as$%^#le (sorry again) finished checking. He did not reach the bottle, what a relief. After he was done it was my turn to speak. I told the inspector that this person has harresed us the whole time in the journey and has not accepted any help we offered. The inspector then took his case(not legally). He told to f*** off as the robbery happened in Ratnagiri and it did not fall in its jurisdiction. We then left the police station all relieved and hurling abuses at that freaking idiot. (I wish I could write them here &*(&s*r)^%$#$%#%eg@).

We reached Sam’s house in Benaulim at 09:30 hrs. This was the place where we were going to spend our time in Goa. The name of the house was Shalom and it was pretty good. The house was a bit dusty as it was closed for sometime. I started feeling itchy which made me determined to clean it first and then do whatever we wanted to do. We had our own ways of cleaning and somehow cleaned the whole place before noon. Exhausted from the journey and cleaning we all had a bath (separately) and then went for lunch. There was nice little restaurant near to our place Vincent’s. It was all decorated for the World Cup that just got over with small t-shirts and flags. We had a good Goan Chinese lunch and then came back home. We all had a small nap in the afternoon and got up by 17:00 hrs. We got fresh and decieded to go the Benaulim beach nearby. Sam knew the way and we did not. We were walking and we reached this beautiful paddy field expanding in all directions infront of us. The view was awesome and we could hear the sea hitting the shore somewhere near. Sam, Ali and me were walking freely in the fields but Darryl and Nimo were a bit reluctant to walk through it. Finally they came behind us. It was so cool to find our way through the fields. The soft mud below our feet and then cool water was just adding to the fun. We crossed the field and reached the road to the beach. We saw a big deserted hotel on the way. Following it we reached the beach. Wow!!!! The view was enchanting. White sand everywhere and water so clear that you could see the see bed. The waves were hitting the shore and the sound was just awesome.

We wasted no time in taking our shirts off and were in the water in no time. We went into knee deep water and were experiencing the waves coming our way. We were clicking photos trying to give different poses. It was fun when we tried getting a particular pose and I could not click the pic. All were getting mad at me so I finally quit. We were having fun throwing a small ball around when a little dog came up to us. He looked playful. Ali was quick to become friends with him and we all started playing with him.

We threw the ball around and he tried to fetch it. But he was in a little extra playful mood as after catching the ball in his mouth he used to run around the beach making us run behind him. It was getting dark, so we stepped out of the water. Suddenly I had an idea of writing the days we spent in sand so that we could put them in our albums. We made 4 such designs using just sand, weeds and sticks. We clicked them and decieded to return back home. It was almost pitch dark when we were walking on the beach back home. We tried finding a good way back but the darkness was not helping. Finally we saw a street light far away and walked upto it. We walked on it for around 15 minutes and came to a supermarket. Here we decieded that we would cook for ourselves in the coming days. Darryl suggested eggs and noodles would be the best things we could do and all agreed.

We bought all the necessary vegetables and spices required and returned back home. On the way we found a small hotel where bought dinner and decieded we will experiment cooking the next day. We returned home and got fresh and sat for dinner. This meal was not that great as the food was not tasty at all. Now the guys started to get into mood and opened the alcohol. Well they were having tuborg beers all day but now came in the real stuff. They had Nimo’s whisky first and then they opened rum and vodka. All this time I was just sitting with them and watched them gulp their pegs. The guys tried to get drunk but somehow they couldn’t. Finally we decieded to dooze off. Ali, Nimo and Sam were busy discussing ghost stories where as Darryl and I slept early.

