Goa – An experience of a lifetime

I was very eager to write something about one of my most memorable voyages i.e. my trip to Goa. I had always heard great stories about Goa by whoever had visited it earlier. So the level of excitement was enormous and I was planning this since long with my cousin who lives in Nagpur and his friends from Nagpur and Mumbai. Thus, after a lot of brainstorming on our planning we finally fixed a date and booked our tickets to Goa. So as the planned turned out to be, I was to reach Goa directly from Chandigarh and my cousin and one of his friends were to join me there the same day. The only thing which I was worried about was that the time difference between the two parties reaching Goa shouldn’t be much. But sometimes all good things fall into place automatically, it so happened that my flight was to reach Goa via Mumbai and my cousin got the same flight from Mumbai to Goa, thus they boarded the flight when it landed in Mumbai. It was a blue coloured indigo but seeing the air hostesses on board was bit of a disappointment. The flight took half an hour to teach Goa from Mumbai.

The Goa airport which was in a place called Dabolin looked more like a mall and less like an airport. We waited for our luggage and once it arrived took a taxi to the most popular beach in Goa i.e. the Baga beach. The journey was really scenic with pleasant and memorable weather on the way. We saw huge shipyards and some really old ships on various ports. Shipping seemed to be one of the major bread makings for the people of Goa. It took almost an hour for us to reach Baga. The taxi driver took us to a really nice hotel cum cottage. It was run by a female who had come from somewhere near Russia and had opened the hotel 2 months back. There is something in the weather of Russia that they produce really beautiful women. As was the case with this lady who in spite of being in her late thirties could give our bollywood heroines a run for their money. We also visited a couple of other cottages in and around the beach but somehow the cottage and the Russian owner had clicked us, thus we decided to live in her cottage. There were total 3 cottages in that hotel. Each one had 3 rooms and in between was a swimming pool which was really well maintained. They served only drinks and tea in this hotel and food was not available to us at our room service.

We rested a bit and then decided to take a bath in our hotel swimming pool. One of the highlights about Goa is that you can easily get 2 wheelers and 4 wheelers on rent on a daily basis at a very reasonable price. I was more interested in taking a 2 wheeler rather than a 4 wheeler but from mutual consensus it was decided to hire a Wagon R on rent. We started roaming here and there in our Wagon R. The weather was great outside, it was not too warm and not too cold and a soothing cold breeze was flowing all over the place. Sitting in a car turned out to be boring and we decided to hire 2 wheelers instead from the next day. The fact about Goa is that there is nothing much to do there during the day time as most of the tourists are resting. The real fun starts at night when the entire crowd can be found on Goan roads, restaurants and clubs. There were a series of night clubs and bars around Baga beach. One of the main clubs was Tittos and Mambos where the cream crowd was, the only problem was that it had a couple entry and we were 3 guys so there was no scope of formulating a couple anyhow. One interesting place we found nearby was Kamaki. It was a small bar which attracted a lot of foreigners and to add to that it was a bit cheaper as well as compared to Tittos. The main USP about bars and restaurants in Goa is that more than 90% of them are open aired. We had a few drinks at Kamaki that day and really enjoyed the music. Also, we observed some of the foreigners who visited Kamaki. They generally came in groups and enjoyed each other’s company. As expected, there were many desis who try to mix up with them in Goa, some of them do succeed but a majority of them don’t.

The next day we woke up really late. One more of my cousin’s friend who lived in Mumbai joined us, so now we were 4 in total. We hired one Honda Deo and one Avenger in place of our boring Wagon R. We decided to go to Panaji which was the capital of Goa and the commercial head as well. Panaji was a different city altogether when you compare it with rest of the capital cities in India. The culture of Portuguese, who once ruled Goa reflected in every nook and corner of the city. I might be over exaggerating but Panaji looked like a little version of cities like London having a bridge connecting the city and hundreds of boats and ships all over the place floating in the sea. The architecture was also great especially the churches were one of the best I ever saw. There is a unique feature of every house hold in Goa that their roof is shaped in the form of a hut and this is true for each and every house and building even the new ones. We had our proper Punjabi lunch in Panaji and then headed to a couple of other tourist locations nearby. Travelling on two wheelers on the roads of Goa is really a pleasure because of the amazing natural beauty and the weather. We stopped at a lot of places in between for our usual photography sessions. I also noticed the parliament house in Panaji which looked more like a 5 star hotel than a parliament house. You will find bars and restaurants in every nook and corner of the state and some of the best food joints are actually away from the main city areas. We stopped on one such restaurant and had great food which included prawns as well which I had tasted for the first time.

