when it rains.... it pours!!

ok this is a raving rant....so its here that you turn back... else, subject yourself to some domestic ranting.....

i am yet again without a maid...albeit temporarily..... she's had a tragedy in the family and has taken off to the village.... so for the last 5 days, starting monday, i have been without a maid.... with the festivities of diwali, most households have extra work/ people staying over etc, which has meant that the replacement maid (the stepnee who fills in when mine's on leave) has too much on her own plate to help me out even on humanitarian terms..... 

well this isnt the biggest of the messes that have happened.... wait...i will tell you about an avalanche..... 

i hate doing housework..... vessel washing... sweeping and mopping.... i will do it only if there's a gun to my head.... in a household of two adults, its surprising how many dishes we dirty (note to self: cut down on the utensils used in the kitchen you nut!!) .... we eat three home cooked meals a day... atleast mostly... which amounts to a lot of plates, glasses, dishes, serving bowls, cooking vessels, pressure cookers, spoons... oh well... i think you figured that's a lot of dirty dishes.... so every morning now, while i wait for the milk to boil, i am scrubbing dishes..... dont ask me why i dont do it before bedtime... i have a thing about sleeping with smelly hands.... no even if i wash them.... i "think" they're smelling and thats insomnia inducing....

clothes, thank the Lord i have a washing machine.... if there is one thing i hate more than washing dishes, it is washing clothes.... normally the maid does the folding too.... but that i can manage.... yeah i know i pretty much have delegated ALL the work to her.... but hey!! i still cook....

home doesnt show too much of distress when not swept and mopped....so i can live 2-3 days without dusting, sweeping and mopping.....but today is day 5....so i dusted, and swept and mopped.... my wrists are feeling terrible....so are my knees and thighs....and i was out of breath a few times.....but that's because i am so overweight and have zero fitness.... so i will not whine about it....

here comes the bummer!! i ran out of cooking gas this morning....  dont have a spare cylinder..... AND my microoven conked off a week ago and has gone for repair.....which means in the middle of a delicate saute of onions and tomatoes.... my gas just flickered shut....so now.... that's truly the icing on the cake.... i've called the gas company who've said atleast a week.... and i am not familiar enough with the neighbours to borrow a cylinder.... the service centre said it will be a day before i get back the microoven....so i guess till then i will be ordering food!! or better still it could be the perfect time to go on a fruit diet!! but that's the whole point.... i hate to do something when it isnt my idea.... so a fruit diet because i cant have cooked food isnt such a hot thing right now.....

i'm just hoping i get something in working condition....else poor K will be at the receiving end of this!! 

this makes me feel like i am not in control....that i havent planned enough to have backup.... or simply because i cant have chai when i want.....!! aargghh

see this was really pointless....you still here!! gosh!! now go.... i am signing off too

Season's Greetings

Diwali is officially over…. I am not sure how I feel about it yet…. I didn’t feel like it was diwali while it was here cos essentially K requested for a “no celebrations please” I don’t know why… but I agreed…. So we didn’t light lamps (like I had planned), or have a party (like I had hoped), we just had some good food (isnt that the whole point of festivals anyways?) and watched three awesome movies back to back….cut ourselves away from everyone and everything, for a brief while we watched the fireworks across the cityscape…..but other than that, I think we had the quietest diwali ever…..

I was just interrupted by this weird call….from Airtel broadband, peddling some games on demand…. When I politely said I was not interested…the polite guy asked if he could ask me a question…. I answered yes….he asked me if I was married…to which I said yes….then he asks if I have kids….i say no….then he pauses…. And says….oh…. not yet….. oh ok maa’m…..  if he wasn’t so polite…I’d have bitten his head off…. But I still think this was a weird question to be asked by the provider of an internet service…. I’d rather they check some other way if there are kids in the household!! Weird!!

