6:30 am. Calangute.
The crows must get to eat a lot around here because the seat, the tank and even one of the indicators has been blessed with fairly copious amounts of bird-droppings. I wet a rag and spend some time cleaning, then look up. The extending branches of the mango tree seem studded with the undersides of over twenty dark shapes and before one of them can drop yet another of its white and gray prasadam , I roll out the bike and park it away from the tree under a blue-pink sky. As I sip a last cup of tea, I look at my dark gleaming friend of 16 years and thank her again for bringing me to this heavenly place. She has brought me here before and has also taken me to the foothills of the Himalayas once. But that was long, long ago and to a bike; blessed as it is with no-mind; it is only the present that matters.
And the present feeling is one of good-bye.
Some dark still lingers on in the morning air as the right leg kick-starts the 350 cc. engine into its gentle boom-boom. The early morning is chilly with cold ocean breeze. As I finally get moving, home in Pune seems far, far away.
Flashback:
Was it only 6 days ago that I rode through the Taminhi Ghat singing old Hindi songs to myself? With a helmet on and the visor drawn, one can have a great private concert. The performer and the audience locked in symbiotic union. The voice reverberates within the inner confines of the helmet and comes through loud and clear.

Pukaarta chalaa hoon main,

Gali gali bahaar kee.

Bas ek shaam zulf kee.

Bas ik nigaah pyaar kee.

Pukaarta chaala hoon main.

The newly paved road all along the Sahyadri range makes for good riding and with just one brief stop for chai and a you-know-what, I make it to the Mumbai-Goa highway.100 kms done and only 240 more to go. The first stop being Ganapatipule, located 20 kms. off the Mumbai-Goa highway, on the Ratnagiri coast.
Ganpatipule is a little sea-side temple village which is well-known on the pilgrim route because of its large Ganesh temple built right on the beach. I check into Hotel Shreesagar and am shown a fairly decent room for a negotiated price of Rs.300/-. After an hour of recovering from the long ride, a bath and with cleaner clothes on, I take a leisurely walk through the one street village. Night is setting in as I find myself keeping increasingly brisk pace with a youngish Brahmin who is on his parikrama of the temple. He looks splendid in his dhoti of red silk which has been draped with special care. Each pleat has been folded and ironed to a sharp crease. Bright red vermilion streaks vertically across his forehead like a meteor on fire. With a pooja-thali in his hand and shlokas in his mouth, the priest leads and I follow him all the way into the temple where resides the deity in full splendour. Ensconced on the left in a large niche sits the elephant God adorned with ornaments and surrounded by his favourite modak ladoos which are heaped in plates and may become the prasad the priest will hand out after the pooja. I look into the eyes of the 5 foot high idol and the Lord seems to stare right back at me. I imagine him smiling as if we have just shared a cosmic joke. I pay my obeisance then walk on to the beach making my way towards the darker part where the lights of the temple fade and the stars become bright. The moon is on the rise and the gentle ocean waves sing a song of cosmic welcome to another lovely night. Phosphorescence gleams on the ocean like an emerald carpet and I am soaking in the bliss. By 8, the crowds have left and I can see no one on the beach now. I sit cross-legged on the still warm sand and spend time taking fistfuls of it and letting the gritty grains trickle over my feet and calves. I spot waves of silver form a few hundred feet away from me and then make my eyes follow a single column of approaching froth to watch is burst into diamonds, which scatter on the beach.

The clock on my mobile says its nearing 12 and I get up and walk back to my hotel. I realize Ive not had any dinner and resolve to have a good breakfast tomorrow.

