INDIA, INDIA - In several parts

We were in India. I could tell we were in India because, well, luckily for us, it was the destination we’d planned. Also, the airport terminal was as hot as the hottest end of a very hot heater, there were at least 30 officials lining up to give our passports the twice-over and there was an ambient smell of spice, patchouli and sweat in the air.

This was our first trip to Goa, the 1970s hippy enclave, our introduction to a continent that had held me in its thrall ever since I was an impressionable kid. We couldn’t wait to explore.

Goa was a beguiling mix of religions, predominantly Christian, most of its residents slim, glossy haired and smiley. There were also fat matrons with gorgeous babies balanced on their cushiony hips, dignified gentlemen who looked impossibly old, and brown and creased as ancient leather and a predominance of teenage lads all sporting identical glossy shoulder length, Elvis quiffs and Mexican bandit moustaches. Our hotel was right on the beach, fairly modest and ever so slightly smelling of damp. This was due, our chambermaid explained, to regular flooding. “Not to worry” she smiled gently, wobbling her plaits side to side, “not to happen again yet!” We shooed a cockroach out of our sink, refreshed ourselves and hit the streets. We were a few hundred yards from the harbour which doubled as the coach terminus, and the pavements were lined with several market stalls with streams of rainbow coloured silk scarves, saris and shirts blowing gaily in the hot breeze like tethered kites longing for freedom. The stallholders, unlike some other parts of the world, didn’t believe in hassling. They seemed content to smile, wobble heads, wish us a happy time with them. The owner of the harbour café was enormous and sported one fine yellow tooth proudly. Every morning he would begin cooking his dhal which bubbled away for hours and became more and more glutinous as the day went on. We loved it. We ate it for breakfast with warm, soft bread and bottled water. We sometimes returned at night to mop up the remainder. We became so familiar that he would turf any locals off our usual table in order for us to sit, which made us uncomfortable. To their credit, the locals would just laugh and hang around on the steps finishing up their snacks.

We were treated one morning to the sight of a small child attempting to hypnotise a snake, which is something you don’t see much of in Swindon where we came from. We presumed it to be a harmless variety, as she was no more than ten, the snake was about 5 foot long and her mother quite uninterested. The child would patiently hold the creature by its neck, position its head so it appeared to be looking at her, wave her hands around singing a haunting song in her high voice. The snake collapsed in on itself, slithered off a few feet, she would patiently drag it back by its tail and begin again. After about half an hour both the snake, the child and her mother all lost interest and the little girl took a frog from the pocket of her dress and proceeded to stretch out its legs like a miniscule brolly. We didn’t hang around to see what other wildlife she had secreted about her small person

Re: INDIA, INDIA - In several parts

We were there over Christmas and it was wonderful. Christmas eve we walked across to a makeshift church on the beach, where a choir of children, the girls in shiny frilly dresses with flowers in their hair, the boys all in miniature adult suits and ties, sang sweetly all our familiar carols, with the gentle splash of waves as accompaniment. Trees along the coast were strung with paper decorations, small fairy lights adorned the branches and the warm winter night carried the scent of jasmine. We felt privileged to have shared the experience and strolled back to our damp room happy and at peace and for once not missing our dhal at all.

We had befriended an English couple, a rotund lady and her jolly husband from oop North somewhere. They had visited Goa previously and she took it upon herself to educate us in “their ways”. “They love pencils” she imparted in her loud, kindly way. “Pencils, sweets, paper. They’re poor, you know.” To prove her point, she would produce from her huge bag – rather like Santa – little bags of biliously coloured boiled sweets and small packets of stationery, which she would press onto anyone under the age of 15 as they passed. She was of course very popular with children, and thus it was that we met a young man out with his small brother. We got chatting, admired his quiff and his replica trainers of which he was very proud. He informed us that he was “in commerce”. We couldn’t help thinking that for a mogul he seemed disproportionately humbly dressed, but he pointed over the harbour wall where a small motorboat was moored. “That’s mine!” he said, grinning and wobbling his head, “would you like to meet my family?” Well, how could we resist? The four of us climbed gingerly into his rocking boat and he manfully steadied our large friend as she wobbled around, shrieking and laughing and telling her husband that if she drowned, would he let the kids know where her jewellery was?

