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And I again got behind the wheel and went to work, on shooting area to pretend to be alive. Avalanche of hurry-scurry filled another day, weeks, and months. One project was coming to an end, a new one was starting, and they had shot one TV series, and were already preparing for another. And I was already feeling nauseating during the process of script reading, perhaps from saturated, material and quite safe creative work. My soul was hungry; I strengthened my subconscious union between dreams and determination to rise up to the purity of light and no return.
My soul demanded change. I, apparently, had a completely prosperous and comfortable life, that would make even my mother happy – like others, I had everything. I lived in a separate apartment in the capital city with my husband and son, worked in a creative sphere, changed cars, communicated with friends and acquired a standard set of entertainment. I went to rest around the world as part of package tours or sightseeing tours and excursion routes of different countries. I visited Europe, Africa and Asia. In some countries, not just once. BUT. I was already infected with the Sehnsucht. Mom did not understand what kind of haunting ghosts there in her daughter’s head were, instead of joy of her well-being.
I was feeling so cold, suffocated, cramped in the largest country of the world. The realization of the imperfection of the world around me did not get along with my agile mind. I needed to be convinced of everything myself or to be challenged in an experienced way. In the present experience, I could only agree with Saltykov-Shchedrin: “If I fall asleep and wake up in 100 years, and people ask me what is going on in Russia today, I will say drinking and stealing”.
But there is another world: the world of books, where every human life is a personal book of everyone. The number of possible books is unlimited, as is the number of stars. Each new heir adds a new chapter or rules the page of the predecessor. I found temporary salvation in reading, books held my steady interest, where through the word I could travel in time.
Any hero chooses one of the paths from the numerous ones in his own life, dismissing the rest, but there are all-rounders, like Ts’ui Pen, choosing everything at once. He simply did not believe, unlike Newton and Schopenhauer, in a single, absolute time. He believed in the innumerable series of time, a network of diverging, converging and parallel times. I could boast not of my own books, but of readings like Borges. And I felt like his heroine, striving for the impossible, trying to unravel the mystery of being, to discover my potential, to create myself a laconic book. A book where novelty arises from a combination of words, rather than in a new message. Even Plato knew it: “All knowledge is nothing but a memory”.
Most importantly, I was still ready to give up everything for the sake of Love, which I had never found. I was ready to throw myself into the ocean and take on the face of a mermaid for the sake of a man I loved, or become a bird, and then the only possible direction would be up. Only in dreams, I was so exalted and so full of delight that reality in contrast became increasingly unbearable. Especially when the cold came – and what’s even worse for me – frost. Travelling teaches you more than anything else. Sometimes one day spent in other places, gives more than ten years of life at home.
Another movie project was finished. I worked there not only as an art-decorator, but also played the episodic role of a forensic laboratory assistant. Despite the success of the movie and the decision of the producers to continue our series, my decision to change everything became stronger. I had several months of comfortable freedom left, and the hated period of cold was setting in, then there came the opportunities to escape from it. Already in the final shootings and preparations for the “shapka” (a cheerful ocassion marking the completion of the film project, accompanied by drinks, snack, dancing, calm communication of colleagues and discussion of new plans in an informal atmosphere), my determination was reinforced by talking with Lucia. The rather strange and rare name of this girl confirmed her eccentricity and suited her well. She was special. She worked with us on the project as a barmaid, as she couldn’t care less what role she was playing. She just wanted to get acquainted with the filming process, take part in this:
– You know, Alyona, we’ll finalize the last shift now, and I want to return to India again. I watched the film and the filming process, and I did not like it.
– To India? This has been my dream for long. Cold is here, and I am going to get sick again. – With surprise and curiosity I entered the conversation, sipping hot tea from a plastic disposable cup given to me by Lucia.
– Dreams should be realized. My guru taught so, when I lived six years in the Osho Ashram in Pune. And the Indians said that people get sick from unfulfilled dreams, – she continued smiling.
It’s hard to describe my emotions after her two simple phrases. I worked with her for a whole 16-series project, for days and nights she gave me lunch in plastic boxes, poured tea and coffee, having studied my taste (how many sugar cubes to put), and amid all the humdrum of work, I did not notice such an interesting person in the barmaid?!
