chapter 17

17 I had booked myself a holiday in Goa right after I came back from New York. There was only a day between coming back and taking the flight out. I had worried about jet lag initially but had decided that Goa might be a better place to battle it in. Besides, I was itching for some alone time and to go out on a shoot by myself. I called Aanya and CD and gave them an update on the New York trip and the next steps.In the course of the conversation, Aanya asked, ‘What have you and Natasha been doing? I’ve never known her to be so chatty! I spoke to her this morning and she went on and on about how wonderful New York is and what great fun the two of you had. Fun? With you? You have to be threatened into coming to a party!’That afternoon Cara and I met for lunch at a newly opened French bistro. She was upset because I had ignored the naked selfie she had sent me while I was in New York and showed me that picture again, along with many others she had taken. At one point, just when the waiter turned hisback, she leaned over and told me in a loud whisper, so he could hear too, ‘I am not wearing panties.’‘Cara!’‘How was the trip?’ she said, switching subjects. ‘Great,’ I said, picking at my food. I had ordered theCaesar salad with burnt chicken and decided not to drink and make my jet lag worse. Cara didn’t eat anything at all, choosing to have just wine.‘I miss New York, and Mom.’ ‘Why don’t you go see them?’‘I will,’ she said, and shook her head like a schoolgirl would have before emptying her second glass of wine.‘I am happily tipsy, you want to come home and take advantage?’ she asked with a wink as I walked her to her car. I did think about it for a moment but excused myself very reluctantly, telling her that with a flight to catch in the morning, a night of intense love-making would screwthings up.‘You choose which one is the better way to get screwed,’ she joked and gave me a long, warm hug. We kissed while the parking attendant stood staring at us. Normally, I would have spent the evening with Cara, but since leaving New York I had been thinking about Nat far too often, replaying our time together over and over in my head, particularly the kiss we had shared, and how happy I had felt.Later that evening, when I thought it an appropriate time for New York, I messaged her.Hey, you good?Loving it here Fab.Wish you were here.I know. I miss you too!That came out subconsciously. Are you okay?Yep. Packing for Goa. Have fun.I will. Come back soon. Can’t wait to see you!☺ Kisses Stop it!Bye. LOVE YOU.I wanted to say, Love you too, but resisted, and then dropped the conversation. I sat on my couch thinking about where I was going to take this. I didn’t know anything about her life other than the fact that she was not exactly a happy bunny and was trying to have a child. She was a lovely person, with a measured sensitivity – a stark contrast to the firebrand that was Cara, whom I thoroughly enjoyed being with too. But something had definitely begun to shift after that day in the hospital when Nat had been around all the time and something had changed in the way I felt about her after I realized how much I had loved spending time with her in New York.But Nat didn’t know what Cara and I were doing and I was probably deluding myself into believing that we weren’tin a relationship. Either way, I was or had become a hedonist, sort of. Living alone without parents and having to fend for myself had taught me a very valuable lesson about myself: when faced with a difficult decision, I often went with the first thing my heart settled on. And the accident, which could have been my last breathing moment here, had taught me yet another thing about myself that I hadn’t quite confronted – I sought love.The flight to Goa was quite uneventful. I left my luggage at the hotel, picked up my camera bag and left immediately. Fort Aguada itself was a beautiful ruin but someone had suggested that I ride up to the lighthouse to get incredible views of the bay. Halfway there the traffic – cars and buses laden with holidaymakers and their kids – put me off, and I turned into a smaller bylane, making a mental note to go back there another time.I followed the lane away from the main road until I found myself at a small crossroads in the middle of Saligaon. There was a grocer on one corner and a bus stand across the road. I pulled over beside the grocer’s and asked him if there was anything worth seeing around here. His surprise was tinged with annoyance. I smiled, realizing what I had just asked.‘Is there anything to see here?’ He kept staring at me.Then a young boy, who must have been twelve or thirteen, emerged from within the store and joined his father in staring at me.‘Where do you want to go?’ the man asked finally.I had no idea. So I showed him my camera and said, ‘I am a photographer and am just looking around,’ and followed it with another idiotic question. ‘Any old homes? Or buildings?’‘There are many here,’ he replied, ‘all of them old. The only new house belongs to a painter.’‘Feroz,’ the boy added. ‘Churches?’ I asked.