The second days ride begins early. While my omelete is being prepared, I consult with the desk clerk at the hotel, who suggests I take the coastal road to Rajapur and join up with the Mumbai-Goa highway there. This will mean more time on the road but then, Im not in any hurry either. Im soon passing through some very picturesque scenery of ploughed red-earth, of isolated coastal jungle villages with their contained life-styles. Everywhere, even in the smaller places, I see prosperity and smiles.
There are PCOs and Internet cafes and Im getting very good signal on my mobile too! This is a new India Im riding through.
I cross three very scenic, fairly long, gleaming new bridges over creeks where fisher-folk mend their nets and take care of their boats before venturing out to reap the seas bounty. It is a happy India Im experiencing. Or is it that I myself am so happy that I see only happiness all around? Misery, like beauty, is also probably in the eyes of the beholder.
The day is getting warm and I shed, first my jacket and then my long black shirt and now this feels better. The helmet remains, mainly because of its visor, which offers welcome shade from the glare of the sun off the shinning smooth road. Soon I stop for a roadside lunch and the menu of Goan fish-curry rice reminds me that Im not too far from paradise.
As I pass the Welcome to Goa signs, the world changes. If the Maharashtrian section of NH17 was broad, smooth and well maintained, the Goa section still takes the cake with an even wider span and superb maintenance. It is no wonder that Goa was judged the best state in India. Houses are better maintained and everything looks spic and span. At Pernem, I detour off towards my stop for the night Arambol beach. The narrow winding road takes me through border villages, which have a mixed-culture ambience. A mixture of Maharashtrian and Goan.
Arambol is a hippie-type village what Anjuna used to be 20 years back. Almost the entire tourist population in Arambol is European, Korean or Australian. I was the only Indian there! I saw ageing hippies, and young hippies-in-the-making! I have long held a fantasy of riding my Enfield on the firm wet sand of a beach and to this end I make the first mistake of the trip. I ride on onto the sand and immediately get stuck. The loaded Enfield is too heavy for this kind of thing. I had spoiled my clutch-plates once, when I was similarly stuck on a sandy patch on a Himalayan road; but now that Im a bit wiser, I cool off the accelerator and look for help with a plea on my face. Soon enough, the Nepali hotel-manager who has been staring at me comes over and lifts the rear of the bike as I ease off my weight on it too to help it cross this mini Sahara!
I look for a place to stay. I asked my rescuer for advice and he directed me to a nearby house, which was really a few small thatched rooms fused together with no particular symmetry or pattern in mind. I ride down the slight depression in the road and park the bike under a large jackfruit tree which stands in the corner of the open patch of land in front of the house. Across, in another corner of the open space, an elderly woman is tearing up pieces of dry chapatis and tossing them to the two mongrels who frisk excitedly around her. A man, probably her husband, slinks his malnourished body into a darker corner of the covered porch. She is a small statured woman with the thin wiry body typical of those for whom physical labour is a way of life. A thin faded brown cotton sari, wrapped in the konkani manner with the pallav passing between her thighs is tucked at the base of her spine, just above her stringy buttocks. Her well-oiled hair gleaming in the sunlight is tied behind in a skull-tight bun. Red and green glass bangles tinkle as she washes her hands and then comes over to where I was standing. Her mouth spreads in a tight smile and when I tell her Im looking for accommodation for one night, she asks me if I am on my own, then leads me to the right side of the house, along a fence of an untended bush of duranta. There are two rooms of unplastered brick, sharing a wall, each with three cemented steps leading up to an unshaded door. There is a stack of rotting branches heaped up nearby. Mosquitoes hum me a welcome as she clicks open the lock on the door, pulls open the rusted iron latch and then stands aside for me to look into the room. It has no toilet of its own but she says there is a pig-toilet in the back and when I look out of the open window, I see an open place crowded with banana, coconut and supari trees and two families of pigs clothed in dried muck, roaming happily all around.

Shambhar rupayee she says without me asking.

Only a 100 rupees, but its not to save money that I say yes to the lady of the house. There are two other reasons. One being that I believe one should periodically put oneself through some physical discomfort (even disgust) to better appreciate the good things one takes for granted in our everyday privileged lives. The other reason was the face of the lady. She was a poor woman and the 100 bucks would mean a lot to her. I could read that in the expectancy on her face. But it was the character in that face, the pride and the joy, which attracted me.

