It's still moderately hot outside the shack. The sun creeping in slowly towards my stretched out feet as I sit in the cozy cushioned jute chair, taking a sip from what probably will be my last can of Heineken (Spoiler alert : it wasn't). My friends are yet to come back from the hotel after checking out. The bus back to Hyderabad was not for another five hours. I could get some more cans in me by then. I didn't feel like leaving yet. It had taken me three years to come back to Goa, who knew how much longer it would take the next time.
It all started with a long distance breakup. A three year old project that had consumed all my monthly savings and each one of my holidays. It had just been Mumbai and Hyderabad for two years now and my body had been crying for a release. A girl comes in from the beach into the shack and heads for the bar behind me. A brief smile is exchanged; neither of us want to be impolite. She gets a beer and heads out again into the sun to get a tan. I missed the polite strangers here, the happy drunk foreigners, the welcoming locals, the salt in the air. I signal for another can to my friendly waiter who takes the hint from a distance and disappears behind the bar.
Minutes pass by and my Entourage is still not here, I have no complaints. I take some calm in the silence that is the beach, wishing like every other happy dreamer that time would stand still for a while and let me soak in the warmth of the place for some a while longer. It is imperative that you come to Goa for what the place is, a holiday destination. I remember all the times in college when we would take frequent trips to this state with overblown expectations only to go back mildly disappointed.
Moments from the last three days pass by as I close my eyes, the winds from the ocean blowing past my face. Miles and miles on the rented Activas, all night walks on the lit up beaches, beach volleyball with the water sports locals, it had been three days that I had needed. Three days and three nights that I had missed out on for three years. Hormonal kids walking by bring me back to the present as they ogle at the same girl, who was now was on her belly, bare back taking in the sun on the bed outside. I can't help but smile as I think back to my first time in Goa when women in bikinis had left me dumbstruck. College life had it's charms.
My friends return, their backpacks making clinking sounds from within, the sounds of bottles striking inside. Both of them have a foreboding sense of leaving Goa. Well who doesn't when going back from this place. They order their poison and fall in the chairs next to me. Sleep inching ever so closer, trying to take back it's lost three days. The waves crash on to the shores and the water sports providers push their jet skis into the sea. We had had our round of rides the previous day, my friends aching to have another go but it would have to wait until next time. My head devoid of all the stress and the strain the past few months had caused, job, breakup, future, everything flushed out. My head falls back on the chair and I close my eyes for what time I had left at the beach. I think about all the things that we couldn't do and start planing the next trip in my mind. The next time it won't take three years, hopefully.
Silence holds, only the waves crashing on the beach, my friend next to me raises his hand to the waiter, my lips widen into a small smile. Goa you beauty.