The global financial situation, i was told by the newspapers, has had its impact on the festivities this year.....from the sounds of crackers, i think it was a lot less than last year....but the newspapers had pages and pages of supplements offering huge discounts on everything from clothes to groceries to furniture and appliances.... i have been abstaining from buying anything since my resolution  to refuse, reduce, recycle and reuse....... anything except groceries that is.... so its been a little over a year now.... and i havent bought anything!! no matter what the temptation...clothes, shoes, home decor stuff, crockery..... nothing.... and i am pretty proud of that!!

Anyways, back to diwali…. apart from the fact that i made chocolates on order in the run up to the festival, we didnt do much.....I donated the rangoli colours I had to some women from our building who didn’t have any and were making a giant community rangoli…. I ended up doing it with them…and it was quite different from my usual just saying hello and walking off!! I think they were more surprised than I was that I stayed and partook of this community thingie!! I also donated a huge box of crackers that I was hoping we’d burst….. they were leftovers from last year…man!! We got soooo many last year…. I gave away the whole box, to my building’s handyman’s kids….i was not very happy that K made me do this….but was glad in the end…..

So that was diwali….pretty nondescript….. but on the brighter side…. I feel very rested…

I hope everyone had a good time…those who planned large scale bashes and those who like us wanted low key ones…. and those who don’t celebrate…. I hope you enjoyed the holidays….

Happy birthday dear one....

i can still hear your voice.... i swear....the shrill "hello" that announced you into a room....i expect you to turn around a corner or rush in from outside, unable to contain yourself or the stories that were almost bursting out of you.....full of tales from the day, about people and places.....even though we'd seen each other a few hours ago, you'd behave like you hadnt seen us for ages.....

from the first time you made an appearance.... to now..... you made sure you left your mark....

you'd never tire of the stories of "when you were small"..... how you pooped chocolate coloured poop when you were carried for the first time....and you were the first official baby to pee on my lap...i was so disgusted....everything you learnt to say...from lala (water) to cala cala annam (lemon rice) was like playing dumb charades.....i still remember how irritated we'd get to take a 'kid' around when we went out....because you were a pain in the behind...and wanted to go to the bathroom at all the wrong times.....how you'd be upset because people were calling you the name of a facecream instead of the shortedned version of your own.....we hated our parents for forcing us to take you around....the three of us, we ganged up....to fight you and to love you....

you were pampered and spoilt...there's no doubt of that.... all you had to do was crook your little finger and all the adults of the house would do your bidding.....

from the kid who followed us around all day, suddenly, you were all grown up.... i remember seeing you with your hair all styled, you'd even begun going to the parlour for your monthly grooming.... too bad we were never the same size....i'dbe left with no clothes on my back....you were delighted when you grew taller.... and i was so upset for so long!! borrowed nailpolish, make up, books.... did i tell you i got hooked onto FRIENDS after you told me it was good....all the while you watched it, i thought it was crazy teen hormones.....

making christmas decorations, having a not so subtle "whose is better"wars, carol singing... and a near obsession for late night ice cream....riding triples to famous on the kinetic honda.....agonising over what clothes to wear for the next wedding....writing long letters to me when i was in hostel...the trip to vizag where you for the first time had an unsupervised by parents holiday with me.....

you were ready for college....you were ready to spread your wings...and by the look of it you were leaving your indelible mark there too.... the never ending stream of friends, the movies, plans and fun.... with the steady stream of girl friends who wanted to be like you, and the young men admirers who wanted to be with you....vyeing for your attention....and yet there you were...holding court....lording it over them....i always called you stubborn...but we knew you knew your mind clearly enough to get what you wanted and nothing else.........somewhere it was a reflection of my own life....just a few years earlier.....

and then it was over....you sure knew how to jump onto the scene, take our breath away, and then disappear.....we ganged up again...this time holding hands to bid you goodbye....becuase we couldnt even stand up straight on our own.....willing somehow for the whole thing to change, for the clock to turn back, and for you to wake up..... over and over again i looked at you, convinced that i had seen you move.....it was unbelievable.....