I didnt like the small rectangular room, which had a single window and dark blue walls. A naked light bulb stuck out from one of the walls. When I looked up at an old discoloured fan which hung from a wooden rafter in the roof, she smiled and said Chaalat nahi (Doesnt work). Cobwebs adorned one corner of the ceiling and empty carcasses of a few unfortunate insects were testimony to the prowess of the fat spider that sat in the midst of his stringy secretions. The room had a metal bed, painted an appalling green with a stiff mattress which looked like it hadnt been aired for a while. The silence was punctuated with grunts and squeals from the boisterous pigs. The smells around werent exactly pleasing. It was the toilets across the window that revolted me.

This hotel sure was different from the Taj!

So I took the room.

***

The pig-toilet is a Goan institution fast fading into oblivion. Essentially just an elevated hole in the ground, with a woven coconut frond curtain around it to provide some kind of privacy, this system of waste disposal is ingenious to the extreme. Using natural porcine tendencies to its advantage and cutting out the need for any other more complicated method, the pig-toilet also precludes the need to feed the pigs anything else at all. And if the smug, happy faces of the pigs are any indication, one could say that this is a system that works, give or take a mishap or two.

Every toilet comes equipped with a standard accessory; a thick 4 foot long wooden stick which one holds on to, not for support but as a weapon of defense. As the lady unabashedly demonstrates the technique, I look on in horrified amazement. One delivers, she says, a sharp hit on the flat snout of the pig as soon as it becomes over enthusiastic and gets too close to the flanks. Timing is everything. With almost motherly pride, she tells me her pigs are smart and they are quick! So Ill just have to be quicker. Wont I? It is almost as if a challenge is being thrown. Who will win? The pig or the human? Either outcome appears to be okay with her, although I suspect she is marginally partial to her pigs. Then, as if embarrassed by her own bias, and letting her voice adopt an insiders tone, she tells me not to get taken in by their delighted grunts. They can be quite dangerous. One German, an animal-rights protectionist, in his kindness, had hesitated hitting them, and had consequently to be rushed to the government hospital in Mapusa with a portion of his rear taken from him. My pigs are not polite like maybe German pigs. She laughs at her own joke. I admire her for that. A sense of humour even! Nevertheless, I decide to take a rain check on using her rustic rest room!

At the shack, where the Nepali manager had helped me with my bike, I have a light supper of noodles and Soya. I want to avoid going into the challenging toilet at all, but an hour later I find I am back at the shack-hotel to eat some Goan fish curry and drink some of the local brew. The ride has made me hungrier than I had thought. The spicy curry-rice and the intoxicating cashew feni have somehow made me brave. I start to believe I can handle the pigs tomorrow. Even teach them a lesson to keep their noses out of my business.
I need to stretch my legs and go out for a long walk up Arambol beach. I see village youngsters playing cricket then, along the way a bit, a group of Koreans practicing Tai-chi, looking very graceful and powerful and spiritual. I fall into conversation with a forty-ish looking villager and when he learns that Ive come on the bike, he says hya vayaat? (at this age?), almost disapprovingly. Must be the white hair that camouflages this young heart but yes, I do look ancient. The body is 54 years old but the soul is age-less. Isnt that what the Vedas say? He himself has never ever strayed more than 30 kms. from his village. He says this with a tinge of self-righteous pride. As if hes been more loyal. I then ask him his name, and I lose a bet with myself when he tells me it isnt Mr. Frog Wellwallah.

                            ***
Back in my room, I have little difficulty in falling into deep sleep. Somewhere on the fringes of my dreams, I see an overly large porcine face waiting with an expectant gleam in its eye. When morning comes, I try to put a mental plug on my own digestive system, praying it will hold until I

reach a more manageable toilet. It does. As I leave my adventurous accommodation, the nice lady waves me goodbye

while her thwarted pigs look cheated.