Anyone who has visited Goa can never forget to mention the women there. Around 50% of the girls you see in Goa are foreigners but most of them come in groups with friends, boy friends etc. Some of the foreigners are no doubt really very beautiful but nothing as compared to our desi beauties. The Indian ladies who visit Goa not only see Goa as another tourist destination but see it as a place where they really open up since there is no one to restrict them there. Also, they also feel a sense of security since everyone around them is behaving and dressing in a similar manner. Anyhow, you get to see some of them most amazing Indian beauties in Goa and with the kind of clothing they wear you cannot resist looking at them. The Indian girls clearly overshadow the foreigners who generally don’t have anything apart from their white skin. I think I forgot to mention Aguada fort in Goa. There are two things very special about this place, one that you can see the entire Goa from that place since it is located on a hill and it is the same place where some of the most memorable scenes in Dil Chahta Hai were shot. Thus, this turns out to be a really popular destination for the tourists in Goa.

On our last day, we headed again to Panaji for some shopping. I bought some nice and famous cashew nuts for family and others did as well. My cousin and his friends had a train to catch to Mumbai and I had a kingfisher flight headed to New Delhi. The journey in Kingfisher was very memorable one especially because of the hot airhostesses on the flight. They really took good care of the passengers which included some nice food and some nice entertainment via their on air TV channels.
Thus, my journey to Goa ended and without any doubt I can say that Goa is the best place to chill out in India.

Why m i sad today?

I am sad today. Don't know the exact reason and the exact explanation but i just know that i am sad today. Rarely something upsets me or disturbs me, but today i cant find the thing which has made me sad. There is something within that is disturbing me, there is some sort of restlessness that is creeping from inside. Probably this is because something has happened which has shaken me and my beliefs.

At the end, it is only your family, your parents who care for you. Friends, people around you and even the one you think you are in love with wont understand your pain as good as your parents do. They just need to have a look at me to notice that there is something wrong. Others will see, some will give some advice, others will laugh and there are others who will show that they care for you but that is what they show and this is very much visible.

I know this sadness is temporary and will soon be gone. But this is the moment when you learn from life, when you see people around you change, when you start noticing small small things that you never even care otherwise and that is when you realize that at the end it is only your parents who will stand for you, all the others are just trying to help.

Life in Gurgaon...

One day I was sitting in my office doing the usual work and I got to know from my manager that I have to leave for Gurgaon in the evening. I was delighted to hear that since from the past 1.5 years I was trying my best to move out of my hometown and see the outside world. The same day I packed my bags and left for Gurgaon. I was accompanied by a friend of mine. We reached Gurgaon at 4 AM in the morning, it was midnight and I couldn't see much of it. We reached the company guest house and had a nap of around 2 hours. I woke up and went straight go my new office in Gurgaon. On the way, I saw huge structures built of concrete and the magnitude of construction in Gurgaon, I had never seen throughout my life. There were monstrous buildings facing each other and the design and architecture was simply superb. My office was in the middle of the cyber city where all the big corporate offices like Microsoft, Oracle were there.

The work started as usual. There was immense pressure on me to perform and I was delighted that I actually delivered to it the best possible way I could. 70% of the day I spent in office as there was nothing much to do at the Guest House since it was located in a deserted place in the outskirts of the city. I usually went home over the weekends and the one’s I dint go I stayed at the guest house and usually got bored. A month passed by and I was asked to leave the Guest house and find an accommodation for myself. The real struggle had started then. I called up my friends and they came to my rescue. I was able to find a good Paying Guest accommodation in a single day and the same day I shifted to that place.