each day we wonder, what it would be like with you....what would you have to say.... how would you react....for sure you'd have enjoyed the sights and sounds of this new india, the malls would be your mecca followed closely by all the eating options around....you'd have been most delighted that i now make chocolate for a living.... but you, my most ardent fan and critic arent there to sample it.....to make christmas cards with me....to sit in a corner and say unsavoury things about our relatives....to make movie plans....to go shopping with me....to tell me if you approved of K or not...to see us set up our homes.....to do..."stuff" as you called it

we too looked so forward to seeing you blossom into a woman....to make the choices you wanted.....to be someone....to go somewhere.....to do all the things that you were accomplished to do....

and yet you arent here....not around....what is here instead, is the huge hole you left....in our hearts and lives....so bad, that we cant even bear to talk about it....five long years you have been gone..... yet, its like just yesterday.... and i think you will come around the corner....yelling shrilly "hello"

happy birthday sweetheart..... it would have been your 25th.........as always, you took the fireworks with you.....

RIP dear N

incognito

in a bid to be a little more prudent about the information that's out here in the open, i have decided to remove a few details and pictures from here.... i know with a blog address like this which is a dead giveaway, this is the least i can do..... so for those of you who know me otherwise, please know that it is still the same ole me....

its not that i want to create some mystery quotient all of a sudden, but i need to do this to protect my family..... since they make an appearance far too often here....that much i owe them.... if i am making stories of their lives, the least i can do is this.....

i have been reading a lot of blogs these last few days and i realised that in this space of cyber world, each one of us, has found our bearings....fought battles of the mind, found solace and most of all camaraderie and affection that fellow bloggers seem so generous to share.... something that is becoming lesser and lesser in this cynical world we live in....

going potty!!

my days are not filled with work of the office type.......despite the fact that i can choose to do what i want during the course of the day, there are times when i want to do nothing....

so i spent it doing what i love best, powered by the fact that i had been privy to a fabulous roof garden over the last weekend....i spent some time with my potted plants.... pruning, digging and loosening the earth..... each time i do this....the first thing that strikes me is guilt because i have to prune and then throw away the cuttings....i just have no more place to accomodate them anymore... and then i always wonder why i dont manage to remember to wear the pink latex gardening gloves i own.... they're as good as new.... but it doesnt feel the same to be playing in dirt and doing your bit when you're gloved up.... i anyways think of it only when i wash my hands and see the scratches on my fingernails....

i grew up in a house that was on a huge piece of land... in the middle of the city...and we had enough trees...yes trees and not plants.... to have koels and other birds waking us up with cacophony each day.... i would trade places anyday now...thou at that time, i thought it was embarrassing to speak over the phone when birds were having a row in the tree tops...to be asked by freinds on the other side of the phone line, what that noise was....now ask me....trying to shuffle about 80 odd pots of different sizes on my two balcnies....they're spilling out into the corridor and on the parapet wall of the service area too....

brings me to how i started off.... i started with 6 yogurt cups...the ones that hold 200 ml of yogurt.... and soil so hard that it killed off most of the plants!! on one trip, amma filled a plastic bag with some soil from the side of a dug up road...and brought it home...and then we filled the six empty yogurt cups with it and put in some plant cuttings....i was too embarassed to even look at them for days....they looked so silly.... so i went out and bought some plastic pots..... about 12 of the smallest.... no larger than a latte cup..... they looked better than the yogurt cups!! then some more and some more....till i now have about 70... in different sizes.... everytime i go somewhere, its hard not to come back with some plant life.... a bulb, a cutting, some seeds..... hell i even have asked friends to send me seeds.... of exotic herbs they grew....and tantalised me with the pictures....back from a holiday in the hills, i was so excited to come home only to repot and plant my booty of orchids and pepper and a kind of lemon so small but so sour!! they lived for a brief while.... frequent travel (mine and k's) killed them one by one.... 

then another trip, where i paid more for the porter to carry the carton than i did to the nursery i bought the plants from.... roses and crysanthemums and some other lovelies that promised to add colour to my collection....they all died too.... when i went on a holiday and a friend forgot to water them...i dont think she recovered from the guilt for weeks!!