His parents’ house was a rickety house of Portuguese origin, with a faded and peeling veranda, creaky floorboards and crooked shutters. It must have been splendid 100 years ago but had sadly seen better days. I felt sorry for his mum, who had had no warning of a houseful of foreigners descending on her, and had obviously no stocked cupboards with which to feed us. She was tiny, thin, painfully shy and had two other children hiding behind her back. At least, we assumed they were children as we only ever saw their fingers clutching her waist and the occasional large brown eyes peeping out. They lived with grandpappy, who was a delight. He looked as old as the house and had a startlingly thick head of wild hair that seemed to spring from his skull like an untrimmed snow covered hedge. The lad pointed out to us a gramophone, a sagging sofa and several records with pride. He said something incomprehensible to his mum who rushed away and returned with four cans of warm Coke and a tin plate of shelled nuts which we felt obliged to eat, even though we suspected it may have left them short of a snack. We stopped an hour, with the family all standing in front of us smiling, looking nervously at each other and attempting to ask questions via their son. The tiny children were nowhere to be seen, having scuttled away once the sanctuary of their mother’s sari moved. Eventually we said our goodbyes and hugged everyone warmly. Grandpappy emerged from the kitchen smiling sheepishly and wearing a small teddy bear on his head. He pointed to the littlest child, then to his head, and grinned widely, displaying a wonderful set of startlingly white teeth.

Re: INDIA, INDIA - In several parts

Our last sight of the family was Elvis, holding his brother by the hand, mum peeping at us from under her fringe and grandpappy balancing teddy on his wild hair, dignified and yet oddly mad at the same time. What more could you wish of a grandpappy?

At a modest restaurant one afternoon we made friends with a lovely Goan lady of ample proportions and a great culinary talent, who informed us that she was a dressmaker, and would we like her to make us some clothes? She offered to buy suitable material for us, run us up some traditional attire and have it ready by the same time tomorrow. Now I don’t know about you, but I’ve never found a Berni Inn willing to do this while you eat your chicken and chips, and we agreed a very modest price, tucked into her spicy large prawns, chicken, pork strips, rice and ooh, many other wonderful side dishes, and returned the following day. We didn’t really mind what sort of material she bought, we just wanted to try the clothes out, blend in and look reasonably OK. Preferably all three. She unfolded a gorgeously patterned two piece for me, loose cool sleeves, low neck and with Arabian night style baggy trousers with a cuff. I felt like a princess. I was cool, smart, casual, I felt an honourary Goan and deeply touched. My husband had a cream suit with Ghandi style collar, also loosely fitting, also smart. For the price of what we would pay for a meal in the UK we had a wonderful souvenir and memory of our holiday. I told her that if she moved to Britain she’d make a fortune, and had she ever considered moving. She replied quietly that the cost of a plane ticket would be out of the question, and I could have kicked myself for my tactlessness. “Besides” she said laughing, “Look around. Why would I leave?” We looked at the palms, the richly scented waxy flowers climbing her restaurant, at the deep blue of the winter sky and distant ocean. The lady had a point.

We took a two day trip to Mumbai in a bone shaking hire car and the noise, pollution and complete chaos of the city was quite disorientating at first after Goa’s laid back clean and relaxed atmosphere. Being city folk though, we soon adjusted. After all, we were born in Birmingham and were accustomed to being pushed and shoved and sidestepping flotsam. As our driver crawled through the honking, almost stationary traffic he advised us to wind our windows up, thus rendering us semi-conscious. The reason, we were told (like naughty kids being told the bleedin’ obvious) was hawkers would try and get their arms through and sell us things. Imagine! We rolled down our window defiantly and immediately a boy popped up holding a basket of strawberries nestling in a bed of straw. He grinned gappily at us, gestured in a universal sign for money, we took the box, he scampered off. We investigated further to find three strawberries on top, six layers of straw beneath. The driver looked smug, we laughed and ate the one piece of fruit that wasn’t rotten.