I felt dying worldliness in myself and immediately was overwhelmed with interest. Like a guenon monkey, eating candy, I began to question her about India, and with each sip the taste of tea changed. The search for traces of my legendary quest of self over the past few years suddenly began to manifest as my footprints on the wet sand of the shores of the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, in the snow of the Himalayas. India!? Ashram? Osho? What does it mean?
– Meanings change depending on the country and the era, – Lucia said with all the same calmness and a simple smile. – Like earlier, the path through the desert was considered safer until ancient meteorologists learned to determine the time of the monsoon, how to use the wind and how to sail. Knowledge, which they used to go only with camel caravans, floated across the seas beyond the oceans. The methods of movement vary, but there is a risk in any way.
I made further discoveries equal to the launch of the first man into space. During the short conversation I reincarnated in different images: I was a religious pilgrim, a lonely traveler, a messenger of God, a preacher of dogma. The lines I had previously wrote down for myself from the book Bhagavat Sri Radshnis and Lucia guru Osho turned out to be the same person. In order to measure the fluctuations of my body from the information received – that simply seized me and influenced me deeply – I was involuntarily folding the short candy wrappers into bundles during the entire conversation, without giving any importance to it. I was fascinated by her stories. And at the end of the conversation, Lucia introduced me to Knot magic.
– What? What magic? – I exclaimed.
– Knot magic is a form of magic using specially tied knots. These knots, as you have now at hand, are a reflection of your abstract ideas, concepts and thoughts that are soon going to acquire a concrete physical form. Look, – and she lifted the snake intertwined by me while I was fiddling with wrappers, and kept it between us at eye level.
– What does it mean, Lucia? – I have been weaving such wrappers throughout my childhood in the curtains of the doorway.
– It is believed that the number, shape and location of knots can affect the effectiveness of a particular goal. The power and intensity of influence can depend on the material. These paper candy wrappers are just wrappers for the implementation of the plan, but I can see that you are already in the flow.
On these words, I had to agree with my cine colleagues who considered Lucia to be more than a strange girl. However, the minstrel Lucia breathed into me, the melodies of renewal and interest in life. She pushed me to the vector of the direction so much needed by me.
After the conversation the images of towns and villages lined up in rough concentric circles and radial roads, deep rivers and bridges of strange structures, while driving home along the well-known roads of the city rushed inside my head. On the waysides I noticed cooing birds and hissing snakes, bright saris with contrasting patterns and faces with red dots on the forehead, ornamented elephants and stone bulls, conical taqiyahs and colorful turbans, motley carpets and camel’s humps. And with all the abundance of unfamiliar images, harmony followed, my path was determined. Lucia became the catalyst for the process long neglected inside me.
That night I did not sleep well. Thoughts swarmed like bees on a field with a sweet clover. Images preferred to remain vague. Moonlight streamed into the room. It beat me in the face and seeped right into my visions. How could I forget to close the curtains? I went to curtain the window and found myself transparent in the moonlight, whereas, in the reflection of the window, I was with flesh, exchanging places with a ghost of myself. And one mirage obscured another. Fading, I sank into my own dream, into my other world, trying to become less and less, like Alice, hoping eventually to completely disappear here and appear there. I closed my eyes andclimbed under the blanket on the autopilot, trying not to frighten off the mirage.
I woke up, as if I had emerged from an oblivion, where it was so good, with full confidence in the plans of action. Only the delicate scent of the jungle with the rich aroma of exotic spices (coriander, cinnamon, turmeric, cloves) did not leave me, although I did not yet know how they smelled, but there was this self-created olfactory power. The real world disappeared, as if dissolved, and the beauty of the moment of the world of dreams, which had not yet been forgotten and from which I did not want to come out, forced me to hold my breath, so as not to frighten it away. I turned to my faith.
Everything disappeared as soon as the phone rang, which brought me back to reality. But now my everyday life of ceased to seem insignificant. Conversation over the phone, pronounced names, events in the conversation became an empty sound. The people around me began to talk and move with some kind of mutual disdain, possessed by oppressive silence. The process of washing with icy tap water turned into ablution.