after which i decided on much foliage and no fancy...stuff that would be ok with 3-4 days between watering if the need arose...and this works so well for me!! this is where i am now.... lots of green and colour .... but no more... i mean any more additions will mean i will be seriously jeopardising the state of my marriage!! and i might need another house.... i am waiting for the carpenter to arrive to put up the hanging pots i managed to smuggle into the house without k noticing!! 

i have them in old pickle bharanis, tooth brush holders, broken cups, bottles and some even growing in water.... 

i now have progressed to a few herbs for the kitchen....chillies, curry leaves....and now finally some cherry tomatoes and yellow peppers......and loads of basil sent to me by a blogger friend....

its a place i love to hang out .... its what makes me so happy.....its has always seen my bad moods lift into something better.... its funny, how something like this can make such a big difference....but it does...and its inexplicable (if you havent gotten it by now, that is...)

sure i would like a real garden someday....but for now...this will do....potted and planted and hanging around the house....

K's Labour of Love

So so here it is.........after weeks of cribbing and spilling my gut onto my status messages..... K's Library!! finally done and i hope well worth the pain and money!!

K has wanted a library of his own for as long as i can remember...it is one of those long cherished wishes.....for the last four years now we have gone back and forth between making one, or buying readymade bookshelves.....he saw something that he liked in a bookstore in pondycherry and asked me to replicate it at home.....i would like to think we accomplished it quite well.

the library which began as the simple building of a book case on one open wall in our third bedroom, soon engulfed the whole room, making us tear down the existing wardrobes (sniff....sniff) and going the whole hog..... if you didnt hear about it from me, you were'nt a part of my life as it happened!!

the Library has been built against both walls on either side of the room.  

on the left of the room, a work station sits between two more panels of books. the workstation houses the laptops (hence we have two tiers) and it needs those rectangular wicker baskets on the top shelf to hold the board games, stationery etc....i sacrificed my precious embroidered table cloth to provide cover for the soft board (the white with delicate coffee coloured vines on it). this will be yours truly's home office. it needs a chair as well, that will have to wait for the state of the pockets to get better.

On the right of the room, is another book case with the glass display shelves, that we had to put in because of the pillar that was there....

everything has been polished in walnut. there is our ancient Rattan sofa (tho i prefer to call it the couch), an ancient armchair, a bean bag, one coir stool and one small table....ample seating for those who might want to spend some time inside. we contemplated putting a TV for good measure, but reality in the form of our empty pockets made us exercise restraint.

feedback is very welcome.....although i would really like it if it was limited to praise.....and anyone who has alternative ideas about the seating/furniture or the lack of it/ blinds instead of the curtains etc, are welcome to (a)write me a cheque (b) take me shopping (C) both of the two.....

Congratulations my love....and i hope this was all that you wanted and more!!

done and dusted

finally finally after all the cribbing and sulking and even more cyber ranting....the library...k's preccciouussss is done!! 

Gawd!! i never thought these past weeks that i would be able to say it!! "it's done!!" it took a while and a lot of money...but we've finally finished it.....

i know that i have never been happier to see something end!! its great to have the house back to myself....with no one knocking the door at 9 a.m sharp to stay on till 9 p.m most days.....i dont even have to make litres and litres of tea...twice daily!! plus there's no trail of dust and dirty feet and ....well...you got it right.....

last weekend was spent getting things in order....putting back stuff and generally clearing out the aftermath of the mess..... k ignored me for a whole day while he obscenely & lovingly took all his books to their new home......he refused food and water till he was done!!

We cleaned and washed and swept and lifted and arranged all the other worldly possessions till i was made very aware of long forgotten parts of my body and the rusted but very tired muscles all but gave up!! for the first time in about two months, we completely vegetated on sunday and oscillated between sleep and watching TV....it was so awesome to do that!!

Goan Diary - V

We drove to fort Aguada.....the drive was fabulous....all the greenery coupled with the winding roads, one side of which is the mandovi river and on the other side are houses, mountains or fields depending on how far away from civilization you are.....

