The socialist poet and the casual conservative

Rahul’s friend is called Nirm, he’s an ex-college classmate who now teaches in Goa, and tonight he made time to join us. He has thick black eyebrows and a full beard, not the beard of a Sikh or a Muslim or a Hindu ascetic, it’s the neatly trimmed beard of a modern young man who cares about it, and it includes a mustache with curled ends. The close-cropped hair is unusually short, and the features look more from Maghreb than India. He comes from Tripura, a small state in the Northeast. Nirm convinced Rahul to give up our canteen for one meal and take us to a restaurant on the way to town. We let him choose the dishes, and also at his suggestion, we ordered four feni, a local cashew brandy. He mixes the translucent drink in a tall glass with soda, lemon, salt and sugar. We want to try it pure first.

During dinner Rahul complains again about the pressure to get married, he is about to give in. Nirm questions him, not letting him finish to justify himself:

“You, Rahul? You’re going to let someone else arrange your marriage? After all the conversations we had?”

“I don’t know, my mother and my aunts are putting a lot of pressure, they showed me the profiles of several girls. I keep trying to put it off, I told them I have to focus on my thesis first, and getting a job, but they say I’ve waited too long.”

“So you’re really going to let them hook you up with a girl you don’t know? Where is your romanticism, Rahul? Where is it?”

“We’re in India, I have to get married.”

“Tell them you don’t need help, you’re going to find a girl by yourself.”

“I already told them that. My aunt says that if I haven’t found a girl in Amsterdam I won’t find one in India. And she’s right, how am I going to get a girlfriend in Jharkhand, the most backward state in India? No girl is going on a date with me.”

“Then come to Goa, I told you before. There are many foreigners here, booze is cheap and there is no pollution like in Mumbai.”

“It’s true, it hardly looks like India” replies Rahul, dropping the rest of the crab curry on top of the rice on his plate.

“The beaches are not Goa” says Nirm. “Goa isn’t like this everywhere, it’s still India.”

“Where is your university?” asks Sara.

“Inland, in the jungle. But Goa is small, nothing is too far and everything is more relaxed. You should apply to work here Rahul.”

“I’ll do it, but I’ll still have my family trying to get me married.”

“So what? Ignore them, make your own decisions.” Nirm puts down his cutlery and recites in a solemn voice: “So I wait for you like a lonely house till you will see me and live in me. Till then my windows ache.”

“What is that?” asks Sara, delighted.

“Pablo Neruda.”

Rahul makes fun of him: “He studied in Chile and thinks it’s very hip to quote Neruda.”

“It’s beautiful” says Sara.

Nirm insists: “You can’t let someone arrange a marriage for you just because you haven’t found anyone yet, you have to let love happen.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s easy for you to say, your family isn’t pressuring you to get married.”

“But Amsterdam… You used to talk about a lot of girls.”

“Yes, Rahul was a ladies’ man” says Sara. “He had women friends from all over the world, Netherlands, South Korea, Philippines, Russia, Swaziland, El Salvador…”

Rahul stifles a nervous laugh with a swig of feni.

“I remember one in particular you were infatuated with…” says Nirm. “She had a funny name, I can’t remember…”

“No, no, no” rushes Rahul to interrupt him, “you’re mixing everything. There were a lot of girls, just friends…”

“I think she was from Asia, Chinese or Vietnamese maybe…”

“No Nirm, please…” I’ve never seen Rahul so embarrassed.

“Korean?” risks Sara.

“I’m not sure,” says Nirm, trying to remember. “I saw her picture once… she could have been Korean…”

“Please, hahaha, they know her…” begs Rahul.

“It has to be Hae-wun!” says Sara. “Oh Rahul! You and her would look so good together!”

“Hae-wun… yes” says Nirm. “At one point you were very interested in her, she was even the wallpaper on your laptop, Rahul.”

“No, that was just a joke! I like having beautiful women as my wallpaper, Hae‑wun was just a good friend.”

“You even talked about asking her to marry you. What happened to her?”

“Nothing. Nothing happened, she’s still in Amsterdam, she’s a very independent girl.”

“So you give up? Are you going to let your family choose your wife?”

“How is it in Tripura?” asks Sara. “You also have arranged marriages?”

Nirm suspends a fork full of sarapatel in the air again. “No, we believe in Love. You should go to the Northeast, we’re more like people in the West. Boys and girls walk hand in hand on the street, and even in the way we dress, the music we listen.”