I would prefer to be entangled in a sequence of awakenings and dreams, to perceive them not as two forms of existence, not as two contradictions, but as states constantly flowing into each other and creating a relentless series of magical sensations.
Go to bed with a dream, wake up with an aim. You never know where exactly you are going, only – where you hope to come. “When you are doing something, do it now. Otherwise you ll never do it.” – Goethe voice whispered in my ears.
Oscar Wilde wrote: “Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful.”
And Leonardo da Vinci specially smudged the space, creating riddling images in which there are no exact forms, and we must think them over. I made myself an interesting proposal or rather challenged myself to a duel.
Leonardo da Vinci outpaced not only science, far ahead of his time, but time itself. Living in the XVI century, he talked already about “life air”, and 300 years later, Lavoisier discovered oxygen. He built a glider model, and in 400 years aviation was beginning to develop. Leonardo himself was borne of Catarina, a young and merry beauty, in a peasant hut in Florence. His mother dies, and he lands as an illegitimate son to his father’s house, the notary Piero da Vinci. He is taught reading, writing, arithmetic, Latin and music. But the best he can do is drawing and modeling. Already at the age of 20 he was proclaimed a master. Art for him was always a science. He traced the correlation of painting with anatomy, optics, physics and mathematics. The world for him was a giant laboratory. He drew knowledge from dreams. I felt the connection of times and worlds, my angle of vision changed, freed myself from the long-drawn down attachments and immersed myself into joyful world of my dreams. Irritation was replaced by gratitude for the end of already travelled path. A new era was beginning.
In my country, at the higher Faculties of Humanities, we are taught knowledge of the history of cultures starting from antiquity. I also wanted to start with the Indian jungle. From the oldest Vedas. Throughout life, all the signs indicated to me my personal direction. So, in France, the artist Paul Gauguin fled from Europe to the island of Tahiti in his search of “primitive paradise”. Many thinkers saw the path to the spiritual renewal of life in the return to nature. Leo Tolstoy called for “interrogation”. American transcendentalists R. W. Emerson, G. Toro, T. Parker linked their spiritual quest with nature. Jean Jacques Rousseau contrasted nature with society, the conflict of “naturalness” of the natural state with the “unnatural” culture and civilization. And Mahatma Gandhi made a domestic spinning wheel – a symbol of salvation from “Machinism”.
I was certain that I will find my India in myself whenever I want. I read the signs of my own parallel world, dreams and fantasies that took on a clear form. My Abu waited there for me, the time has come. Away from vain suffering, tension, fatigue.
I’m coming to you, my angel. You are waiting for me, and I even know how you look, but I feel you! In my imagination it was my Leonardo – the ancient physique of a participant in contests and tournaments, an excellent swimmer, jester, narrator, orator, a gracious Knight, dancer, singer, thinker. Such people appear on Earth no more than once in a thousand years. What do I expect, in my short life? So, I not only supported the intrigue and interest in alluring obscurity, but finally opened these astral gates for myself. I started writing my book of life.
Leaving the cinema, I left behind the static repetitive frames, despite the everyday vanity of being. Before me, at last, a full panorama unraveled. I ceased to be interesting audience of others, they failed to evoke any further emotions in me. I was done with “creating” for someone, it was time to create myself.
I was tired of the nightmarish dreams of reality, where I’m pushed onto the stage, when I do not know what to do there, what to say, without knowing the role, and the public is waiting, full hall of people, gazing and craving for artificial spectacles. When the basis of all religions, Vedic truth
(derived from the words: to know, to tell, to explore) is replaced by film feed, I needed to wash my heart, and not tear my breasts in front of the crowd.
What is it? Is it consciousness and wisdom? Or emptiness and self-esteem? There is no difference. My eyes are wide open, I see some visions. Visions turned into reality: I go to the ramp of the plane with a friend Polina at the small military airport of Goa – Dabolim. Polina, out of breath with the first breaths of tropical air, looks unhappy, and I, taking the first step, is pulled into the whirlpool of delight: “I’m home”.
I flew to the desired formula: one plus one equals one. Unity.
