Monday 31 December
I got back to Ivan's place in Fort aguada around 09:30 AM and straightaway crashed. I woke up around 4 in the afternoon, freshened up, thought I'd take mum out but laziness crept in and I went back to sleep! I woke up around 6ish and spent some time chatting with mum and then calling dad & speaking with him. Around 9 Jude called saying that the plan was to party in Sam's Shack at Baga Beach and that I needed to be ready by 10 as they would come and pick me up. I got ready and by 10 there was no sign of Jude and the gang (Sushil, Louise,Alison and Mukesh...since I am going to refer to them quite a few times later on, lets just call them "J - SLAM" and if that doesnt make a word... well now it does!) Prashant and I then hailed a taxi and headed for Baga Beach. The roads were jampacked with cars, partypeople all on thier way to some club or beach and cops.We had been warned that the traffic situation on the 31st would be terrible. So when we reached calangute, 2 kms away from Baga, we got rid of the taxi and walked all the way. The sights and sounds were amazing, as if all of Goa had come out on the streets. Every cafe, restaurant and shop was lit up, loud music playing and people all dressed up ready to party the nite away. We reached Baga a while later and the road that leads to the beach was jampacked with people. Just before you enter the beach, you will find Tito's (considered one of the hottest clubs in India!) and the the lane leading upto it is called "Tito's Lane". Normally vehicles would be allowed inside Tito's lane, however tonite the cops had put up barrickades at the street entrance. Inspite of that it was overflowing, spilling over the brim with people trying to get into Tito's and Mambo's (a club next to Tito's )and onto the beach. We reached Sam's shack at 11:20 PM and there we met two couple friends of Prashant's. We walked around looking for a place to sit, but all tables were occupied. After a while we spotted a table with no chairs and slowly one by one, whenever someone vacated we pulled chairs and settled down. The beach was so crowded that after a point it got quite suffocating. I hate crowds and try to avoid it as much as possible. We had just ordered our drinks and it had barely set in when the clock struck 00:00. The crowd was in a frenzy with everyone, friends and strangers wishing each other a "Happy New Year" and then the most amazing, out of the world display of fireworks in the sky I have ever witnessed commenced. One after the other, rockets shot up in the sky from every direction lighting up the sky. The whole beach had become so bright all of a sudden as though God just turned on his tubelight! I dint know where to look, I kept turning my head left then right then around, I just dint want to miss a thing. It must have gone on for an hour and after a while my neck was hurting and I decided to focus my attention on one side of the sky! After all the excitement and highly charged up energy of the transition from 07 to 08 plus the fireworks simmered down, the beach starting clearing up a bit. All the families present left leaving just the all-nite- partypeople. A little after 12, Ivan, Jenny and Jeanne arrived. J-SLAM were stuck in a major Traffic jam..what a way to bring in the new year!!
We sat around drinking and chatting and trying to figure out the music. You see, every shack on the beach was competeing in thier version of the War of the DJ's!! If one shack had his music loud, the other one not to be left behind was louder. And the result was a wierd concoction of really loud punjabi+bollywood remix+pop+trance+ hip hop which = a really bad cocktail!! All I could hear and what was prominent from the music mix was...dhin chak dhin chak dhin chak!!! I decided to give up trying to figure out the music and focussed my attention to the people around. There was a foriegn couple sitting behind us. Every minute or so some random guy or group of guys, all locals and obviously drunk, would stop by and wish them a Happy new year and ask about where they were from etc... surprising none of the locals stopped by our table...why? Dont we deserve to be wished a Happy new year..? Jeeez and we call the British, Australians ,Americans racist and Indians the victims ...tch tch poor Indians !! So anyway, there was another, rather large group of foriegners sitting on the other side of our table. They too recieved the same treatment from the locals. After a while I started feeling sleepy. I had ordered for a beer which I had been nursing for two hours by now and I had managed to finish only half a glass!!! So you can imagine how much fun I was having!! Ah! I almost forgot, We also witnessed two gruesome fights. It started all of a sudden amongest a couple of the waiters of two seperate shacks. You see they are quite particular about sticking to thier territory and one must have violated that rule and decided to cash in on the new year rush and the other was obviously not going to let him get away with it. So one chased the other and hit him with a beer bottle...on the head...so hard that it broke. Infact I think he broke two beer bottles on his head!! geez..when will SOME men (thats mentioned in caps so that you understand that I dont hate ALL men! ) understand..all this violence and machogiri just reinforces the fact that they are whimps! Anyway, as soon as that fight started, Ivan and the other boys, quickly got up and got us girls ( we were three girls and the fight started behind us) to the other side and exchanged seats with us. (See I meant it when I said not all men are bad, Ivan and the boys were real gentlemen :) ) After about what seemed like half an hour, another fight broke out and this time on the other side where we girls were sitting!! I swear we did nothing to spark the fight !!
