Found Mine

“At this time, ocean sailing is off because there is a 3-person-minimum requirement, which we don’t have,” the administrator at the office tells me over the phone. “Of course, once you’re there you can always canvas for more people, if you’ll pardon the expression…” There’s nothing like an ill-timed pun when the light of your sweet anticipation has just been rudely put out.

That night, I wait at the pick-up point, poised to turn back and go home at the smallest opportunity. To my slight disappointment, the bus arrives and the coordinator with it. I’m only relieved to see another girl onboard, who seems to be my age and looks fairly amicable. Soon after we set out, we sink into our respective phone conversations and she tells her friend, “Well, at least there’s another girl onboard, who seems to be my age and looks fairly amicable.” Standing forlornly outside a motel in Tumkur while the others eat, it has come to light that I’m a whole decade older than her—so—that ship has sailed, if you’ll pardon the expression.

Dona Paula is the first good thing that happens to us. Of course, the Bournvita Boy has installed the only two girls on the trip in the one room that is not yet ready—so we have to stand on the road for half an hour—and is on the ground floor so everyone on the other side of the street can look into our bathroom. In another masterstroke, he takes us to the Forest Department restaurant in Campal for lunch where, above the decorative bridge over the drainage channel, there is a grey, stuffed apparition hanging by the neck on a clothesline noose—strongly reminiscent of a bloated, rotting corpse—with tribal chalk markings on it, including a pair of snakes advancing on its crotch.

In keeping with everything else so far, the Bournvita Boy schedules for the girl and the kid and me to have our pre-diving pool session last, and while we wait, Ajey’s dad comes round to tell me that it’s off because the pool will close by the time the first batch gets done. So, because the omens of death were not quite strong enough at the restaurant in Campal, the girl and I sit in the sun on our doorstep singing Red Hot Chili Peppers Otherside at the top of our voices. Evening comes and a new fear has gripped me: I’m going to get my period. Now. Forget sailing; forget diving; before I even have my pool session. “Don’t over-think it and stress about it,” the girl wisely tells me, “it’ll only come more.” (From that moment on, of course, it becomes my entire world.) I busy myself looking out for travel agencies—and identify one in Miramar—so I can go home on the first flight out tomorrow and kill myself at my leisure. I am dimly aware of being taken to Baga, where you can’t see the beach for the creeps. The girl and I gratefully find a not-safe-for-swimming spot, flanked by the ridiculous red Coast Guard flags, from where we have a semi-unrestricted view of the sea and the sky. The Bournvita Boy outdoes himself by finding us a restaurant even worse than the last for dinner.

It’s cold in Goa at 7:30 am. We are going to have our pool session at the resort that houses the dive shop. Edina asks the kid how old he is; he says 12. “And you?” “29,” I say. She blushes, and decides not to ask anyone else. (I am used to this, having long since acknowledged that there are two kinds of people: the ones who think I’m a kid and the ones who, after being disabused of that notion, ask my mother why my caçare hasn’t yet taken place.) Edina gives us wetsuits for the cold; pushes her blonde highlights out of her mask; teaches us in her soft voice. Ajey vaults over the 3-foot fence with our release forms. We are already dry by the time we walk out to the Dona Paula jetty with our regulators and buoyancy control devices over our shoulders to get on the boat. I have avoided getting my period, with a little help from my friends (and a lot of help from Farmacia Salcette). As the boat ploughs and rocks out of the Zuari delta into the emerald Arabian Sea, and we are within sight of the Grande Islands, we start to see the dolphins. Deliberately and joyfully they jump out of the water all around us. Sadly, the Bournvita Boy has neglected to tell the seasick lubbers in the group that Avomine takes about a half hour to take effect, so this is also about the time that the hurling starts. (Hurling is always funny when you’re not the one hurling.)

Now we are anchored, bobbing diagonally in the midday sun within swimming distance of the islands, getting ready to dive, strapping the BCDs to the tanks and connecting the regulators. The girl decides not to dive in her wetsuit. “You should put a wetsuit on her,” Ajey quips (meaning me, the little one). “Why didn’t you wanna wear a wetsuit?” He asks as he’s strapping my weight belt on me. “Well, first off, it didn’t fit me; I was swimming in it, if you’ll pardon the expression,” I tell him, just to see him laugh again. Brown eyes, deep like the sea / They roll back when he’s laughing at me. Now he’s laughing at me because the weight belt goes twice round my waist. He makes me spit in my mask and I can’t wash it because I am now seated, immobile, with all the gear strapped to my back and my arms flailing uselessly like a T-Rex. Ajey leans over the side and cheerfully washes it for me. Netrani is still fresh in my mind; the first time I saw Ajey. (Thankfully, it was not the Plain White T’s but Henley that popped into my head on that occasion.)

