Two women carry a giant black wooden cross: the weight is on the shoulders of the one in front, whose black and white speckled sari sets it off perfectly. Behind them trail a line of thirty or so believers, stretching across the road, down a track and away to the doors of a pristine white chapel. My taxi driver beeps his born for all he's worth, but it's futile: they'll move in their own time. After all, when you believe that fervently, the pearly gates hold few fears.
A couple of days earlier, on the only really unbearably hot day so far, I caught the end of a service in Old Goa, which four hundred years ago was a city said to rival Lisbon. Now it just consists of five or six magnificent cathedrals, the rest having long fallen. No choirs of snotty-nosed trebles here: they prefer to use what sounds like three or four young girls to sing the Mass in Portuguese, then turn the amp up to eleven, a la Spinal Tap, to energise the converted with beautiful if imperfect harmonies. (No Dad, that's not a cadence pun.)
Goa has definitely got a laidback vibe by comparison with Mumbai (but where hasn't?): in fact, I've seen long shadows on cricket fields, and I've seen old maids bicycling to Holy Communion. It's not far off being a Major paradise. Except that you can't walk ten yards without being offered a taxi, a sarong, a coconut, or some 'very nice good price' fishbone bracelets. It kind of ruins the effect.
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2 comments:
Adam ... great to follow your progress each morning. Resisting the temptation for some crude punning about what a little Goa you are,thank you for the food notes. Sorry they were so suddenly dusruptive. Swimming in Goa as well as Matins and warm beer? Christopher
I thought i'd laid that pun to rest myself... A little tentative swimming, but it was nearly enforced when the dolphin-watching boat decided to almost tip itself over - soaked as far as the bones, as the french say!
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