Many Bodies. One Goal

Goa, where the fish are jumpin' and the feni is fine, entices all manner of foreign and desi visitors. For the locals, it means business ops aplenty, especially for those who think out-of-the-box. Take the young barefoot tourist orange-shirted guide who came up to us as we stood in line for cruise tickets. "You want good time in Goa? Nanga chokri log dekhna hai, uncle?" We laughed, shook our heads and moved on, still laughing.Later, at a palm fringed beach, as chance would have it, he was having better luck with some simple upcountry folks. We were swimming in the Arabian Sea. My little nieces were trying to float laughing, splashing, when one of them called out urgently. Was it another dolphin? 'Nah,' she giggled, indicating with her head two large alabaster-skinned women lying face down, topless and a dark thickly bespectacled gent hovering over them! The man, armed with an umbrella and a hitched up lungi, called out to his companions on the shore, "Naked women!" This resulted in a scramble from the 'mofussil' bus with orange-shirt trying to get some order.
The nieces, refusing to be distracted by their mother, giggled and laughed no end, until whisked away for lunch. As we made tracks on the burning sand, ahead of us scores of people oblivious to the scorching heat were having a blast in the deep bluish green waters. Floating tourist crowd mingled easily the local floating revellers many of whom were in billowy sarees tied the traditional Konkan way. A piercing banshee-like shriek from behind stopped us. The two ageing sunbathers had woken up. Startled and distraught, and wrapped loosely in beach towels, they were letting fly angry German and gesticulating wildly with their hands before wobbling off in the direction of the deluxe beach resort. Orange-shirt's lot merrily moved on. By the time we reached the car, there was more trouble. At the crowded end of the beach, one of the oversized women in nine-yards had the lad by the scruff of the neck. "We'll pull off your orange chaddi, you rascal", she screamed in Konkani. "What is the meaning of bringing all these dirty old men here, bewada!" Meanwhile, the men in lungis gleefully taking in the happening seemed to be having a whale of a time. One of them poked another with an umbrella, "Oye! Like the boy said, this is jolly good fun. Goa beaches simply too much hot!"