Life does not always give you what you want. But if you look closely, you will see that it gives what is needed for growth. The main rule of reality is not to get lost in your illusions.
3 – MY GOA
Everything that has to happen will happen. At the right time. At the right place. With the right people. Everything that you relay to the world inevitably comes back. Louise Hay.
Checked by me personally.
The ultimate purpose of progressive human development is the complete mastery of the mind over the material world. Intuition is something which transcends knowledge. N. Tesla
I have never been so drawn to anything else. Nowhere for me was there as much interesting and unknown as in India. Every day is full of surprises and impressions. And this is without going to theater or cinema, there is no need to artificially seek emotions. Everything is there and appears continuously and on time. You should make the choice only if you can really fulfill it or just let it go, but what is beyond the power of thought or imagination – should be accepted as it is. And you have to awaken your dried flowers of spiritual joy, just watering them with good emotions and kind words.
Personally, for me, India revealed its rich spectrum of senses, which allows nerve cells on an unconscious level to experience the truth, even when it is not yet accessible to definitions and conclusions. I began to realize my own delusions and limitations through intuitive enlightenment. Intuition is something that’s impossible to learn. All our shortcomings and virtues are inseparable in us, this is the essence of everyone. But what echoes in the soul and that will resonate, depends on the fullness of the person himself. India just unveils us.
I had never experienced exercising freedom in full confidence to achieve what I desired. This was the first decisive challenge to me – to start learning English from scratch at the age of 40, to change the way of life and even the country. I started living as if I would never be as young as at the moment, today and now. I was not afraid of love, although I already knew that it could throw many surprises. Maturity was dawning, and I was already an “experienced lady”. Why run away from the past, if thanks to it I had become wiser and could use it in the future.
Goa, India. Presentiments did not deceive me, considering the decor of the small military airport at Dabolim, crammed with people arriving in a full Boeing. Under the lop-eared fans instead of air conditioners the crowd chaotically moved in a close flow. My friend Polia, ostentatious blonde with a nice figure, snorted and announced her demands. She needed to visit the toilet, to get out of her warm clothes, change shoes, drink something cold – and all this had to happen immediately, or she was ready to go back to Russia from the airport itself.
My motivations were different from hers. I came to India not just for vacation like her, but to live, not to seek love, but to love. My inner voice confirmed that it was here that sweeping changes awaited me, and mysticism began. The magic of the parallelism of the world embraced me and caressed me. The tropical smell of Goan air satiated my lungs and transmitted signals to the brain to breathe deeper. This is like get away from the frosty street to land in the warm foyer of the theater expecting a good performance.
After all the necessary formalities, everyone boarded the bus and set off. The usher was broadcasting something on the microphone. Few people listened to him, I did not sleep, like many, but did not listen. Delight of anticipation took my breath away. It was bright. I looked out the window. Polina slept next to me on the seat.
The traffic is left-sided, and I, out of the habit of a Russian motorist, looked out the road signs on the right and did not find them. The billboards dazzled with English letters and white people. On the road, the situation changed every second, surprises on the road were lurking from all the sides. Calming imperturbability of the driver testified to his high professionalism. On the roads, motorcycles outnumbered the cars. The average speed is 40 km / h.
Colonial architecture of houses, white crosses in courtyards or strange square flower beds with a lonely bush. I found out later, that from these signs at the entrance you can learn about the religion of the owners.
School-going children standing along the roadside in the similiar uniforms, girls with bows inpigtails, as in my childhood. Women in contrasting patterned multi-colored saris and long
light scarves. Everyone was smiling at me, caressing my eyes, with a kind of long-forgotten tenderness.
The pictures quickly changed, and I tried to even blink less often, so as not to miss the frames of the first acquaintance with the magnificent moments of the lingering dream.
Here was a man in a vest with a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth and white patches of paste on his swarthy skin explaining the way to someone. Not far away, the other at the same time across the road was urinating, not hiding and not embarrassed by anyone. “Poor thing”, – I thought, feeling sorry for him, – “quite ill, perhaps, he had to go before everyone”.