Re: INDIA, INDIA - In several parts

Wandering one of Mumbai’s many markets my husband decided to buy a packet of underpants, as you do when your supply is running low. The cost for three pairs was around £1. He paid, we wandered off. Rounding the next corner we heard the slap slap of flip flops running after us. A panting stallholder accosted us, shouting, looking anxious and gesturing to my bag. Luckily for us, an English speaking Indian intervened, spoke sharply to the man who eventually hurried off. It turned out, he thought we had run off without paying, which worried us and also brought home the hardship these people had to endure and the importance of every coin.

An hour or so of walking the streets of one of India’s most exhilarating, hot, dirty and fume filled cities we were gasping for a drink. We saw a sign that showed a picture of glasses of some sort of liquid, pointing up a flight of stairs and staggered upwards into a dark den that at first appeared to be some sort of secret society of cavers planning their next trip further underground. As our eyes adjusted, we felt dozens of eyes looking at us and dozens of moustachioed men who halted their chatter and drinking. It felt like we’d walked into a Western minutes before the fair haired stranger gets pumped full of lead. We were however desperate, and asked the bartender for two lagers. Now, Indian lager is strong, and our request was met with an “are you sure, sir? Lagers? For the lady also please?” I assured him that the lady also drank lager, and we sat down among a group of scary looking middle aged blokes who smiled lasciviously at me (I was younger then) and ignored my husband. To our surprise, along with ice cold lager came three large dishes. One contained poppadoms, crisp, warm and deliciously fresh, one had small florets of cauliflower, deep fried, crisp, also delicious, and one full of cashew nuts. These were all included in the modest price of the drinks. The moustache club turned out to be exceptionally friendly, and when my husband went to find the gents one of them quickly cupped my breast in a spirit of camaraderie. I was so shocked I said nothing but smiled inanely and shifted ever so slightly along the table. He didn’t take the rejection personally, to his credit, he just carried on chatting to his pal as if groping tourists was par for the course. We left quite soon after that, despite my husband whining for another lager. It’s not like it was the only bar in town, for God’s sake.

We saw a lot of Mumbai, much of it beautiful, some rather less so, like the dead kitten lying in filth in the gutter, and the ubiquitous sleek rats scuttling past and ignored by all except us. Children approached us begging, and clutching even smaller children, their skin grey and cold to the touch, their eyes enormous. We had been told not to give them alms as they were part of organised gangs, and the kids would see none of the money, and we steeled our hearts and shook our heads gently and walked away.

We spent the last few days of our holiday back in Goa, relaxing on the beach, watching the local lads play cricket at dusk, listening to the chickens next door arguing, chilling out. Our maid knocked gently on our door before we left, and handed us a large slice of beautifully decorated cake. “My birthday” she murmered shyly. “For you.” I fished in my case and handed her a pair of soft sandals I’d bought for the trip and which looked her size. “For you.” I said, hugging her. “Happy birthday.”
THE END

© 2010

Re: INDIA, INDIA - In several parts

For a moment I was there with you.... beutifully written ... thankyou for sharing that with us ..


Are you a writer ?

Re: INDIA, INDIA - In several parts

Eccles, you are a star, a very good read. I felt as if I was there with you.

We used to host foreign students & had a Goan lady for a year. She was a delight , loved washing up & could make a four course meal out of next to nothing.

aah memories.

Re: INDIA, INDIA - In several parts

SNAP Baggy

Re: INDIA, INDIA - In several parts

Very well written Eccles - I enjoyed reading yhat.

Re: INDIA, INDIA - In several parts

Thanks for the positive comments, folks. I've always loved writing and I've got loads of short stories. I was lucky enough to win a week's cruise with this Indian travelogue!