Goan Crazy

nearly upon us. At Calangute,the roofs are being refurbished,chairs painted,table cloths aired and signs saying ‘Food is Ready’ being painted. Tourist season is around the corner. This is when the charter flights arrive,and locals take a deep breath to brace for the madness.

The season resembles nothing so much as a chaotic circus,elephants and all. The elephants are called Laxmi and Radha and they walk all the way from a temple in Kerala to Assagao in Goa to pose with tourists. From further away come British,Germans,Italians,Greeks,Japanese and now,plane load after plane load of Russians. Signs sprout in every language offering every kind of service possible—several that are illegal,immoral and downright dangerous. Drive down to Morjim beach and chances are that you will get lost because every sign is in Russian. Goans have their own store of wisdom on how to deal with the various nationalities. Israelis? Be careful. They all come here straight after military training,and are super aggressive. Every season some shacks will be trashed by them,and a couple of them will end up dead in a fight over a woman. British? Give them beer and fish. Never argue if they are bright red in the face. Russians? Drive hard bargains. Cannier than locals about where they can get value for money.

What would a circus be without its share of entertaining acts? Most of these are on display at Ingo’s Saturday Nite Bazaar. This used to be at Arpora but their website mysteriously states that the bazaar is “physically mentally and spiritually online” and will resume at a soon-to-be-disclosed location. This could be explained by the fact that Ingo himself is not on display. He has been deported by the police for “undesirable activities”. In Goa,that could mean anything from paedophilia to drug running. Ingo calls himself the ‘original Baga boy’ and is a left-over from the hippies who moved in during the Seventies. He stuck around,lifted the idea of the Anjuna flea market,added a marketing spin and made a killing. It is at the Saturday Nite ‘Artisans and Artists bazaar’ that the world congregates. The food shows you the nationalities present. From momos to borscht,to sushi — it’s all available.

Under a tree you will find a sadhu with blue eyes and blond dreadlocks. Nirvana unfortunately hasn’t taught Shanti Baba to spell,so his hand-lettered sign offers to “raise your conciss” for a small fee. The ‘eye pupil reader’ offers to do more than that. By shining a torch into your eyes,he claims to read the striations on your pupil and tell you your entire history. “Every single thing that you have ever seen is recorded right here in your eye,” he whispers,as he renders you dizzy with bright lights and bad breath. There is a tarot card reader who reveals your future in a broad Glasgow accent.

For a short while,there was even a “reader of the bumps on your head”,complete with a chart that scientifically identified all the protrusions. You sat and got a head massage while being told that your parents mistreated you when you were little and that you were traumatised by the neighbours’ cat. Our little Indian parrot-and-card fortune-teller pales in comparison to these exotic foreign counterparts.

The hippie spirit persists in the number of soul-searching,‘get-in-touch-with-your inner-self’ activities on offer during the Season. You can do a circle drumming workshop and discover which drummer exactly it is that you march to. You can do a Gurdjieff sacred movement workshop and learn dance and divinity at the same time. You can cleanse your aura with gems,or photograph it with a Kirlian camera . And if you yearn for enlightenment there is a rather bewildering array of yoga that you can tie yourself up in knots with— Hatha Flow,Vinyasa Flow,Scaravelli,Yin yoga,Kundalini ,Drop In yoga (as opposed to drop out yoga I guess),aerobic yoga and eco-yoga. In the same “save-the world- spirit”,you can go for an organic rave that has only organic music—digeridoos and hand-made percussion instruments—where you can imbibe organic hallucinogens and blow your brain cells in an eco-friendly manner.

In the midst of all the madness wanders the low-budget Indian tourist. He is generally looking for cheap booze,topless foreigners and fried fish. Busloads of them drive up from Karnataka on a package that gives them a day in Goa and one bottle of beer for the princely sum of Rs 100. You find them at the Saturday Nite Bazaar,eyes popping,jaws hanging,as they gaze at the exotica around them —even as they are being photographed by Japanese tourists as exotica. Yes indeed—the circus is coming to town. Get a ringside seat.

beachside@expressindia.com

(The writer lives,paints and writes books and films in Goa.)