It seemed as if there was
no other world, no other place that could have made us feel freedom to this
extent. I was riding an Avenger, not caring about a traffic police interruption,
without a helmet, swaying it on the countryside road whenever I wanted to. It
was around three in the afternoon. All three of us were under the effect of
beer buzz and headed on our rides to the Vagator beach.
The serpentine roads were
lined, on one side with equidistant, tall palm trees, and on the other side,
with faraway, little cottages in the extensive fields. We decided to halt
around that area for some minutes of DSLR session. Daljeet had recently bought
one, exhausting almost his entire savings of pocket money he had gathered over
months.
“Goa’s heaven for pics”,
Daljeet exclaimed framing our bikes against the fields and the inclined
afternoon sun.
“And he was the one not
coming” Shikoh teased him, sipping through the Budweiser can, “For all money
you bought this stuff, it was meant for places like these.”
And I added to the
mockery, “Plus it’s okay to loan a trip from your friends!”
Leaving aside his DSLR,
Daljeet stared with helpless, gratitude-full expressions towards us. Perhaps,
he did it out of his misplaced sense of keeping the accounts balanced. “Go
ahead, dude”, Shikoh offered his beer can to him, probably to make him know he
should shred the false burden he assumed on himself.
“Care to join us in the
party?” An unfamiliar, French-toned voice interrupted us from behind.
“Who’s this?” Shikoh asked
him. Tucked up in a ragged t-shirt, he smelt profusely of alcohol and weed. He
had kept a goatee and had made a ponytail of his curly hairs. Pointing towards
a group of youngsters quite ahead of us, he said, tapping Daljeet’s shoulders,
“Come on guys, you’ll forget the world and enjoy! We have all the stuff.”
All
the stuff! That was enough to trigger loops of imaginations in
anyone’s mind. Avoiding any diversions from our plan, I rejected his
invitation, “Can’t join, buddy! We’re headed to Vagator.” Shikoh got the
indication and he boarded his bike, but Daljeet had his fantasies rolling. He
promptly asked, “Are there girls?” The man chuckled and said, “French!” I could
witness gleaming sparkles in Daljeet’s eyes and made an immediate attempt to
cut down the conversation, “Sorry, we have to go.”
Daljeet, though a bit
disappointed, loaded himself on his Avenger and we started towards our pre-decided
destination.
As heard always, Vagator
was like the concealed, calm end of Goa. There were little shops where we
parked our bikes. But the main beach huddled with palm trees and sand, gleaming
yellowish-red against the setting sun, was down the cliff made of reddish rocks
and was free of any population. Towards the right end of the cliff was an old,
ruined fort like structure, its wall standing against the sea.
We climbed down the steps
to the beach, opened our whiskey bottles and raised the toast to that moment.
The lightly moist cool breeze carried small drizzles of salty water along with
the gushing waves. For me, it was my first view of the sun diving into the sea.
I could actually feel all recollections, happy or sad, exciting or boring,
surfacing in my consciousness. The only apparent sound was the lapping of the
waves, the only feeling was a sea breeze and the only wish was to lie down
carefree on that beach. As if there was no returning back…
And then we heard a loud
cheer. It was from a group on the left end of the beach where the cliffs were
dropping down to the sea. As we looked towards them, they waved their hands
calling us. The sun was down the sea, and even the last rays peeping out of the
horizon were making their final show. Shikoh hinted to us, “I think we should
leave. We’ll have sea food prepared in the shacks.”
“You have a little shack
there”, Daljeet pointed to the same end where the group was enjoying their
smoke. And the other two of us knew what idea Daljeet’s mind was playing with.
And since we had decided on a protocol of freedom, we submitted to Daljeet’s
wishes.
Shikoh and I had never
smoked weed, nor did we have any such plans. We settled down with a plate of
Goan fish curry, while Daljeet, who initially resisted a bit as a show-off,
joined the jubilation. The party carried on even in the dark, towards the rocks
a bit left from the shack. The night sea was even more wondrous, the never ending
dark waters ending as frothy waves at the windy beach. The light grassy bushes
at the shack swayed hitherto as the temperatures started dropping.
“He won’t end soon” Shikoh
pointed that out the fiftieth time.
“Why are you bothered,
dude? Let’s relax here… Nice food” I chewed up a fried prawn, “Can you check
the bags, and that guy’s DLSR?”
