Sea,Sand & Stories

It all started when my friends decided to give me a surprise Bachelorrette in Goa. It sounds such a cliché, but for me it was a novel experience. Why! I’d never been to Goa before in all my existence. So, when the invite came, my instant reply was as they had expected, ”No dude, too much work in office”. Yes! That plain and simple. But somehow, their efforts to convince me and fate interwoven together, finalized that trip.

Finally, it was at the end of November, that I left for Goa. It was getting chillier day by day. Winter was smiling down upon me and I was pulling my denim jacket closer. Since this was the first trip to Goa for me, I had several pictures of the place painted in my mind. I had heard my colleagues and friends talking about their experiences of Goa.

One common picture that got stamped in my mind was that it’s a place for people looking for cheap booze and parties. So, in the morning as I stepped down the bus in Mapusa just when the first rays of sun touched the ground, I was baffled. I had imagined beaches, shacks, old style houses, and people in bare minimum clothes. Ugh! Yes that too. What I had not considered was plain countryside or the hilly terrain of a road or the chill in the wind reminiscent of the last night’s cold.

The journey from the bus stand to the hotel was full of surprises. Narrow winding roads, the roller-coaster of a drive, Lush ocher Rabi crops on both sides of the road and not a single beach visible on either side. I was taking in every single detail without blinking, quietly happy that nobody gave me this description of the beauty that Goa is.

I reached the hotel, but was too excited to settle down. I wanted to go see every nook and corner of north Goa. And so we went, from visiting the old grandeur of the forts to the luscious waves of the Sea, from incandescence of the beach shacks to the glittering bazaar adjoining the beaches, from the chaos of the night clubs to the serenity of sitting on the beach and witnessing the sunset. Being a non-drinker I was always a little apprehensive of visiting Goa though it was in my list of places to be. 

Now when I look back, I feel delighted to have gone there. Post Goa exuberance on me was not easy to miss and was told so by people around me. I think each soul finds its own story in different places. I did not find my story in Goa, I got lost in that fairytale.