Fort Aguada was spectacular...but i could really do with better behaved tourists....most often our own....what is it with them?? why do they have to lech and catcall and generally make such fools of themselves.....if they think road romeo like behaviour will get them the attention of women....they really have their heads screwed onto the wrong end of their bodies....

the views from the fort, the ramparts that lead to the sea, the drop to the ocean, the small island in the background and the sight of smalll steam boats chugging along....i could have spent my whole afternoon there....but it was so punctuated by noisy rowdy crowds...but then i already mentioned them!!

we drove out to panjim so we could book a river cruise, only to be told at the counters of three different cruise operators that there were no “dolphin cruises” which started “only in season” (meaning tourist season)……… I wished I had my blogger friend A’s number so I could call her and possibly visit her….i had managed to lock my bedroom with the keys to the room and my phone inside at home before heading out the airport……and the last thing my family would allow me to do was get online to find her number…..

we lunched at Hotel Mandovi at the Restaurant called Riorico …. It was a weird thing to sit in a place decorated with a Mexican theme, there were large sized boleros and cactus all over the place and order goan food!! we went there 30 minutes closer to their closing time…..they hastened us into ordering….. forgot a few of the things we ordered…..and the guy who took our order was by then off duty….. whatever food they managed to serve us was good, but I am surely not going back to a place that seems not to care much about my satisfaction….

We got back late afternoon and rested for a while before finally walked in the sand – on the baga beach…. Rachel got to play in the “matti” sand or soil in telugu….and I built castles (well they looked that way to me anyway) after many many years….took an obscene number of photographs because I just discovered the multiple capture option that my brother’s hitech camera had including tones of pictures of beach dogs (you cant call them street dogs since they’re not on the street but on the beach…. We spent a lovely evening watching the waves, which were very rough, the people, some of who braved the tide, i though they were just being falsely brave....and politely refusing the wares of several women who came around speaking impeccable english...offering shells, necklaces, hair braiding and sarongs.....

later that evening, while we still were soaking up  the sunset on the beach, we were told that two youths got sucked in with the tide, one got rescued and one paid for his bravado with his life....it shook me up..... 

dinner at Souza Lobo's was spot on..... but my mind was elsewhere.....what if it was me.....or someone i knew.....why couldnt those silly boys see that the sea was too rough to pick a challenge with....

Goan Diary – IV Happy Birthday Amma

23^rd Sept – amma’s walked this earth for 70 years!! and what a life it has been…..Happy Birthday Dear Mommy…..

I slept fitfully……disturbed by K’s body burning with fever lying next to me….and the occasional grunts…..we woke up and ordered coffee…..a few hours later, had breakfast with everyone else by the pool…..but it was evident that we wouldn’t be up to the trip to the Church of St. Francis…..i didn’t want to leave him alone at the hotel and he was in no state to come along….it would have just made him worse…..so we stayed put at the hotel while the rest of them went to the church…..had lunch and returned in the late afternoon…..K and I watched Apne….triple dozed on the deols, with beer for me and hot sweet corn soup for K!!

In the evening, I got over my self-consciousness to splash around in the pool…..i did spend a few hours wishing the ones who were in the pool and lounging around it would buzz off….when they didn’t, I just mustered up my courage and jumped in…..i always tell myself, they’ll possibly never see me again…..and mostly aren’t as obsessed with my cellulite as I am…..sometimes it works, some times I have to work at it!! this day sort of established a pattern with me…..drink, eat, exhaust yourself in the pool till you feel you can drink and eat without too much guilt to ruin the food experience…..my brother would want to add here that there wasn’t much of a food experience in my case anyways, but I would prefer not to give him that privilege…

