Crowning Glory

Benaulim Beach, Goa

Released from the Ayurvedic clinic in Coimbatore I felt like I'd been sprung from jail. Not that I didn't love it but the restrictions, especially food and exercise, were beginning to get to me. While on the plane to Hyderabad I thought about the doctors' parting advice―don't eat seafood, don't eat fish, don't swim in the sea, take your medicines six times a day―and promptly forgot it.

Spent one day in Hyderabad visiting a dear old friend whose health is failing; God knows when we'll meet again. After listening to my horror stories about vicious hawkers up north, his daughter took me shopping and in two hours I made up for all the shopping I'd missed in Delhi and Rajasthan, with no hassles, in shops where prices were marked on the items, and friendly sales people who let me look at their beautiful things to my heart's content. I found everything I wanted, the prices were right, ate a great home-made Indian dinner, and started to love India again.

Happy to discover nothing has changed at the beach in South Goa, my home away from home: clean, peaceful, quiet, same cook and hotel staff, fishermen, farmers, old friends… this place is paradise on earth―if you don't mind the fact that nothing's going on, which is why I love it.

I spent the better part of four years in this place writing my book, delighted to be free of distractions; I got a clean place to live, on the beach and with room service, ate fresh delicious food, and swam in the sea every day―a writer's paradise.

Then I went home to sell the book, but have not succeeded―so far. It's a good story, well written, filled with love, sex, scandal, betrayal, and international intrigue, taking place on two continents, with a fabulous cast of characters and all the elements of a best seller. I just need one good, smart publisher. Can you help me? Please!

Spending the last three weeks of my four month journey putting myself back together, walking on the sand, swimming in the sea, watching sunsets, taking care of my teeth and buying all my pharmaceuticals for a year.

Went to see my dentist in Margao, a small town about eight kilometers from the beach. Hubert Gomez is an extraordinary man, a social activist, humanitarian, and a fine dentist. His office is state-of-the-art, with an in-house laboratory, the latest equipment and a skilled staff, including a lovely periodontist who performed gum surgery on me in a pink silk sari with a white jacket over it, a mask and sterile gloves.

The perio surgery cost me 700 rupees, $17.50, and a new crown for a molar will cost me 3300 rupees, $82.50. The crown, in Los Angeles, would have cost me $1500, and the surgery several hundred more. The quality of work is as good as the best in the USA, and rest assured, Dr. Gomez is a rich man.

I've ordered my meds from a reliable pharmacy. To give one example, cholesterol medication that would cost $90 for a month's supply with the discount of my drug supplemental plan in Los Angeles, costs just $6 here. The savings is greater than 20 times for two other drugs that are prescribed for me, and they are manufactured by India's top, profit-earning pharmaceutical companies. President Clinton came to India to purchase drugs for Africa. Of course I will purchase a year's supply.

The money I've saved on dental care and prescription drugs has more than paid for my ticket to India, plus all the great French bread and foie gras I ate in France.

This has been a journey of a lifetime: two months in sunny Provence with a love affair, heavenly Kashmir on a houseboat, the palaces of Rajasthan by car, the horrors of Delhi, the Ayurvedic care in Coimbatore, my old friend in Hyderabad, great shopping, and now this: paradise on the Arabian Sea. What a lucky girl I am.

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