Off I go, tipping backwards over the side, bobbing on the surface, waiting for Edina, the girl, and the kid to regroup. We lower ourselves down the anchor line. Edina deflates our BCDs and we swim, four abreast, hand in hand, around the bottom. I listen to my rasping breath in the silent, turbid, blue-green world. We see red whips and mushroom coral. We see a scorpionfish camouflaged on the ocean floor. We see a honeycomb moray, most of its length hidden under a rock as always. I am completely turned around under water and when Edina brings us up, close to the anchor line, and inflates our BCDs, I don’t know how we got here. Someone relieves me of my tank and my BCD, someone hands them up to the boat, and someone hauls them aboard. I eventually come out of my trance, take my fins off under water, hand them up, and clamber up the ladder.

I put my green shirt on, and my own mask, and go back in to snorkel. My bliss! I swim out towards the rocks and float almost motionless, propelled by the sea alone. I see the familiar, grey sea cucumbers lolling on the floor; innumerable blue line groupers; red soldierfish; a tiny, flitting, electric blue fish that no one can name; and a sea urchin the size of a basketball, among many. Some hick from the group is attempting to snorkel, thrashing about in circles around the boat as if it were the Corporation Swimming Pool, so it’s no longer safe in the water. I take a break in the boat. Ajey is back from the dive and is attempting to yell snorkeling instructions to the hick in the water, but his voice is lost in the wind and he gives up mid-sentence, our eyes meet, and a resigned smile is exchanged. I go in again when the coast is clear, (if you’ll pardon the expression.) The kid swims out with me to look at the sea urchin.

Back in the boat, everyone is done and we raise anchor and head back. Ajey is in the hull area and, for alliteration’s sake, the boy is bailing bilge water with a blue bucket from the bow. When he’s done, he’s spread-eagled in the hull, getting dry and holding forth to a guy from the group who is palely recovering from being the most violent hurler of the lot. After he’s dry, Ajey comes back to sit next to me on the starboard edge. Holding onto nothing, we sway with the boat. The Bournvita Boy’s regulation bread and jam are proffered. While the hurling is still a tad too fresh in everyone else’s minds to be able to look at food, Ajey and I enthusiastically share the bread slices, folded in half, dipped into the plastic carton of Kissan jam that he holds between us in his left hand (because nobody thought to bring a spoon or a knife on the boat). We haven’t eaten like this since we were in school. We talk about channel markers, the first International Film Festival in Panjim that we both lived through, saltwater crocodiles in the Andamans (that we both lived through, but an American girl last year was not as fortunate), Internet marketing, the Madgãocar Salvage Co., Ulsoor Lake, Moorish Idols versus Indian Ocean Bannerfish, the squash courts at the Marriot versus those at the Navy installation….. On dry land, “back to the room where we began” that functions as dive shop and classroom, we crowd around Edina to look for fish we saw on the Hungarian language chart on the wall. The regs and BCDs are being washed and sorted for the family that’s studying PADI level 1, who are going to use them next. I promise Ajey I’ll be back for PADI level 1 in October, and I mean it.

The girl and I make a plan to “put escape” from the Bournvita Boy’s prohibitionary Goa T-shirt sightseeing tour and get drunk. We identify Menino’s on the harbor-front and sit on the first floor balcony looking at the tourists acting stupid in the square. They don’t have Kings beer at Menino’s so we hop next door to Sea Pebble and sit in the back terrace that gives right on to the water, with all the lights of the ships across the bay. We talk about the decline of rock, camping in Mudhumalai, New Year’s Eve costume parties, swimming routines, the Leela Barista versus Café Matteo, our grandfathers’ dogs, piezoelectrics, our tattoos (hers Beatles-inspired, mine ocean-inspired), guitar tabs….. Despite the decade that separates us, the girl is my musical alter-ego. She says she learned from her grandfather. The live duo with a guitar and a synth that are playing in the restaurant are our musical mind-readers. We talk of the Beatles; they play the Beatles. We talk of the Eagles; they play the Eagles. We talk, if derogatorily, of Bryan Adams; they read us wrong and actually play Bryan Adams. We talk of Denver; they play Denver. We talk of Clapton; they play Clapton. The Bournvita Boy is frantically trying to call us. His first trip out and he’s lost the girls. They play Stand By Me and the girl tells me it is the exact same chord progression as the later (and much inferior) Sean Kingston Beautiful Girls. So we sing Beautiful Girls over the chords of Stand By Me.

