ALWAYS ON TIME

“The bus is never late” he said with a quizzical smile and a typical bobbing of the head. “Sometimes it doesn’t come at the same time you are waiting, but when it does come, it is always on time.”

We had been waiting for close to an hour in the muggy shade on the side of the crossroad and after I sipped from the tepid bottled water I couldn’t help but smile at the bald headed conductor who seemed immune to the heat. Our presence elicited nothing more than a cursory curiosity as more and more commuters entered: stop after harrowing stop on the narrow lane that weaved through a lush, yet somewhat rundown residential area where brightly coloured double and triple story houses towered side-by-side over squatting hovels.

I smiled as an elderly man stood gallantly with a smile and offered his seat to an elderly woman who in turn smiled wearily and gratefully as she squeezed onto the vacated seat. By the time we approached Mapusa (pronounced Mapsa) the passage between the cramped seats was jam-packed with uniformed students and grandparents and mothers sitting cross-legged on the floor with their babies.

At the bus terminus we found a rickshaw that sputtered along more treacherously narrow roads towards the weekly market in Anjuna where thousands of stall holders were selling everything from clothing to spices and musical instruments; and everywhere the air was flavoured with the aromas of enticing delicacies that required a special effort to resist: and a hundred accents all announcing their wares and bartering and oohing-and-aahing.

We arrived around one and decided to fortify ourselves after the journey getting there at one of the many permanent restaurants around which this sprawling seaside market has grown. A simple, simply-delicious bowl of noodles and prawns with a fresh strawberry juice later and we entered the bustling milieu.

A temporary restaurant and pub has live music; a trio of young Indian musicians doing cover-versions of Pink Floyd and Eric Clapton.

“First price.” “Best price.” “Last price?”

A young Indian woman speaking Russian; an old Italian speaking Hindu; a man with a flute speaking to his cow.

I had to take my shades off in the sun in order to take it all in.

There is a section where the Farangs (foreigners) have their stalls selling an assortment of ‘designer’ sameness: speaking in their mother tongues, greeting countrymen flamboyantly or each other with a familiarity that made me think that they have been coming here for years. Here and there a whiff of hashish but seldom a welcoming smile because this bunch is way too cool to be eliciting business from the passing foot traffic. Global hippies; wanted-to-be-models turned dressmakers; surfers turned jewellers; businessmen-and-women turned surfers; functional druggies.

Before we knew it – and without covering every little lane and nook while regularly wandering in circles – it was almost five. We sidled into a booth at a packed and thumping seaside bar where a multi-cultural two-piece band was belting out more foreign pop tunes than Radio Goodhope, but we needed the respite.

One sweet lime and soda, and one cold beer… or maybe two.