Someone from the window of a car, overtaking and clipping our bus, threw empty tin cans and a plastic bottle on the roadside. “Idiots are here, too”, – I muttered. “Black and yellow rickshaws, I’ll have to ride”, – I decided.
Here some Indian man was spitting red-orange liquid on the road. “Perhaps drank too much, and now vomiting, he’s not well”, – I sympathized.
Here a whole bunch of women was carrying loads on their heads, and rags strapped over their shoulders with naked and dirty children in them. “So, there are a lot of gypsies here”, – I observed.
And in the middle of the road there were cows with camel hump. “What strange things, – I observed carefully, – that’s why they are sacred here, maybe they have special milk”, – I thought.
And there was this dog, lying right on the sideway, and everyone was going around it. “Silly dog, someone may tread on you”, – I frowned.
And here was a wide, full-flowing river with two bridges over it, and cars were scurrying along each of them. “Wow! What a beauty, – I thought, – it’s strange, why do they need two parallel motor-bridges and with two-way traffic? “– I was surprised.
Fanciful temples, colorful houses, people and animals flashed before my eyes at the speed of the advertising clip. The sounds of horns, the smells of fish and spices – everything turned my head, and I looked up and started looking at the sky.
A clear, bright November sky, without a single cloud, blinding with the light of the endless space. Suddenly a huge eagle with a wing span of not less than one meter flies into my picture! Oh, prince of the forces of air! We caught sight of each other, exchanged places, and I did not descend from heaven anymore. As though he was specifically sent to me by someone: he flew in circles in front of my eyes, without leaving my sight. He infused a feeling of real freedom into me, encouraging confidence and soaring over all this mundane life. I began to see through his eyes, I became a bird in human form. I understood that in India you need to look at the sky, not to the ground.
The morning dawned as quickly as my hopes. A silver thread of light flashed from the sun, connecting my soul with the body.
It was early in the morning, but the streets were crowded, roadside barbers were already working, they were sweeping and watering near tented camps. “So, we have entered the tourist zone”, – I realized.
All were going, walking, standing, talking, crawling and jumping on the same road, there were no sidewalks. “Dangerous”, – I remembered.
Nearby lay unburnt garbage and ash on the red ground. “What is this red color on the ground, does it become like this after fire?” – I asked myself.
Here, right in front of the bus, a few multicolored piglets ran across the road following their well-fed mother. This animated me so much that I wanted to show them to Polina, but she was still asleep.
Shabby old buses, carrying dark-skinned people and heads protruding from open windows and staring at us with plain curiosity and a smile, rushed past us.
And the children, in chorus, waved their hands at us, smiled and shouted “Hi”. Some perplexed tourists did not know how to react: someone timidly tried to repeat the movement of the hands of children and shout “Hello”, only a pitiful and tired smile came out. And some stared through the window with growing irritation and horror in the eyes. Indeed, beauty lies in the eyes of the
beholder. Candolim, Calangute, Baga – areas of North Goa flashed outside the window. We had arrived.
Our world is a magical and inspiring place. It is enough to believe in it. Instincts did not disappoint me: here, among the exotic sounds and smells, the novelty of the sensations, my “I” showed an amazing response – it immediately acquired a confident sense of direction. So, we settled down.
The only thing that turned out to be difficult for me to adapt to Goa was to have relentless prime-time coverage with the audience and listeners of your individuality. Everything and just everything in real and it does not end with the long-awaited “pack-up” call of the film director. There are no secluded places, nowhere to withdraw, there is no private space either. There are no
distinctions between the stage and the audience. Knowing that India is an overpopulated country, and that there are only 7 women for 10 men, I began to understand the wild need of women among the male population. But for me, there were quite enough of the obvious signs of my real desired existence here, without their heightened intrusion. “Calm down!” – I demanded of myself.
In no other country I have experienced such emotions, nothing like that, it was the first time. Brodsky had said: “Every new aesthetic reality makes one’s experience even more private”. Polina found the environment as punishment by exile, and I landed into my fairy tale. I had already had the experience of traveling with her, a brief tour covering all the cities of Morocco.
