And Then The Land Took Me In…

Nostalgia for me is also when I look back at my Goa phase of life, a phase which lasted the longest two weeks of my life.

I landed up at beach country to make a movie in a day. I had a single piece of paper with a single name on it for company. And then there was the huge backpack which my mother hated and two days worth of train lag (I did not get a reserved ticket and general people kept me company. Sleeping and then not, I was afraid for everything except the sheer joy of uncertainty)

Four thirty was an obscene hour to make my landing. I took the night flight on two wheels. Delicious night air sliced through my hair. I made planes with my hands. They lifted by themselves as cool air struck their base. I was flying, latching on for dear life to the person in charge of my life, but barely his.

I put a face to the man who existed on my dirty piece of paper the next day. What would a stranger do for another? Anything under the sun, provided the stranger is a Goan.

Coming to a land for the first time in your life (not counting the family trip you had eons ago) to make a movie is not what any sane men would do. Insanity showed me my way. Happiness that my father had allowed me to be in Goa led me on. Ticking away one obstacle after the other, the stranger showed my way.

I location hunted. The places found me. As to the actors, the stranger was always there. I wanted transport, he found me his Vespa scooter. I wanted a four wheeler for shoot day, he gave me the key to his black Gypsy without a second thought, with petrol filled to the brim.

I did not burst the time frame given to me and I fathered the movie on time. I gave birth to my imagination. My baby never won an ward, but it did win minds. It was never the best of the lot of 40, but it gifted me a few of my bosom pals.

In fourteen days, a land transformed me. Goa was the place of wine and sun and sand to me, but then it became the land that bore my baby.

It became to me, simply, the holy ground.