The PG was located in a posh residential area of Gurgaon. The life in the PG was interesting and I had one of the best times in my life staying in the PG. It was a triple sharing room and I was the first one to fill it. The room was nice and spacious with all the facilities and had a big beautiful bathroom. I had heard that this PG used to be a girl’s PG and the bathroom actually reflected that because the interiors were all pink coloured.

A day or two passed by and I started wondering who the other people in the PG were. The PG had a common dining area so one day I met a guy who was having his breakfast. We interacted with each other, he seemed nice and we sort of clicked in the initial meeting. He had returned from UK and was working in a law firm. As expected, he was a lawyer so I had no match while speaking to him. I left for home that weekend and when I came back I saw my room filled with two new roomies. One of them was a student and the other guy was a working professional.

The next 2 months were the best time I spent in Gurgaon. One of my room mates knew the places in Gurgaon and nearby very well. We used to go to movies and diner quite often. There was a dhaba on the Gurgaon high way which he took us to, the food there was nice especially the non veg stuff. After a week or two, another guy joined the PG; he was also a working professional. Initially he looked a bit standoffish and was occupied with himself but after a day or two he also joined the group. He was a brilliant musician and used to play excellent guitar. We got used to his tunes on the dining table and sometimes even at the dhaba. We used to spend our weekends watching movies on TV and sometimes in the huge Gurgaon malls. The ice-cream parlour at Nirula’s was also our usual favourite destination for deserts after diner. One day after having diner in PG, we went to the ice-cream parlour to have our favourite Manhattan Mania cone. Just then, we decided and went to Faridabad on a long drive. The journey was nice and dark with hilly turns on the way. There were a couple of places we visited in Faridabad like Suraj kund and a lake but it was the drive which we enjoyed the most. We returned back at 1AM and were very tired. The next week was the Holy day and luckily none of us went home on holy. I generally don’t celebrate much of holy and prefer to stay home. But this holy was different, it was very different. The morning was the usual lazy stuff. We woke up at 11, had our breakfast and went outside. The scene outside was very deserted. We couldn't see anyone celebrating outside. Nonetheless, we had bought some colours and started to walk around the locality hoping to see someone playing holy and thinking if we could also join the fun. But what you expect of Gurgaon it behaves totally opposite. We could see people with coloured faces in their four wheelers but no-one on the road. We then came back to our PG. Just then there was some construction going on in front of our PG and there was a small pool which had muddy water in it. One of us thought of a prank and drowned the lawyer into the pool; the scene was so funny that even the neighbours enjoyed it. After a minute or two, all four of us were inside the pool along with the servant of the PG. There were colours and pranks all over the place. I had never imagined that holy could be so enjoyable. We were so tired after playing holy that we then slept for the whole day.

I was enjoying my life in Gurgaon. I liked staying there and didn't really miss my home town much. But all this enjoyment was short lived. One of my roommates had gone to Mumbai for 10 days and when he came back we came to know that he had to permanently shift to Mumbai in a week’s time. The next day we got the news that the owner of the PG was closing down and we were given 15 days notice period to move out. We just had a few days left to enjoy and have fun together. We took the most of it and enjoyed the last few days of our stay in the PG. My roommate shifted over to Mumbai and all of us started looking for a new PG preferably tried if we could stay together again but that seemed to be a remote possibility. After a week passed by, everyone left the PG and shifted over to new places. But we guys couldn't be together any more. I shifted over with my other roommate to a new PG. The Guitarist and the lawyer moved to separate PGs.

The new PG was not the same as the original one. I missed the fun we used to have earlier. We guys tried and meet and go out together but that happened just once in 15 days. Then came May which was my last month in Gurgaon. It was this time that I really wanted to go back to my hometown mainly because of the bad food that I used to get in my new pg and also that the new pg experience was not that enjoyable. In no time, May end came and I was given a nice farewell from my team mates in office. I also met my lawyer friend the last day and we went for diner to a nice restaurant. I was very excited and very happy to go back. I happily reached home but strangely I actually missed my life in Gurgaon for a week or so.
The 5 month stay in Gurgaon will surely stay in my life as a memorable one not only because of the professional experience but also because of the good people I met there and the good time I had there.