Fez, where a Muslim without flinching changed his wife for a camel, and our guide said that this was the order of things, as she herself was to blame – either she was of loose morals or barren. Marrakesh with snake charmers in the central city square. Casablanca with a mosque, where even women are let in for the sake of tourism. Agadir, where I drowned my favorite sunglasses, and where we drank sweet hot tea, that is poured into a small glass from a teapot raised high to form froth. Where we met with two greedy young and beautiful vagabond Arabs who wanted to fuck us and use our money, they spoke three languages, since it is a former French colony. In general, the trip was informative, but the desire to return again had not arisen.
The road from the hotel to the beach went through a dump to a human growth. Here it had its own hierarchy, a caste system of fauna. Some of the cows were with unnaturally bloated bellies, drooling and dirty, but not aggressive. They were silently, orderly and diligently chewing everything that could be chewed. Plastic bags, paper from pies and even foil. In the bushes a pack of dogs lay, lazily waiting for their turn for breakfast, left over after the cows. Above on the trees crows were drooling appetizingly. Polina experienced a cultural shock from everything that was happening:
– Where on earth are we?! This is a medieval Russian village among palm trees!
– Not just the palms, look, the Indian tamarind. Evergreen, a family of legumes. Tropical tree. We do not have such, – I tried to distract her from irritating thoughts, but she did not yield:
– Not only that, we have to live three weeks in this shed with cold water, without air conditioning, with shabby furniture, two hangers for two, with pipes from the wall in the toilet, plastic jugs, with candles instead of electricity. And to add, breakfast means toast with tea and jam from a plastic matchbox, or even less! And if that’s not enough, there are ants and flying cockroaches in our hut! And to the beach you have to make your way through garbage landfill stinking of cows and dogs. Some ghetto! Where have you dragged me? I’m even afraid to imagine what awaits us at the sea…
– Polinochka, do not exaggerate. Look around! Trust me. This is the hegemony of natural laws. And we together have a chance to continue smoothening our rough edges of compatibility. Believe me, we will turn all our holiday fantasies into reality, – I convinced my friend.
But I was already thinking that people who have nothing in common with each other, are forced to mingle because of the circumstances, and I felt some incompatibility in myself. I had neglected Hemingway’s advice for nothing: “Never travel with someone you do not like”. No, my attitude did not change towards Polina, but I could not call her my close friend. However, her company was better for me than being alone, and I did not have any choice. In a word, Polia unlike me, was not fascinated by Goa, but rather disappointed:
– Yeah, it’s better to jostle in the metro subways. It’s better to be in a fucking frosty Moscow under the cover of a gray sky with smog and without the sun more than three weeks in this God-forsaken stinking international resort, – she ascertained sarcastically. The paths intertwined around us, twisting like snakes. We reached the beach in anticipation of each of its own seas.
The beach was strewn with pieces of paper, bottles, cigarette butts, and further – a clean caressing morning sea and a bright sun on a cloudless sky. The water was warm and pleasant, calm. But Polia could not swim, like Indians.
Next to her, a whole family was kneeling in the water, dark-skinned people in clothes. Two men, holding hands, were jumping joyously through the crests of small waves, smiling under mustache, shaking with no longer small age-bellies and flashing their bald spot. Adult uncles were building sand castles from wet sand. Some boys were playing cricket.
Out of all the seasonal beach structures, thousands of black eyes were looking at us, and the barkers were running across the sand and each offering their place and a sunbed under the umbrella, each one touting his business in broken Russian. We did not speak English at all, and random words like “hello, look, small business, here -here, later” did not have any effect.
As soon as we had settled, the process of processing customers immediately started. Couldn’t wait to rest from the very first minute. Those very same black eyes followed us since we first appeared on the beach. And the whiter the color of your skin, the more chance is there to divide you into the maximum purchase amount. A fresh guest, who has not yet become a tourist, is the most lucrative target for getting separated from his money.
“I’ve erected myself a monument made without (human) hands. To it, the people’s path cannot be overgrown”, – Pushkin came to my mind. But on the Baga beach pretending to be a monument seems a useless occupation. The first one was a lady with costume jewelry, pestering like a leech. We bought anklets. But it had the opposite effect: instead of leaving us alone, as we decided to buy from her, her desire to sell something else became even more active. The lady began to obtrusively urge us to go see her little nearby shop of her brother – we must help, business was in bad condition, and if we buy now, we will help not only her, but her children and her family.
