The sheer vastness of the land, her familiar strangeness,

her passion, her hoary violence

sheds all its poise, and turns gentle along this coastline,

like the mighty Mandovi’s silence

before merging into the sea Arabian.

The lush-green stillness of rice paddies,

swaying coconut palm,

propagated by tropical warmth

titillate your senses with their idyllic calm.

The slowly moving time

trundles by as you accelerate in the car,

the bus, the railways.

And when they stop,

time itself becomes cocooned,

as if nauseated by the agitation and

leaves you with the blank blueness of Goan streets,

the desertion of sleepy village stations.

Not so far away local fishermen

silently take in their nets along the seashore

with the backdrop of groves and waves against the setting sun.

The sympathetic indifference of the local creoles,

the buzz and buoyancy of the dazzled beach bummers.

Busloads of holidaying Indian families

churches, convents, basilicas chapels

Walking along the broad, sandy,

sun-drenched expanse of Anjuna’s shoreline—

Golden, palm-fringed but uninterrupted

for miles on end,

or left to my own

vices and devices at Calangute beach,

only the rowdy wattage of the sea

and the crisp lines of the surf the witness.

I felt sinking into the watery ground beneath my feet,

and for a moment wished

to be hurled far out by the grey waters

Far out, far out, into the sea.