Next morning we all got up and we had a guest. Sam’s friend Wellington had come to meet us and gave us some ideas on how to spend our time around. All of us then got to make breakfast. They say too many cooks spoil the broth but in our case it was otherwise. We all contributed somewhat to the cooking and the result was a quite edible bhurji and tea. We all got fresh ,dressed and left for the Madgaon market. We caught a bus to the market. The Goan buses are also an experience. They are very short in height so we kept banging our heads into it whenever we stood up. All along they way there is Goan music playing in the bus which is quite fun. We got off at Madgaon market and first stop we went to the Goa tourism office to find out what we could do on the next day. Most of the interesting events were called of due to the rains and nobody had any interest in going sight-seeing. So we decieded not to do anything the next day. Next we went to a shop called Kitchenette and bought some sweets to take back home.We spent some time shopping around in the market and then went to lunch. We went to a restaurant called Lounghinos which was Darryl’s suggestion and it turned out to be good. I had an excellent prawns biriyani and others had I guess Chicken Xacuti. Ali was not that hungry so he just had a custard. He then got obsessed with the idea of making custard at home. The food was not that spicy but there was this foreign couple sitting infront of us who found the food too spicy. They tried everything to cool their tongues and we just kept laughing to ourselves. Darryl and I decieded to tease the couple a bit. So while leaving our table we went near their table and said in an audible voice that the food was not spicy at all, they should have added more chillies. The couple was staring at us when we left smiling. We went to an ice-cream shop and there we had really good ice-creams. It was perfect to go after a wonderful lunch. While leaving we again saw the same couple entering the shop. Darryl and I were there again teasing them. We spent some more time shopping. Later the guys found a liquor shop and they were quite excited. Sam andI waited out while the others were inside buying the drinks they were going to have at night. They came back with a backload of drinks. After everything was over we caught a bus back home. We all rested for a while and then decieded to play cricket. We went to the ground and found some kids playing football. So we decieded why not play some football. We five were in one team and they were six at first. They were kids but were quite good. I was standing goalie as I was too lazy to run. Sam and darryl looked in good touch and started scoring early. We were 5-1 up when the opposition got reinforcements. Now we were 5 and they were 10. I hadn’t played for a year and was finding it difficult to keep. I started conceding goals and we were neck to neck on 6-5 us leading. So we decieded that Nimo be the keeper and I play in the field. I somehow was able to run and kept marking their striker. They still were scoring but then we kept scoring even more. We lost the track of the score at one point. We stopped playing after it got dark. It was so nice to play some good football with the Goan kids. We returned home and got fresh. There was along line to the bathroom as all 5 of us were dirty and everyone wanted to get into the bathroom. After getting fresh I started washing clothes. At the same time we all got ready to cook noodles. Nimo the first one to get fresh was told to cut all vegetables. Alister without getting fresh got started up with making the custard while Darryl second to get fresh was boiling the noodles. Sam was doing other stuff around the house. After the clothes were done I relieved Nimo and got to cutting the vegetables. At the same time the noodles were boiled and drained. We tried taking necessary precautions so that the noodles don’t stick together, but they did. We lost some confidence but didn’t quit. The vegetables were cut, noodles were ready, masalas and sauces were readyand the pan was already heating oil. Darryl and I did rest of the cooking and the noodles were ready. The quantity was somehow not enough but we all did enjoy the noodles we cooked. Again it was time to open the bottles for the guys and me to watch them open it. They were having rum one peg after the other. Again the guys couldn’t get themselves drunk but it seemed that night nobody wanted to get drunk. We ended up talking and discussing so much about our recent respective lives. Girls obviously topped the topics of discussion. All guys put their views, analysed them, put them in a frame but still could not figure them out. Finally we chucked out the topic and decieded to talk about something else but we weren’t able to. Down came the abuses on all the things we don’t want the girls to do most of which went to Stephanie Mayer and her irritating Twilight series. I think even the power in the house was bored of our talking when it went out at around 3 a.m. in the morning. We stopped somehow and dozed off to sleep. Ali was not sleepy so decieded to play a prank. He changed the time in all our watches and cellphones and put them 1 hour 30 minutes ahead of actual time. When I got up in the morning I was surprised to see 11:30 a.m. on my cell. Even Sam was surprised to see the time. It was all clear when Ali got up. Actually the time was 10:00 a.m.