After that little interesting break from the rather exciting time we were having, we moved closer to a table at the shack. The DJ at this shack was playing punjabi numbers and I seriously was in no mood to listen to punjabi.. and the dance floor was empty, I guess everyone else agreed with me. In contrast, the dance floor in the shack next to ours was jam packed with no place for people to dance, yet they somehow squeezed in. I was still nursing my glass of beer!! Thats coz of the consistant level of my excitement. Around 3 AM, J-SLAM finally arrived. Lets hope they dont spend the rest of the year stuck in every jam that blocks the roads! Once they settled down they took out their stash of alcohol ... Flavored vodka - Apple Twist I think and Tequilla. Well I have never tried Tequilla before. Actually Ive been a little hesitant because Ive heard stuff like, it burns your throat, if its your first time you puke and blah blah and Im a very conscious drinker. I always, with the exception of tonight, know my limits and once Im done with my quota I shift to plain ol' H2O. At times I do mix drinks too which I know is bad but thankfully I have never caused a scene or embarrased myself silly. So, getting back, this time I thot..what the heck and decided to give Tequilla a shot and 4 of them at it (small ofcourse) :) It did burn my throat, I dint puke and I felt on top of the world!! hehe.. Well one things for sure, Tequilla makes it straight to the number one position in my Top drinks countdown!! For most part of the rest of the nite, I was quite tipsy and at one point even wandered off without telling anyone.. In my defence I just went looking for the loo!! The music and dancing carried on untill 7 in the morning when the DJ called it a nite.
Tuesday 1 January 2008
Everyone was in high spirits yet exhausted. We headed back for Louise's house and Prashant who had hired a taxi came along with Ivan and Jenny. We hung around for a bit and since everyone was really tired we decided to get back to Ivan's place. On the way we stopped at Mapusa and booked Volvo seaters (never ever am I gonna travel in a sleeper) for the 2nd evening to Mumbai. I slept for a while and woke up around 1ish feeling mighty guilty for having left mum alone on new years eve and decided to take her out. We got ready and decided to head for Calangute. But before that our hosts insisted we have lunch at home. So after a delicious lunch consisting of Fried fish and Goan fish curry we left. We stopped at the market, roamed around a bit and then settled down for some tea at one of the cafe's. We chatted for a while and talked to dad too. That evening there was another function hosted by the Bride's family.. basically a homecoming for the Bride a day after she gets married, at Jenny's place in Al Dona. So after about 2 hours or so we left as I had to get ready for the function. Mum wasnt feeling too well. She had a terrible cold, no fever but was feeling a little weak and so decided to stay back and rest. Ivan's family in Fort Aguada had hired a bus (again the DTC kind) to take us to Al Dona. We left around 8 PM and it took us ..I think.. an hour to get there. Jenny's family and relatives were eagerly waiting for us and we had to wait at the gate untill everyone was ready with the party poppers and camera. After a grand entrance we settled down. The rest of the evening was pretty much about music, dancing , a game of musical chairs & passing the parcel, food and drink.
After the party was over and all the guests had left, we ( J-SLM & me . I missed out "A" coz Alison was not at the party and Prashant had left for chennai the previous afternoon) decided to hang around. There was a lake close to Jenny's house... a secluded and extremely eerie place. We drove down there and hung around for about 15- 20 minutes and then headed for louise's house. I guess we had exhausted all energy to party and so we just sat around talking for a while. Around 5 AM, I decided to get back to Ivan's place and crash.