Flash-front!
Saying goodbye to the beach is never easy. This proximity to the sea has been such a joyous aspect of these last 4 days, the glittering waters dancing to fantastic batons of the suns rays, the fishing boats coming in with their hauls, the tiny crabs scampering over the wet shores. The breeze the invigorating breeze has been my cosmic masseuse. But now its time and I have to be on my way.
The ride through Sunday-morning Goa carries the aroma of freshly baked bread. Newly awakened faces, looking suitably pious, walking up to the church. Being a Sunday, it is too early for the petrol pumps to open. It was a mistake to have procrastinated on that. Should have filled up last evening.

As I near Sawantwadi, Ive still not decided what road Im going to take. There are numerous options as to where one can cross over the Sahyadri range and this time I take the advice of a well-informed Samaritan who suggests the Amboli ghat road. This turns out to be good counsel because the winding ghat road takes me through densely wooded hills with very little traffic using it. The road is fairly well maintained, studded with slightly raised blobs of crushed stone and tar which put a bit of bounce into the ride. Anyway, potholes dont carry the same degree of hate-factor when one is on an Enfield as when one is driving a 4-wheeler. A pee-chai-smoke-pee stop beckons and then the road begins to wind up again.
The petrol situation doesnt look too good and is becoming an increasing concern. The mountain road has taken a toll of the mileage and Im trying mental-power to help the bike delay that moment when the reserve-tank would need to be tapped. On the highway, the bike was delivering an astounding 44 kms. to the liter but I can now be sure of only going a further 40 kms. on the 1.25 liters reserve capacity. I observe the anxiety building up in my physiology but somewhere I am enjoying the uncertain possibility of being marooned in one of these remote jungle communities and never being rescued! Will I then marry the chieftains daughter and become the mukhiya when I am old?

 A pebble under the tire jerks me out of this reverie as I remind myself that I am already older than my would-be father-in-law and in any case, there must now be very few places on this planet where one can realistically expect to be absolutely marooned, much less of being offered any of the chieftains nubile daughters! Behind all these mind-distraction games, I hear the speedometer yelling that 35 of those 40 kilometers are already over and trouble is brewing. So I blank out the chieftain and his sexy progeny! I dont even get time to miss her because I suddenly come upon a village and see a large BP logo heralding a petrol pump!! My vehement bhar daalo takes the petrol-pump attendant by surprise. What enthusiastic customers! On a Sunday morning too!
Towards Nipani, on a narrow, but paved road between golden fields, a farmer is waiting to cross with his two huge buffaloes. It almost seems that he waited for exactly the right moment to startle one of those huge beasts right into the path of my speeding beast. But 60 kmph.is an easy speed to be able to use both brakes and still remain astride this time, with my front wheel only 2 feet away from the almost inviting soft (but firm!) body of the 1000 kilogrammes milk-machine!
I smile at (instead of curse) the farmer with a didnt get me this time gleam in my eyes but he cant see my eyes, nor my face, nor the white hair tucked under the helmet as I am. Probably mistook me for a young ruffian out to destroy his capital investment!
I am already crossing Karad with Kolhapur 40 kms. behind me and its only 2 pm by my mobile-phone clock.
Gradually, the possibility of reaching Pune that very evening grows distinct. The way the road is looking, with me comfortably touching 80 kmph, I might just be able to sleep in my own bed tonight!
At one point that afternoon, I become part of a dream sequence. Just ahead of me are three, gleaming new Enfields with three gleaming, sparkling, white clad, prosperous-looking farmers riding abreast across the wide highway. They are going at a uniform 70 with me overtaking them on the extreme right at a steady 80.
4 Enfields, singing in unison and celebrating life with a thump and a vroooom..
Some more p-c-p-s stops and a few hours later, I reach home. What follows is a reward.. a hot bath coupled with her ministrations and with some Old Monk thrown in, lovely food and some great sleep. My snoring that night had a deep thumpthump beat she tells me at dawn. But I know shes pulling my leg!