A few years in the Goan villages have earned a morning ‘hi’ from many households I pass on the way to work. I’ve developed a deep respect for the local lifestyle, with a few years with Rose and Peter, at their Addams Family-esq estate in North Goa. Rose is an enigma, smooth faced and soft spoken. She rules her male dominated empire with a sweet smile and gentle grace…I have known Rose a few years now, and really enjoy being her neighbour/tenant. Peter is her perfect Gomez, he refers to her as the ‘Boss’. I see him every evening, banging a thick bamboo cane along as he walks barefoot across the estate. Once he promised he wouldn’t ‘hurt’ the scorpion we found, and proceeded to break it into four pieces with a few blows of his bamboo stick. He cut short our squeals and wails with a straight-faced ‘dogs are here’, explaining the reason for the cruelty he knew we would accuse him of. I once came home to find a street lamp from our lane being taken apart by him. It had stopped working, so he was investigating it’s insides. He fixed it.
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Rose and Peter run their estate with the help of Laxman and ‘the boys’ – a rag-tag bunch of Kannadiga men, shy and reclusive, they’re always on the estate, fixing, pruning, cutting, picking, fixing…they carefully maintained and repainted a friend’s cycle when I’d abandoned it here one monsoon.
I’ve been a part of the most ridiculous capers while living with Rose and Peter – brought home random animals (of the two legged and four legged kind), climbed their balconies looking for injured birds, sub-let the digs to a fab DJ (yes, we partied till 4 am too) and Rose has walked me into the house since am ” scared of the dark”. I ran to her once with a half-baked cake with a, “Can you fix this?” She left a beautifully baked sponge cake in my veranda. I told her this afternoon that I broke her washing machine again. When the AMC guy left, she came over with all these mangoes and said,, ”make mango shake.”
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The extended family includes Molly, Martha, Choti, Spotty, human puppy Dylan and his mama, Natasha who live just behind the estate, while my home is inhabited by similar strange, reclusive creatures. In both these houses, the humans are outnumbered by the non-humans. Our home has multiple lizards, multi-coloured frogs, an occasional scorpion, and during the day, different kinds of birds, chameleons and the stealing, scheming monkeys. A loud squawk from any part of the house usually means varied species have encountered one another. Thuds across the yard, mean the monkeys have gotten into the orchards again, bouncing off the branches heaving with summer fruit.
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We spend a lot of time lost in our garden. In the grass. On the swings. Staring at prayer flags fluttering in the breeze. Life is as is at our home. There is an ebb, there is flow, action, reaction, high tide, moon rise, sunset, weather change, seasons, nights, sultry Sundays. Our lives sway along in a structured flow. People sleep over, friends pass by. We gather often, under the prayer flags, especially in the evenings, where we begin serious conversations which lapse into giggles with inanities.
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Example: “How do you break up with someone you never really went out with?”
“Like you get back to someone you never really broke up with?!”
We’ve recognized that laughing ourselves into helpless hiccups is a great way to forget that which wasn’t important anyway.
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The world has its ways of helping you move on. My household here often makes me think about the meaning of ‘home’. I’ve started differentiating my references to ‘home’ as ‘home’ (here in Goa) or ‘my parents; home’. When did that happen? I have been here for almost 2 years now. The cat and I have begun to speak out the same words simultaneously. Aloud. It’s shameful. I’m secretly glee-struck. She can be all scratch and hiss but if you strike the right note, she’ll settle to placid purring.
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We’re exploring perennial philosophies, exploring ideas of Inner Being here. We recycle, emulating examples from people around us who make it possible with infrastructure to practice this lifestyle. We have enough inspiration. Here I’ve found folk who are equally comfortable lying in the grass, staring at the stars, or squelching some mud while pretending to be planting.
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The world is in turmoil, earthquakes, volcanoes erupting, lakes frothing over, there’s something sick we’ve unleashed out there…and it’s time to take it all back…to be aware, conscious, and omnipresent. While I don’t believe you or I can change this world single handedly, I do believe a collective conscious is possible, a collective way of thinking exists, we only need to come together, find each other.
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Our Vibe attracts our Tribe, they say.
Radhika is a Travel Tripper, Dog Lover, Hippie Blogger, & Trance Dancer currently engaged in advocacy & awareness for animal welfare & human rights. She believes in body art, the power of karma, pure freedom & the possibility of a happier world. When she’s not playing with puppies on the beach, she can be found at Video Volunteers in Goa. She blogs at http://dogblogsrandomtrips.blogspot.in/
loved this. There is such serenity in the writing and the life.