We got dressed for dinner at eight, and headed straight to souza lobo’s …… this time there was a young duo of musicians….singing country numbers…..some completely off key, but they were so earnest that we clapped enough for them to whisper “thank you….thank you ladies and gentlemen” at the end of each one….. Souza Lobo’s was also good enough to arrange for a cake for us….. so we ate and drank, talked and laughed and spent a wonderful evening…..i took a minute to thank God for my mother’s life….all that she is…..and we watched her cut her birthday cake with her granddaughter…..sang happy birthday for her at our table because the band forgot our request and was singing a number from roxette instead…..they couldn’t stop midway to sing happy birthday with us….but we had another go immediately afterwards, with the whole restaurant joining in (they each had a slice of cake for their effort)…..i think my mom was a little sheepish when she stood up to acknowledge their wishes……. I would like to think it was one of the better birthdays she has had……. Am sure she is nodding in agreement

Goan Diary – III “I waa waaa”

Being told “sorry you are indian” notwithstanding, on day one, post a lazy lunch, we made another trek….to find a shop that sold baby floats….because Rachel was driving us crazy…..this pint sized 20 month old, held us for ransom with her tears and wails of “I waa waaa” which means “I want water”….she doesn’t say complete words yet…..but the intentions were clear…..she dragged anyone of us that she could to the side of the huge pool in the hotel courtyard around which were our little cottages…..asking almost soulfully to be taken into the water….. half an hour of baby assault and we gave in…..finding swimwear and swimming gear in goa is very easy……that I am thankful for…… two piece bikinis, one piece swimsuits….and ghastly little frocks with an attachment that looks like cycling shorts hang from every shop that lined the streets of baga….thankfully I bought mine before getting there….and it was one piece (to cover my modesty) and black (I believe in the slimming power of black)…… no it doesn’t camouflage cellulite!! 

Baby Rachel in her purple dino swimsuit, with sun block that could double for whitewash dove into the water astride her little red float …. It was a contraption that allowed her to sort of sit in it…..like a rubber chair with a float around it…..the next few hours was a family video scene……rachel and my brother in the water, with her paddling away like a little duck, my mother delighted…..my SIL happy but nervous that she might topple over…..me wanting to join in the fun and urging the sun to go down sooner so I don’t look like burnt toast….and K slowly but surely getting a burning fever……the sun did go down, I did get into the water and splash around….and Rachel did topple over….twice!! but we pulled her out just as quickly too!! (thank god!! Cos all our hearts skipped many beats!!)

Exhausted, we napped till it was dinner time…..the most awaited time of each day….. Souza Lobo it was….the chosen destination that we dined at three out of four nights…..a testament to the food and service…..while my carnivorous family were almost delirious and couldn’t decide what to order for a long time, the amused waiter blinked at me a couple of times, trying to figure out if I was indeed asking him “what can you recommend from the vegetarian dishes?” but with all due respect, I never once felt I’d landed up at the wrong place…. Each item I ordered at each of the meals we had at Souza Lobo’s always turning out excellent….and not once did I have to resort to paneer butter masala and rotis!!

can you see the figure in the picture below....that's a ghost...pass this on to 11 people else badluck will come knocking!!

the guy on the extreme left is the gentleman with the fabulous tenor

There was live music by a trio, with an elderly gentleman with a fabulous tenor singing all the familiar goan songs…… the only thing that was a spoke in this wonderful experience, was my anxiety over K’s full blown fever.

Goan Diary – II – “I am sorry….. You are Indian”

The arch that welcomed us to goa, was a mirage…… we still drove around….round and round….. for more than 3 hours before we managed to find our hotel……I was falling asleep, sandwiched on the back seat of the car, between amma and C my SIL, who had her 20 month old daughter fast asleep in her arms….i didn’t envy her….my SIL, cos I knew her arms were aching from holding the baby for hours like that…..the price one pays for motherhood….i envied Rachel….who really didn’t know that we had been driving around in circles for the last few hours……literally wishing I too could crawl back into my mother’s lap and sleep like a baby…..

When we reached our hotel, I was too sleepy to notice anything but a freshly made queen sized bed….i promptly jumped in after washing up….careful to use tepid water so as to not wake myself up!!