At 6:00 am I am still in bed. The girl hugs me and takes my number and leaves for the airport to be home in time for the first day of college. I give the Bournvita Boy’s morning sightseeing tour a miss (of thronged historical monuments that I lived next door to for years) and have a perfect Goan morning instead. I hear the most familiar bicycle bulb horn on some street nearby and run outside with Rs. 5 to buy polli from the guy with a big cloth-covered basket on the back of his bike. I sit on the doorstep listening to Chris Rea, eating the tough, floury, whole-grain bread, washing it down with Frooti as the sun climbs higher in the sky. A boy in skinny jeans with a faux-hawk and disturbing piercings flings O Heraldo into the guesthouse lobby with expert precision. There are Brahmini kites here; they are more common than Common kites. There are multitudes of sparrows. There are jeweled sunbirds flitting through the trees on the other side of the street. I have a fleeting glimpse of a bulbul. I hear Coppersmith and Green barbets in all the trees, but never see them. The Bournvita Boy calls from Reis Magos or the Aguada Fort or wherever he is and informs me that I have now been entrusted with the entire responsibility of coordinating the sailing trip. He sends me Ajey’s dad’s number, I save it as I receive it—Arun—and then dial. A man answers and I recite the entire litany and it’s my Arun maam and he’s all at sea, if you’ll pardon the expression. I overwrite the number rightly as “Ajey’s Dad” to avoid all confusion and try again. Ajey’s dad gives me the lowdown.

When the group comes back, the Bournvita Boy officiously directs me to instruct the ones going sailing, so I tell them what Ajey’s dad told me, warming to my theme as they hang on to my words quite seriously. The Bournvita Boy accompanies us to the jetty with lifejackets for the other two; (not for me because of his trust in my newly elevated status as co-coordinator). I sit on the road, leaning on Ajey’s Indigo Marina in the first slot of the harbor-front parking lot, waiting for Arun. A lovely old man who’s Ajey’s dad’s old navy friend, with red sneakers and a soft Marathi accent, who refers to all seagoing vessels as “she,” is coming with us, too. We take turns motoring out to the sailboat in a non-descript green three-seater. I go first with Ajey’s dad. Of my many hats that we discuss, I’m wearing my JunglEscapes one today. We hop on to the sailboat; it seats six. It is beautiful; white, with a 20-foot high mast. We use the sails and the wind right from the off. We never touch the backup engine; I never even see it. We are eating up the nautical miles, bowling along over the swell in the afternoon sun. Ajey’s dad teaches me to operate the foresail. Pull the ropes taut so it doesn’t flap, but not too tight that you don’t get the thrust of the wind. You feel it in your hands. He teaches me to secure the lines in a jam cleat. I teach myself to tie a cleat hitch. He teaches me to operate the tiller and he gives me a home-made masala paratha. When we are within sight of the beach that we are supposed to swim out to, we tack! All duck as the boom swings across the deck; I scramble to bring the foresail round.

It is all in vain, of course, because the techie hicks who are with us decree that there is no time to swim to the beach for our little picnic and we have to turn back. Well, at least we get to tack again! Ajey’s dad’s friend tells us of the coral tracking project in Lakshadweep and of the loading miscalculation that sank a ship in Marmugão. We are on a steady course back to Dona Paula. Ajey’s dad sends me to go perch right on the very nose of the boat, with nothing but a few inches of hull between me and the sea. “Rest your head on these and lie down and listen to the water,” he passes me both the lifejackets. I lie back with my feet skimming the water, looking up at the gulls and occasional airplanes and one fishing eagle. Ajey’s dad comes to lie down on the lifejackets, too, feet astern. He tells me that when Ajey was in the 10th grade (or was it 8th? fathers never remember what grade their kids are in) he sailed in this very boat, with one other person, from Goa to Bombay. “Hugging the coast, of course,” he says, “They slept just like this at night.” And there was no engine backup then. “Weren’t you worried?” I ask, “About Ajey?” I mentally see him shrug. That’s just how he grew up, he tells me. I wonder if it’s too early or too late to ask this man to adopt me.

We are within 100 meters of the jetty now, and it’s time to switch boats. Ajey’s dad knows I was cheated out of my swim to the beach so he offloads me here and carries my bag and Crocs to the other boat and lets me swim Dona Paula harbor. They overtake me close to the shore and he makes me put my Crocs back on because there are barnacles in the shallows by the jetty. Once out, he gives me a towel and I so don’t want to ever take my leave of him, but I have to as he turns in to the dive shop and I make my dripping way on to the guest house.

Nothing in the world enjoys the 100% rate of success in making me cry like the road out of Goa. It doesn’t fail this time either. I will dream of Dona Paula for days, and half-wake up in the early morning thinking I’m still there. For now, I’m woken up periodically with less pleasant thoughts by the telescopic hoola-hoop (that the kid’s mom wisely purchased in Calangute) falling on my head where I’m curled up in the rear seat with everyone’s baggage. I will carry this secret baggage around for a long time. It whispers to me when I stare at the MEG boats on Ulsoor Lake. It passes silently between us when I teach SCUBA symbols to 5-month-old Aria. (I think she gets them: “Okay,” “not okay,” “don’t do that,” “kick.”) It speaks to me in the car through a song on the radio like Bumblebee; through the Dire Straits, through Don Henley, through Rod Stewart, through the Goo Goo Dolls, through Train, through The Killers, even through Sam Sparro when my guard is down: If you’re not really here, I don’t want to be either / I want to be next to you; black and gold, black and gold, black and gold.