Next came the traders, right on schedule like the metro: sellers of bookletswith a map of Goa in different languages; discs with Bollywood music and track of “Jimmy Jimmy Aaja”; corn hawkers; ladies with baskets and fruit on their heads; drum sellers with drums hanging on them and beating rhythms in front of you.
Then it was the turn completely unexpected services: ears cleaners; ladies with threads, offering you instant depilation right on the beach; masseurs of any parts of the body or the whole body.
Next, the guys with mountain like hairdo, shaking different sized bed-sheets of Indian gods. Boys with metal-bucket selling masala tea in tiny disposable cups. Sellers of figurines made of stone, wood, glass, plastic, metal; tattoo-masters with catalogs of designs; girls in sari with henna tubes offering mehndi.
“Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys’ house…” L. Tolstoy
As soon as one was sent off, the next ones came to replace them: “Ma’am-ma’am, look”. Neither the closed eyes, nor the disregard, nor the shouts of “no-no” – absolutely nothing helped. There were even roving acrobats with performances evoking pity. Everything happened compulsively, unceremoniously and, most importantly, without break.
Even in Indian cinemas there is an intermission, but not on the beach. I have never seen such a thing and never got tired of being surprised. Polina was irritated to the limit and did not want to stay at the beach for a minute. And we moved to the pool of our hotel.
I had to adjust and compensate her in everything. Besides, she was very limited in means, and I helped her not to be frugal on vacation. But everyone has different understanding of leisure. I so much wanted to see everything possible in this amazing country, to learn a new world, culture, religion, customs, rituals, people’s way of life, attitude to life and death. But, alas – I could not impose my interests for a simple reason – I paid for all the entertainments, I was also the initiator of the trip. I had to pay for Polina. Clubs, hangouts, parties, restaurants, discos, revelry are not interchangeable with something else, but with each other. We tasted and become addicted to quite popular and cheap rum “The Old Monk”. Sometimes it would hit me, and I would remember my intentions, saying :
“Despite some personal discomfort, we are already here in Goa, and let’s not just find the minuses in our abode, but also the blessing. It’s a privilege for me to be here. Let’s go somewhere”. Polia replied categorically: “Was the bus ride across the country to Morocco not enough for you? Relax”. And we continued to hang out. And explored the state on our own in local buses.
The independence of judgments is the privilege of a few. The rest are led by authority and example. I tried to be calm about everything, as I already knew that time will put everything in its place. I’ve had enough of examples around me in my 40 years, and I did not want to follow any of them. I was looking for myself, I was looking for my Way. In this atomic age, with its secret fears, man seeks guidance.
“Consciously or unconsciously, we are searching for God” Carl Jung.
In India, thanks to the tolerance to faiths in the country, there are millions of Gods. Representatives of all confessions of the world coexist together. But Goa is a predominantly Catholic state, since the Portuguese brought and forcibly imposed Christianity.
We got to Old Goa. The mass of parishioners in the church was the first thing that struck me in Goa. Crowds of dark-skinned people flashily appearing in bright satin shirts and dresses, branded shoes, carrying shiny bags and haughtily marching along the dusty roads cutting through the resting cows and the chaotic movement of everything that can move. Mario Miranda, a local cartoonist, became the most popular for the accuracy of the displayed farce. Even without comments.
To my surprise, Goa turned out to be an Asian Vatican, the center of Catholicism throughout Asia.
But in the churches, garlands of fresh orange flowers were hanging on the statues of saints and near the entrance you can see dozens of pairs of slippers lined up by pure memory, Indians tourists, entering any temple, take off their shoes or footwear, be it Hindu temple, Sikh gurudwara or Muslim mosque and, according to their usual customs, go inside barefoot. Therefore, there is synthesis of religions at every step. Despite the pathos and the endeavor of the Goans to look Christians, they are more like Mario Miranda’s parody of believers, masquerades, clowns. The fragile Christian traditions of 451 years of colonization, imbibed historical Vedic roots.