We had planned to go to Dona Paula which was 2 hours from Benaulim but were too late to go there. Sam had already made omelets for breakfast and we just had to eat it. We were too late to go anywhere so we decieded to just go to the beach again. This time we were going to spend more time on the beach. So we took the bat and stumps along to play cricket. Today we had time so we decieded to find and alternate road to the beach other than the fields but somehow it turned out to be a long cut and we were tired before reaching the beach. Just one the way there was a deserted hotel. We were walking talking about it and asking if there were snakes. Just when we started Sam spotted a snake on a tree just above us. I hate snakes when they are above me. I decieded to take safe distance and ran a distance ahead. Others were a bit closer to it. I would have watched it more closely if it had been on the ground but when they are above me I get a bit spooked. We moved on and saw the beach in its best form. Huge waves hitting the shore and a strong wind blowing past us. There was hardly any place left on the beach as the high tide had covered most of it. Bringing the bat and stumps was of no use. Just then a huge parade of people was running on the beach towards us we got out of the way and watched them. All were wearing a t-shirt of their company and were running. First we thought only guys were there but a few rows back there were some slender girls running too. A girl in black shorts caught the attention of all of us as she jogged past us. As the parade moved ahead the sizes of the girls went on increasing and our interest kept on decreasing. Soon the people had passed ahead. It was hard to resist ourselves from getting in to the water then. The t-shirts were off and everybody was in the water. We were quick to get into water which was knee deep but the waves coming in were shoulder high. They were so strong that we found hard to keep balance when they hit us. Last time we had come here we could see a mountain in the horizon but this time the waters were so high that the mountain was covered behind them. We were enjoying the dip in the water when a lifeguard came to talk to us. He told me that the high tide had crossed the danger level and we were not supposed to get into the water. We did not want to come out of the water that soon so the lifeguard told us that we could get into the water infront of this cabin. We walked upto his cabin but the water was not that good there. We went just a little bit ahead where the water was fine and started to enjoy the waves again. We spent more than an hour in the water playing with the waves and enjoying the small drizzle from the sky. I came out of the water when a felt like something stung me on my right right leg. I was just hoping it wasn’t a fish sting while coming out of the water. After coming to a dry patch I checked my leg and saw that I was hurt by a sea shell on the second toe. Alittle piece was stuck in the skin. I removed it with another shell and somehow I started bleeding. It wasn’t bleeding heavily but it was bleeding a bit strongly. I went to the lifeguard and cleaned the wound. I applied some medicine on the wound and covered it with a bandage. I stayed out of the water for the rest of the time watching the guys enjoy in the waves. Even Ali was out because he felt cold. Ali was again up with his prank and started digging a hole in the sand. He had made a trap. After it was around 2:30 in the afternoon the others got of the water too. Nimo was the one to fall into Ali’s trap. We got a bit dry and then stared walking back home. This time we took a different route. We went along the huge Taj Exotica hotel again through some other fields. It was a deserted afternoon and it was drizzling all the time making us even more wet. We walked around for 2 miles and were very hungry. We reached Vincent’s which was about to shut down for the afternoon. I wanted to have some warm soup but he said we could only get noodles and rice at this time. We ordered the noodles and rice and went home to get clean. After everybody got fresh, we sat down for a late lunch which ended with the delicious custard made by Ali last night. Everybody was tired and went of to sleep in the living room. It was a short nap and we got up at around 6:30p.m. We decieded to cook again that night. This time we decieded to cook rice. We decieded to cook fried rice and went to the super market to buy the required stuff. While in the supermarket our minds suddenly changed to cook pulav. So we bought the veggies and masalas along with some ice-cream we wanted to have as desserts. I took the buyings home and the other guys left towards Vincent’s to taste different alcohols. While the guys were doing that I was washing clothes at home listening to music. The guys returned after sometime and we got to cook the pulav. We all were in correspondence with our moms to get the rice properly cooked. All opinions and suggestions were coming in but I had some good idea on how to get it cooked. I told the guys to keep the veggies cut and ready and to wash the rice. I put the spices in the oil and then the veggies into it. Then I added the masalas and then finally the rice. I cooked it for a while when Sam was boiling water on the other flame with some biriyani masala. When the water was boiled we added the water to the rice. Sam was a bit confused on where the water will go and was not convinced with Darryl’s and my way of cooking the rice. Just to add to the confusion Ali was still in the mind frame that we were cooking fried rice. So his mom told him that we don’t add water to the rice which was right if we were cooking fried rice. Sam was quick to act and drained all the water mixed with all the flavour now. He did not make sure whether the suggestion was right. When I came in again I saw what Sam had done and asked Ali what his mom told him. He told me the way his mom cooked fried rice and I told him that we were making pulav. Thank god the rice was almost 90% done at that time and Sam was clever enough to drain some water in a small vessel. I added the drained water again to the rice and some more water. Some more masala and salt to compensate for the taste and cooked it for a little more time. When the rice was done I tasted it and it actually tasted quite good, relieved that too many cooks didn’t spoil the rice. We had ordered gravy from Vincent’s, chicken for me and pork for the guys. We sat for dinner and again found the rice was not sufficient. Even then no one complained and had dinner happily. The pork was too spicy for the guys who according to me had a lesser threshold for spice or I had a higher threshold. The guys kept the pork as it was too much to take. The dinner was quite filling which was followed by black current ice-cream. The guys were a bit relieved to have something sweet on their taste buds. This night was our last night and the guys were going to try their best to get drunk. They had brought one full khamba of vodka to gulp done in one night. The guys started to drink very fast and had already gulped 4 pegs each before midnight. They were making chicken nuggets to have with the drinks. The guys went on to 7 pegs each at the end which Darryl was reached the limit and Ali had started to behave strangely. Nimo continued drinking as the bottle was supposed to be over. It couldn’t last more because tomorrow everything had to be cleared from the house. Nimo was done after 3 more pegs and another 3 pegs were left in the bottle. Sam was up for the job as he was the most decent drinker that night. He had those last pegs neat. This night again was a talking night. We ended up talking till 2 a.m. in the morning. We finally doze off when the power went off again for the second night in a row.

