Shakespeare in India

The want of a market led us to a wiry thread of clinking buses that wove themselves through a tapestry of bending backstreets. Colva to Margao, Margao to Panjib, Panjib to Mapusa, and Marpusa to Ajuna, a town hailed for its beauty, rich with vibrant Goan flavours and a flea market of untold treasures. Several hours of bumps and screeching metal left us famished and with the restaurant at the guesthouse deserted we scoured the path to the beach and came to a 'T' in the road. "When in doubt, turn left" came the memory of an old quip and we obeyed with a cheeky footstep.

They sky was grey as it had been since we arrived and it mirrored the sand underneath our feet, dark and textured, stained with decay. The wind jolted and shook, and then hung for a spontaneous moment before shifting back to its awkward, blustering dance.

The light, which was on the cusp of beginning its daily withdrawals presented shack after shack adorned in the hand painted murals of beer and soft drink logos, but as each was reached and investigated, they yielded no more than huts wrapped up in tarps and the dead leaves of palms. On we walked with the turbulent, sandy waves of a beach disturbed, invading our shrinking walkway. With a unique blend of ignorance, hope and stubborn hunger we worked our way through several bays littered with refuse until the only path left was an impossible cement staircase away from the churning yellow sea. Further we walked under our deranged logic, finding barely a soul lingering in this ghostly grey paradise reminiscent of Luhrman's Verona in its own state of impending doom.

As the sun grew exhausted and surrendered to gravity behind our earthly shroud, the remaining tones of colour drained from all matter. Tree and rock, fence and building were all robbed of their essence and was replaced by a surreal arrangement of props fit for use in a black and white horror film.

Then it began to rain.

Our hunger had temporarily blinded us from the now obvious inevitability of such a thing and within seconds the most intimate of body curves were subject to the monsoon as we did an about face and squelched our way back. There is a point of saturation where you stop caring and accept that there is no dry spot to savor and nothing to hide from the penetrating deluge. But I discovered there is another point even beyond this where acceptance and resolve is dissolved into consuming irritation and with a glance of mutual but undirected annoyance we lifted our feet and ran blind down foreign and distorted paths to the place that we would tonight call home.