In the memoirs of Sir Richard Burton -- the traveller, not the actor -- there is this interesting story. Of how he was exploring darkest Africa. Of how he spent a couple of days in one village and then decided it was time to move on. So he approaches the village headman and asks him to deputise a few young men to help him cart his equipment to the next village. The headman lines up a dozen strapping young lads, and the procession soon sets out. As Burton tells it, the young men set an amazing pace -- so hard that even the seasoned traveller has a problem keeping up. Each morning, when Burton wakes and pokes his head out of his tent, he sees the rest of the camp stripped, packed, and poised to march. And so it goes on, for three days on the run. On day four, Burton wakes as usual and walks out of his tent -- and finds chaos everywhere. The other tents are still up, the men are sprawled all over the place, no one shows any sign of wanting to get a move on. So he summons the lead porter and goes what the hell. "Oh, my men are still waiting for their souls to catch up with their bodies," comes the response. When I first read this bit, it was just one of those nice lines that you think over for a second and then move on. By the time the World Cup got over, I was like, if I had met that eloquent head porter I would have held out my hand and gone, "Put it there, brother, I know just what you mean!" For getting soul and body reunited, there can be few better places than Goa in the rains. The place I checked in to -- Holiday Inn's beach resort, an hour's drive away from Dabolim airport -- has a rated capacity of around 300 people. During the four days I was there, the maximum occupancy was 15. Picture that -- sprawling place, with its own private beach and pool and fully-equipped health club and bar and casino and three different restaurants, and just 15 of us to cater to. Luxury plus, that qualifies as. The drive to the resort threw me a bit, though. Watching the countryside roll past the window of the coach, I had this weird feeling that when it turned the next corner, I would see the the familiar peepul tree and beyond that, the familiar contours of my ancestral home in Calicut. The two -- Goa and Kerala -- are as alike as dammit. Same mix of hills and beaches in close juxtaposition. Same vistas of paddy fields and swaying coconut palms. Same kind of roads, that look just wide enough for a single minibus to squeak through and on which, miraculously, overloaded lorries and overcrowded buses do a passable imitation of the Grand Prix at its most hair-raising. The only perceivable difference is that the women are in skirts -- as opposed to the lungi-blouse combo you see in most Keralite small towns. Laid back? Goa is so laid back, it is positively comatose. And the priorities are clearly defined -- vide this sign I spot on a shopfront: D'Costa's Wine, Provisions and General Stores, it reads. On the first two days of the break, I in fact scandalise the staffers manning the bar because I refuse to have more than one beer, and one large vodka, in the evening. 'But sir,' the young lad doing the honours tells me in shocked accents, 'You are booked for the package, which means you can have unlimited amounts of drink, are you sure you won't have a repeat?!!' Lesson learnt -- you can't holiday in Goa and not drink yourself silly. Or swim, for that matter. The hotel pool, strangely, boasts a maximum depth of three and a half feet. Which is fine for the morning games of water polo. Fellow guests include two Aussie girls who are very obviously a couple, and they are the kind of high energy types who yank you out of the comfort of the poolside deck chairs and into a frenetic game characterised more by enthusiasm than any level of skill. But when it comes to swimming, the pool just doesn't cut it. Luckily, unlike Kerala -- where the coast is dominated by fishing villages and the sight of a man or woman in swimming attire raises sniggers and the kind of comments that burn your ears -- the beaches here are tailormade for frolicking in. Firm sand underfoot, and the kind of gentle slope that lets you walk till the water is up to your chest without any sudden, treacherous drops underfoot, and no cross currents to battle against. Perfect. And if it is raining as you wade out -- which it was, almost throughout my stay there -- that beats perfection, even. Oone thing you don't do in Goa is sight-see. I am deep in the middle of a mid-afternoon siesta when reception calls, saying they have this package going, and the coach leaves in 15 minutes. I tell them I'd rather sleep -- and the voice on the phone sounds half-offended, half-desperate. 'Sir,' he goes, 'it is a great trip, you should take it, it is part of the whole Goa experience, blah, blah...' So what do I get? I get to hear Shankar Mahadevan sounding breathless, for a full hour and a half (turned out that was the only tape the bus driver had, and it is apparently infra dig to drive us sightseeing without music blaring), before being decanted in what appears to be a cul de sac. 'Mangeshi Mandir,' says the coach driver, flipping a casual hand in the direction of some steps leading up to some kind of monument. So I duly do the climb, and come upon a faux-Gothic structure housing, within, a large-ish idol of Shiva sporting a rather natty beard, flanked by smaller idols of Ganesha on one side and Parvati on the other. I ask the priest what the temple is all about, and he waves over a gent manning the cash counter. 'As you can see,' he spiels, 'Shiva here is in deep meditation, see, he has a beard and all...' (at which point, a girl who is part of our party flicks a glance at my own beard and grins, spoiling the effect somewhat). 'When the Portuguese came here, they wanted to destroy this temple so the local people transported the entire building and the idols to a safe place, and then brought it all back once the invaders had left...' Then there is some stuff about the Inquisition which, I am solemnly assured, was a process of forcible conversion of Hindus to Christianity! Suitably enlightened, I head back to the bus, Shankar Mahadevan does an encore and we finally fetch up outside the famous Basilica of Bom Jesus church that houses the remains of St Francis. I don't know -- some people can do monuments, churches and the like till their eyes bubble, I can't spend five minutes in one without feeling fidgety. So I head back to the bus, thoughtfully providing myself with a couple of cans of beer before boarding, and while away the ride back to the hotel by figuring out just how many times Shankar Mahadevan pauses for breath in the supposedly breathless song. Time spent in coach: four hours. Time spent sightseeing: ten minutes tops. Am I missing something, here? Next time I go somewhere, remind me to check on local customs beforehand. Figuring that I will get a hostile reception from my colleagues if I return from Goa without bottles of feni and bars of that typical Goan confection, Bebinca, I hire a car and head off to Madgaon, some 20 minutes drive away from where I am staying. I do the trip in the afternoon of my last day there, figuring that this way, I can still get to the hotel in time to down a few drinks, enjoy the live band, and hopefully win a few bucks in the casino (before you ask, I did and I am not telling you how much). And when I get there, what do I find? Row after row of shops with the shutters firmly down. It is siesta time, I'm told, the market will reopen for business around 4, 4.30. Maybe. Which leaves me with an hour and a half to while away, in what is to all intents a ghost town. I spend the time nursing yet another beer-and-fish at one of those wayside bars. And wondering what the chances are of persuading Rediff's CEO to shift our offices to Goa. I mean, there is something sinfully luxurious about the thought of shutting down at one in the afternoon for a three hour long siesta that appeals to the imagination. It is on the morning of the fourth day of my stay that I discover a rather grim truth about myself. For three days and three nights, I've deliberately shut myself off from the world. Mobile off, television off, no newspapers. Then comes the day of departure -- and suddenly I realise that I can't get back soon enough. Everything about the holiday -- the sea, the booze, the fish, the company -- was great. But once I've slept and sauna-ed my way through the tiredness induced by 30-odd days of non-stop ball by ball commentary, I find I am bloody bored. The life of the idle rich, apparently, is not my cup of tea -- or glass of feni, more appropriately. And a good thing too, since chances are I'll never be rich; ergo, can never afford to be idle. So it's back to work, and glad to be. Which reminds me -- now that the World Cup is over, we are working on a heap of other stuff. And for one of our projects, we need your help. You, as in, people based in the United States. Anywhere in the US of A will do. If that is where you are, write in, ASAP -- the address is premp@rediff.co.in Prem Panicker's back!
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