To Madkai:part three

The Navadurga temple was nearby.

It was a south-indian-style temple. Large pavilion and pillars. And few bells. And Bharat pointed, a pond, a must for such temples. 3-4 women were sitting in front and selling flowers, garland, coconut, et al. The one nearest to us, about 40 yrs, showed much interest in us. Leave your shoes and go in. There is a canteen. There is water to wash legs…We didnt share her enthusiasm, as we worried that she would insist on buying the worship material from them. And she asked where we have come from. Is a car waiting! We told ferry. She too became happy! We just showed indecision . She said open your shoes and go. I asked Bharat if we are sure we dont want to buy anything. He said yes. So we told we wont buy anything and just went forward. She said ok. She was too understanding. When we came out we asked in what language were they talking in themselves. It was not Konkani and Marathi(said I). Nor was it Tamil and Malayalam(so said Bharat). Nor was it Telgu. Nor could it be Kannada, B said, as it sounds like Telgu, and that we would have known. So we asked . She said-all languages, hindi, urdu, kannada. So Kannada. Later I hypothesized her too good understanding of our not buying anything. Maybe she thought we were Muslims, we carried a small couple-of-weeks-old-beard too.

Outside, we walked back towards the ferry place, on the road the man waiting for bus indicated. Just outside the temple were a few people. One with cream coloured kurta-payjama and saffron cloth tied on waist. Later we met many such people. All males, about, say, 60-70 in total, distributed. They must all be going somewhere, maybe Ponda, as there was an open mini-truck and some idol and a few people on it. Maybe this was for Holi. It was about 3 in the afternoon I guess.

We keep moving and soon find our old road. We sat and took a cold drink(a brand we hadnt known) on a shop which was now open. And then down to ferry stop.
No ferry was to be seen so we sat on a wall and waited. Some 10-15 people were on the other side of the wall, and drinking heavily. Shouting, brawling. Some white-skinned foreigners were on motor boats in the Zuari river. 3 passed while we were sitting. Every single time we found all of them looking our way. Our drinking brethren waved back to one of the boats. The people on boat wave back on us, say some 15 do and 5 dont. I didnt wave back, neither did Bharat if I remember correctly.

Two fishermen were arranging their net, putting it on a boat. Long net. The two worked on both sides continuously, without saying a word. Another anchored boat was lying nearby. I proposed to Bharat that we sit on that. He agreed, so we climbed down and asked the guy nearer to us if we can sit, and that we have to go by ferry. He said yes. Or maybe just nodded his head and produced some confirmative sounds. We sat on the boat and rocked. This was better than the ferry. We could touch water. A few minutes later, a ferry was coming, the person we talked to,(the older of the two), said, here is your ferry and it wont wait long. And he was right. It unloaded the some people, two cars, a few motorcycles, loaded a few people and a motorcycle and went back. Just in about 5 minutes. That, when we had waited for ages before starting from the other side. And as nobody complained then, we had supposed it was regular. We couldnt understand the reason for this asymmetry.

This is getting long so just a few more lines. After reaching Coartalim we took a bus to Chicalim. It was only about 4:30 pm so we decided to walk back from there. Some 6 kms. Reached back at about 6 pm. The next day I walked from Vasco to Chicalim. So afterall I did walk from Vasco to our place, which I wanted to do from some time now.

So was our adventure on Sunday, 4th March.

Consolidated Post on – To Madkai.