Wednesday 2 January
The next morning I woke up around 10 and got ready. This was our last day in Goa and our bus was scheduled to leave at 8 PM from Mapusa. Mum and I decided to go to Calangute beach. We were told that the beach was full of foriegners and that it wouldnt be crowded...But when we reached the beach it WAS crowded , not just with foriegners but also with locals and thier families. There were rows of beach beds outside every shack and we found an unoccupied one (a pair of beds are placed together) and made ourselves comfortable. Incase youre wondering if you could just go to the beach , find a beach bed, plop your butt on it and go to sleep all free of charge... well sorry to dissappoint you but that not true... they charge you 100 bucks per hour and Im guessing its cheaper off season. We lazed around for an hour, soaking up the sun, after all in a day we would be back to Delhi and the cold. I heard that it was 1.9 degrees on the 2nd..or was it the 1st.. watever..it dint matter coz we were soaking up the sun when people back home were prolly in layers of sweaters and under quilts with the heaters on... tch tch..:) There was a lot of activity on the beach..if you dont want to laze around (which is something I love to do.. you see, I am the one who makes the word "Lazy" proud! ) then you could try out the water rides on the jet ski scooter or if you are the I-believe-I-can-fly types then there's paragliding for you. After a relaxing hour we decided to head back. On the way we bought some Port wine No 7 and some World famous in Goa - Cashewnuts. I bought a souvinier which was basically a shell placed atop another shell (which helps to make it stand) and has "GOA" carved on it. Its comfortably placed ontop of my music system along with some sand and pebbles and a miniature coconut tree...my very own miniature Goa...why on the music system you ask? Well how could I depict a miniature Goa without shacks playing music? I plan to make a tiny shack made of straw and that would complete my little Goa away from Goa ..:))
After that we went to the same cafe we'd been to the previous evening and had some tea. Then we hailed a taxi and headed back to Ivan's house around 0630. We anticipated traffic and keeping that in mind decided to leave around 7 as it would take us atleast half an hour to reach Mapusa from where the bus would leave. All bags packed, and with the help of our hosts we called for a taxi. Around 7, Jude called and said that the gang was at Mapusa at louise's place and that when I reached there , to call him and they would come and meet us. When the taxi arrived, we bid our farewells and thank you's to the most warm and caring hosts we have ever come across in our lives and left. We anticipated right, there was heavy traffic at Mapusa as all the volvo buses were coming in... we reached at 07:40. Jude, Alison, Sushil, Mukesh and Louise were waiting outside a landmark I provided. Our bus came in a little after 8...I got the luggage loaded, seats identified, mum settled in them and bid my farewell to the gang...promising to keep in touch.
Thursday 3 January
I was finally on my way back to Mumbai...and missing Goa already. This Volvo was much much more comfortable than the one we took into Goa. We reached Andheri around 0700 in the morning. Achcha while we were in goa, so was Rishub and his group of friends, however we couldnt meet up in goa as they had rented a villa on the other end of town in Al dona where Jenny's house is. Funny thing is, when I was in Al dona he would be roaming around in Calangute and Candolim..which is close to Ivan's place in Fort Aguada!!! On new year's eve, when I was at Baga and called him, he had passed by and they dint want to come to Baga as it was so crowded. So anyway, they left Goa at 3 PM on 2nd afternoon (they had hired a car).. when Mum and I were chilling on Calangute beach...and were scheduled to reach around the same time we did. Anyway, we got down at Andheri and took an auto. We dint know the exact location of Ratin's house and tried calling Rishub but he wouldnt pick up the fone (so whats new!!! Hey bubli dont get pissed... its true..okay!! ) We just knew it was near the Lokhandwala market and thats what we told the autowallah. But we got lucky, we made a guess on a turn and landed up in front of Ratin's colony gate!! We spent the next couple of hours relaxing a bit, having lunch then tea, finishing the packing and clicking some pics of Rishub. We hadn't even left for the station yet and we were already missing him! All that done, we left for Mumbai Central around 0400.. our train to delhi was at 05:40 PM..Inspite of leaving early, we got stuck in traffic and made it with about 5 minutes to spare before the train left. This was the time for all the last minute orders from Mum to Rishub and bye bye's .. the train left Mumbai at sharp 05:40. The rest of the journey was uneventful.
Oh! I almost forgot. Let me tell you about this one incident that happened with my Bro, Rishub in Goa. On Saturday,the 29th there was a "Ingo" Market at Baga, which is basically where all the foriegners set up stalls and sell stuff...could be food stalls or souviniers from thier country..anyway Rishub discovered this German couple selling hot dogs made with the most delicious German Bratwurst sausages. He got into line and after a long 30 minute wait, he bought his Hot Dog. He must have just taken a bite or two when there was some commotion and pushing around...well what else can ya expect in a crowded place.. anyway when he looked back all he had in his hand was the bread...the sausages were missing!!! He was furious...Well! Imagine after waiting for 30minutes in the queue and taking one heavenly bite of those sausages, who wouldnt be? Anyway he went to a different stall and ordered a roll (I think..well even he doesnt remember) and walked through the crowd making his way back to the car. He finished his roll in the car. About 20 minutes later, he went looking for the loo. Just before taking care of business, he felt something on his shirt on the side. When he looked down.....The sausage was stuck to his shirt!!!! hahahhahah .. What did he do next? Aint it obvious? It was a sign..the sausage had his name on it.. so he plopped it into his mouth!! hehehe
We arrived in Delhi at 11:10 AM and Dad came to pick us up. We stopped at a South Indian restaurant for some Idli-Dosa and headed home. With that my two week long vacation was over. I went back to work that very evening. But all said and done it was a vacation I would never forget, I may not have done anything out of the ordinary, but in my little world it was so and thats all that matters. This trip and meeting and hanging out with new people has made me realise a lot of things about myself that I knew needed looking into but I kept running away from it. Am not going to get into that, but I will mention the most important lesson I learnt.... I need to chill out more in life!! :-)
~~~ O FIM ~~~.
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