We got up next morning and cooked breakfast. Then we got to packing and cleaning up the house. Darryl left to Madgaon as he had to buy sausages. In the meanwhile Sam left to meet his aunt and cousins. Only me and Nimo were left in the house. We cleared up most of the stuff and packed everything. When Darryl and Alister returned we were almost done and then left for our last meal in Goa. After the meal we came home and were all ready to leave. We picked up our bags and said good bye to the beautiful house we spent the last 4 days in. We caught a bus to Madgaon at around 3:30 p.m. as we had to catch the train at 4:45 p.m. We got of the bus and the rains were pouring down. The bags were a bit heavy as we were taking a lot of stuff back. We had to walk another mile to reach the station. The rains weren’t helping and by the time we reached the station I was all drenched and tired. The train arrived after 15 minutes. We boarded the train and took our seats. It was kinda sad feeling when the train left but we were happy to go back home with memories to last forever. The sun was setting and the scenery was beautiful. This journey was a slower one as the train stopped at every station in the way. The guys were somehow very tired and slept after an hour of departure. The pantry guys kept coming asking for food but I couldn’t tell anything as I was the only one awake. The guys were napping seriously as it was 10:00 p.m in the night and still the guys were sleeping. I was listening to music all the time not feeling sleepy at all. When they got up the whole coach was in darkness and the guys were hungry. Even I was feeling hungry. We decieded to go to the pantry and see if they had something left. When we reached the pantry the guys there were annoyed to have someone so late. They had just a little stuff left. I got a chicken biryani for myself and Darryl got a Chicken fried rice. We got a veg biryani for Nimo. We returned to our coach and had a quite dinner in the dark. I was chewing on bones as didn’t realize what I was eating in the dark. We spent a little time talking in the dark and slept again for the night. I got up at 4:00 a.m. in the morning when we reached Panvel. The other guys got up one by one till Thane arrived. We were all ready to get down at Dadar station. At Dadar station we were again checked by the cops. What a trip! Began with cops and ended with cops.

We were home by 6:30 a.m. This was our first big trip together and what a time we had! We grew so much in these 4 days taking care of ourselves that we were confident about doing anything. The time we spent together was memorable and is going to stay with us for the rest of our lives. As Ali said “It was a LEGEND.”