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
Finally the day of departure arrived. I was already very happy as
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
We reached Sam’s house in Benaulim at 09:30 hrs. This was the place where we were going to spend our time in
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
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
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.”