Shikoh eyeballed the bags
on the right corner, and then continued gulping from the Carlsberg bottle he
had bought from the shack owner. The night crept in, the stars spread the
carpet over the Arabian Sea and our friend, Daljeet was also probably yelling
at the limits of his throat along with the mad group.
Out of nowhere, we saw few
people out of the rejoicing flock letting out concerned calls to someone. We
soon recognized Daljeet running randomly at the edge of the sea. As he crossed
the shack, we saw no member of the group following him. He was alone and down
with lots of smoke. And in no time, I freaked out; Daljeet had dived into the
sea…
“He doesn’t even know
swimming” I yelled out to Shikoh to follow me as I sped towards the point I had
seen him diving from. Hastily, I dropped mine and Daljeet’s phone, which I had
carried, on the beach itself.
“You stay back and drag me
once I come back near the end.”
Instructing Shikoh to be
ready, I made a dive. The water was bitterly cold. Daljeet was pretty inside
from the beach. As I surfaced against a couple of strong waves, carried back
and forth along with the water, I saw Daljeet’s hand going up and down in a
random, troubled movement. He was attempting to breathe inside water, causing
him to gulp the nastily salty water. I attempted to use my legs against the sea
bed to push myself against the waves. But no one knows what lies below the
water! The seabed had a sharp slope down from the near end where it met the
beach. Drifting back to get myself stable, I made an attempt to push myself
ahead and reach out to him. His hands were something I shouldn’t have caught
hold of; he would have drowned me frisking with his hands. Clenching him by his
legs, I pushed him towards the beach, rounded my grip on his shirt and swam
back. Another round of huge wave entangled us and threw us back to the point from
where Shikoh easily dragged us on to the shore. As Shikoh brought our stupid
friend to consciousness by forcing out water from his lungs, I stabilized
myself from the recent adventure I landed into.
“Why did you do this?”
Shikoh asked him angrily.
Daljeet had no words, or
probably his state, after a sequence of randomness followed by fear, did not
let him come back to normalcy. He twisted his forehead, clutching his hairs, as
if trying to remember something. We sat around him, making sure everything was
fine, until he spoke after a minute, “I just remember… The guy we met on the road…
Offered me weed… Challenged me something…”
“That same French guy? How
did he land up here?” I inquired him.
Shikoh nudged my
shoulders. “That group was the one he was pointing to.”
We looked towards the
screaming herd of wild people, careless and unaware of the near escape of one
of their partners from drowning.
“But why would he
challenge you to dive into the sea?”
“I don’t know”, Daljeet
stammered.
“I think I might… See
there.” Shikoh pointed out to the shack.
And as we saw, in whatever light the shack
lamps could provide, someone groping through the bags we had left there, we
were clear of the French guy’s intention. We darted towards the shack, but he
was speedy enough to escape towards the steps over the cliff. Daljeet reached
the shack behind us, panting and still under the weed effect. But he did not
know all that effect was short-termed. Something was going to bring his peace
upside down. What I suspected when Shikoh pointed out to the shack came out to
be correct…
“It’s gone! No!” Daljeet
yelled out gravely. Even the shack owner came out, attempting to understand his
loss.
“The guy had a watch on
this camera. We’ll ask the group. Hurry…!” Shikoh pushed Daljeet to get up. We
ran to the cliff’s end. The noise was too high. I couldn’t make out whether
people were actually talking sense or plainly shouting the alphabet ‘O’. I
called a lad by waving my hands. He must have been around eighteen. Ignoring
me, he continued his bottoms up round. Daljeet, who had been transformed into a
state of frustration, caught that boy by his t-shirt and roped him out,
“Where’s that guy? He had a goatee and a ponytail of his hairs… He spoke
French…”
“Come on dude!” The
intoxicated youngster nodded, swirling his beer bottle, “As if I know anyone
here. We are all strangers. He must be someone like you, who joined us along
the way!”
Daljeet’s disappointment
was audible in a sigh. He let the lad loose, who joined the mad group back
again. As we climbed the steps back with rest of the stuff ensured intact apart
from the prized possession, we talked about ways- FIR’s, identity tracking
through description. Most of it, we knew, was waste. Shikoh and I shared his
depression, but somewhere, keeping the amount invested aside, we desired to
laugh at the fool Daljeet had made of himself.
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