We spent almost the entire next day till late afternoon indoors…..trying to recover from the long drive and prepare the body for the holiday ahead….a friend of mine and seasoned traveler advised me, never to go for the kill on the day you reach your destination….always rest the body well enough to be able to withstand the onslaught of the rest of the holiday!! It is actually the best holiday advise I have ever got!!

Walking down the road in search of cigarettes for K that afternoon after lunch, we were literally accosted, not once, but five times by youths on two wheelers bearing invitations to a party starting at 10.30 that night to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of a resort….. we accepted the invite from the first guy who prompted us to open the invitation to check what “prize” we’d won ourselves….. it was a boat cruise….we thanked him and said we’d come by….. guy # 2, offered us the same invite, we mentioned we’d already received one and he drove on after bidding us a good day….. guy # 3 rides past, turns around, comes back and invites us to the same party…..when we told him we already had an invitation….he told us to try our luck a second time….. because there were an assortment of prizes and there was no limit on how many you could claim…..tired by this time….. and beginning to be crabby at my hand holding and walking down the lane experience with K was being interrupted again, we accepted the invitation, while I was trying to open it, guy # 3 quizzes K about where he is from, where he is staying, how old are you, etc…..he then asks us if we were NRI’s to which K answered in the negative…..guy # 3 promptly then takes back the half opened invitation from us saying you have to either be an NRI or over 35 to qualify for the party…..apologising that we didn’t make the cut, he rides on….. K smiles…..we walk some more….having bought the cigarettes, with K telling me, that it was a polite way of telling us that the party was only open to foreigners…..preferably the whites….and that this is nothing new…..the last time he was here with his friends, they were denied entry onto certain beaches that were hosting rave parties, with free flowing drugs, because they were indian……then comes guy #4, we give him an update, tell him we have an invite, won a free boat cruise, and didn’t make the cut since we were neither NRI’s nor over 35….. he says that it was wrong on his colleagues part to say this to us…since there is no such rule….and that he would be happy to take us to the resort, and will immediately arrange for a free taxi ride…..we thank him and tell him that we have other plans for the rest of the day, but if we did have the time, we’d surely drop in at the venue after 10.30….. he sheepishly tries to point out that we need to contact him to be able to enter…..and that if we didn’t go with him, we’d not gain entry…..K says we’ll manage to0 find him somehow if we did go….. he then says, if you want to come, you can come now…..in the evening the entry is only for foreigners…..adding as an afterthought………and NRI’s….we say no problem….wish him good luck and continue our stroll…..guy #5 appears in record time….we just say we have an invite thank you…..and walk on……

Goa’s economy subsists on its status as a tourist destination…. But before you think sunny beaches and sand, the reality of the underbelly strikes you……famed coastline notwithstanding, goa is definitely the easiest place for seedier things in india….the whole place waits for the tourist season that begins in October and lasts upto February…… walking down Tito’s lane in baga beach at this time of the year, you will see all the houses that let out rooms to tourists getting a facelift….the shacks that line the stretch of sand from calangute to baga still weren’t set up when we were here…..but they will in just a few weeks…..and then the foreign tourist contingent will arrive….to bring cheer to the economy…..

 while I love goa, have looked forward to this trip, telling K that we should make it a must visit once a year atleast, I found the whole thing annoying…….i wasn’t upset that I didn’t qualify for some vague party at a resort…..i was annoyed that there were certain parts of my own country where I wasn’t welcome……it isnt the first time I have encountered this…..the smiles broaden and behavior gets crisper and more willing to please when the shade of skin lightens….this is the same across this country….. from Leh to Varkala and across the east to West Coast……I’ve seen it in corporate offices, airports and pubs and restaurants…..and it irritates me….that my fellowmen/women want to please me any less than anyone else….especially when I pay the same, for the same service….. I am not prejudiced about colour. Race or nationality…..but to be told I am not good enough to go someplace in my own country because I am indian is possibly the most exasperating experience I’ve ever had……it continues to make me think about how much we love subservience and love to run and fetch…

I digressed…. But this was a fact I couldn’t ignore…..