‘Many. Which one do you want to see?’ the man replied, now definitely annoyed.It was time to leave. I thanked them both and took the road to my left. A mile from there I pulled over under a clutch of coconut palms, gave in to technology and looked up Saligaon on Wikipedia. It gave me two reasons to smile. The Mãe de Deus Parish Church built in 1873 and Mater Dei, one of Goa’s first English-language schools, at Bairo Alto. Started as St Mary’s in 1900, the name was changed to Mater Dei in 1909. I rode up to the church first, knowing very well that I might not photograph it. It was indeed an interesting building – old, intricate and painted white, looking magnificent against a deep blue sky pregnant with rain. I didn’t quite enjoy taking pictures of places of worship; I thought it was an insidious intrusion on the people who came there to seek their own time with Him. Walking into the compound, I sat on a broken, half-built wall and spent almost an hour taking in the place, allowing a sense of calm to steal over me.I could sit there not doing anything because the church reminded me of Natasha, who was half Catholic, and thinking about her made me feel warm inside. It was strange how often I had thought of her in the past few days, and while it was a feeling that I hadn’t quite figured out I found it comforting and let my mind wander there often, basking in the warmth that she so easily shared. I walked out slowly, almost reluctantly, turning once for a last glimpse of the building. I did take some pictures though, I should admit. There was a little kid selling cotton candy and I quickly shot off a series of those, to be filed away in an archive under ‘travel/magazine’.As I rode away from the church back into Saligaon I was tempted to message Nat; it was mid-morning and I knew she’d be back at work. I could begin by simply asking her how her trip had been and what she was doing. She would ask how Goa was or what I was doing and I’d reply. I was sure she’d throw in a smiley and say nice things, because that’s who she was, and that simplicity in her little gestures meant to make others feel special, made me feel needed and happy, and made her an extraordinary woman.But I didn’t message her. I messaged Cara instead. Hey.Hi. How’s Goa?Fab. Found a great shoot idea. Wow. What?A school. It’s an old one. 1900. Wow. When are you going to shoot?Today. Now. On the way there. Can I come? *doe eyes*☺No, really. I haven’t been to Goa. *doe eyes* What about your friend?Cara’s best friend from New York was over. That was the reason she was fine with me going away to Goa as soon as I had returned.Rhea? Can she come too?I was still thinking about it when my phone beeped again. You don’t want us to come? Ofcourse. Come. It’ll be fun. I can stay here a couple of days more.YAY!!I liked this girl. She was spontaneous and fun and now that I had invited her over I had to make sure she had a place to stay. Standing there, under the humid midday sun, I began to sweat. Longing for a beer I turned the scooter around and headed back to the hotel.Zipping along the small road through Saligaon, I found the warm air wonderful. On either side of the road were lush green paddy fields, the land separated and bordered by tall coconut palms. The man at the grocery store was right; the green landscape was peppered with white spires and I stopped ever so often just to absorb the ambience before continuing on again. I quickly pulled over once and took some pictures when a flock of heron soared into the sky, they were indistinct but would make a great shot inblack and white, I thought. My photography had taken two distinct directions, one where I was constantly thinking of the archive, images from moments I could sell, and the other where I obsessed over moments that were technologically recorded fragments of time: a blur of colour, a cloud in a hurry, a calf dashing across the street, a symbol here, a hoarding there, women in colourful saris on a rickshaw – images I knew I would definitely not see again in the same manner, in the same light.Down a small lane closer to the hotel, I saw a vegetable vendor struggling to push his cart up the incline, and I stopped to help him, his cart a riot of colour against the stark red of the earth.Further down as I rode away, I recognized the crossing with the grocery store. As I headed towards it from the opposite direction now, a dirty brown board caught my eye: Mater Dei, the board said. The bloody school! It had been right here all the while I stood talking to the man and it hadn’t struck him to tell me. But in his defence I had asked for churches and old buildings. The school, which had been standing there for more than a hundred years, had probably become a part of his everyday existence, the mundane present distorting its valuable past.My first reaction when I saw the school was that of envy. I imagined young boys and girls sitting at their desks, inside large classrooms under a fan that was pushing down warm humid air, with a view of the lush green open fields. The school’s courtyard was very busy. Some students were onthe playground but there were a lot of parents too, both at the gate and inside, probably waiting to pick up the younger kids at the end of morning classes. I was tempted to shoot but didn’t, and decided to return another time.I stood there thinking about what I would do with the school if I were to shoot it as a project. I had to have a narrative: Would it be the school itself? Or its history and architecture? Would I use Saligaon as a backdrop? Perhaps use the school as a fulcrum of the people around it? Follow the lives of some of the earlier deans, or a couple of teachers and students, their families and homes and show how the school was the harbinger of hope, for a better, brighter future. Briefly I also entertained the thought of moving to Goa and teaching photography to the high school kids. Fortunately, right then a truck went by, blaring its horn and derailing my train of thought. I kicked my scooter to life and rode back to the hotel.Sitting at the bar by the pool, a can of Budweiser in hand, I made some notes in my Moleskine about the morning as I realized Saligaon by itself might be a nice story: population of six thousand, the school, the churches, the fields, the people and their lives. Just when the waiter brought my Singapore laksa it started drizzling suddenly and he offered to lay a table inside the restaurant by the window. The rain was beautiful and the soup delicious. I began the Murakami I was carrying and ordered another can of beer. It was a lovely day so far and I was looking forward to Cara, and the madness that usually came with her.