Benaulim Beach, Goa

Still the quiet boring place where I spent several idyllic years (6 months at a time) writing my memoirs, never lonely or feeling I was missing something going on outside my clean simple cottage room, happily grinding out at least a thousand words a day, until I was ready for a swim in the sea, a long walk on the beach, & lunch.

Somewhere, probably in the Paris Review, I’d read that Eugene O’Neil wrote for four hours each morning and then went for a swim before lunch, which sounded like such a great way to live I adopted it. In my case, however, no masterpieces have resulted and my book is still not published.

I’m in paradise; all’s well; the ceiling fan whirs, keeping mosquitoes away while I lie in bed, reading Roberto Bolaño’s maddening masterpiece, The Savage Detectives. Outside, waves pound the shore at night and crows screech in the garden in the morning. From the kitchen the noise of chopping onions & garlic; the cook stokes his tandoor, prepares dough for naans, & grinds spices. I think I’ll have chicken tikka masala tonight.

On the beach I come across old friends & familiar faces: the hustling rickshaw drivers & beach shack owners, the lady in the purple & green sari on the beach who talks me into buying a pineapple every day after my swim, the English ex-pats who have a dog, two Italian troubadours who play soccer on the beach, the retired Swedish sea captain who writes short stories, the British publican who has given up drinking, a Scotsman who claims to have climbed Everest, the usual crowd of boozers, druggies and beach bums who come here year after year. The swinging crowd & planeloads of tourists (mostly Russian, I hear) are up on the northern beaches doing whatever they do, but here in the south, on Benaulim Beach, things are quiet.

The sea is calm, but I’m told there was a cyclone recently, completely out of season; 6 fishermen were lost, including two from our village, as if life wasn’t hard enough for them scouring the sea with their poor nets for a few rupees a day.

My Goan friends tell me they’re unhappy about the new construction in the village—a couple of massive, unfinished concrete structures, apartment buildings with downstairs shops that remain empty, abandoned by the Mumbai speculators for lack of buyers. The locals are bitter because there’s less land for them and no jobs. The best thing that can happen to the sons of the fishermen is to find work on cruise ships – mopping decks & washing toilets on the Mediterranean or Caribbean. They leave their wives & children for months at a time to earn money to live. There’s nothing for locals to do here but watch bloated foreigners gorge & guzzle, & try to hustle a bucks off us here & there, but how?

The big news is the new Indian visa restrictions. I got a stamp in my passport when I landed in Mumbai that states when I leave I must stay out of the country for 2 months before returning. This will have no effect on me, but for the ex-pats & recidivists who live here all year round, it’s treason. Where can they go after their 6 month visa expires? In the past it was a quick trip to Bangkok to renew the visa & then right back to their homes in Goa. Now people are talking about leaving & never coming back.

Paradise is never what it seems.