“Yes, we want to go!”

“I told you” says Rahul. “These tribals have it all, quotas for the best jobs and love marriages. And they say they’re underprivileged hahaha!”

“Oh Rahul, one day I will see you with the brahmins protesting against the reservation system” says Nirm.

“No. But that’s why India progresses so slowly, some of the best ones are left out because of this stupid rule.”

“There are many kinds of progress” says Nirm in an instructive tone. He puts his fork down on his plate, giving up eating for the time being, as if trying to focus his attention and patience on the exchange of ideas that is coming. “India doesn’t just need economic and technological progress, it needs social progress above all.”

“The thing now is that it’s almost impossible for a brahmin to get a good position,” proceeds Randhir, without listening. “So of course they protest, and now they resent the lower castes too, the communities are turning even more against each other.”

“The reservation system tries to balance things out. It may not be perfect for everyone, but there has to be something to balance the inequalities…”

“We have democracy. Democracy is the equalizer, everyone on an equal footing competing with the same rules, and may the best win.”

The retort annoys me. “Come on Rahul! You know that’s not true! Not everyone has the same kind of opportunities and education and so on. For centuries the Brahmins were privileged and the others marginalized.”

“But there are Brahmins who are now poor and cannot get a good job to help their families. And if you’re dalit, you don’t have to be brilliant to do it, even if you come from a wealthy family and have had access to the best schools.”

“That is only possible because the reservation system has allowed some people from the lower castes to rise in life” explains Nirm. “It’s positive discrimination, otherwise nothing would change or it would get worse. The most powerful communities protect their own and become more powerful, the weaker even weaker. It’s a basic social mechanism, you should know.”

“Maybe, maybe it made sense fifty years ago.”

“The problem is still not resolved, is it?” asks Nirm. “You grew up in a very particular community Rahul, sometimes you forget that this is how it is. It still happens today, and not just in the villages. Even in our Institute, some Brahmins did not mix with the lower castes, you remember.”

“Why does anyone even have to know your caste? Some people even changed their names so no one could guess their castes, but officially you have to say it and everyone ended up knowing what quota you entered in, in the end everyone knew. This just makes caste identities more solid.”

“Everything OK?” asks the employee who comes to clear the table, interrupting the discussion.

“Wonderful!” says Sara.

The restaurant is almost empty and we are the only foreigners. It took us a long time to drink the feni, it’s strong and very fragrant, and Nirm’s mixture doesn’t do much to mask the taste. Then we moved on to beer. Rahul and Nirm have a lot to talk about. Between the memories of university days, the stories of professors and colleagues and what is made of them, they talk more about politics, that we can’t always follow. They take every opportunity to exchange good-natured blows. Nirm is a left-wing progressive, with a lot of reading; Rahul is more conservative in some matters, and though he is not lacking in study and intellect, his opinions are more instinctive. Among other puns, Rahul jokes that Muslim student dorms at the university were always the dirtiest.

“I see you’ve really become a Hindu nationalist,” Nirm snaps. “You never tricked me, you Modi lover.”

“Yes, I voted for Modi! And he’s doing a good job.”

“A good job? He’s a fascist!”

“See?” says Rahul to us, laughing. “I couldn’t live here. We were just going to get drunk and discuss politics and die like two bachelors!”

“And what’s wrong with that?” asks Nirm. “Isn’t that what you like to do? Why do you want to marry, Rahul? Don’t get married!”

“Shut up, you communist bastard. Do we take some beers outside to drink? I want to take whiskey to Jharkhand. Where can I buy cheap drinks?”

“You can buy it anywhere” says Nirm, and then explains to us: “Alcohol is the only thing more expensive in India than in Europe. Except in Goa, there are no taxes on alcohol here.”

Sara goes to our shack to get a big cloth that we spread on the beach’s sand. We sit talking and drinking the beers. That’s how we’ve spent the last nights with Rahul, there’s not much else to do. Hundreds of candles flicker on the tables of the restaurants. Some are pumping very loud music, British and American rock, reggae, psychedelic trance. All are empty.

A gray dog ​​with flayed strips on its back starts digging a hole and hits us with the sand. Rahul chases him away, but the mutt is not afraid, he keeps circling around us.

“Sara doesn’t like our national animal very much” says Rahul. “The stray dog.”

“I feel sorry for them…” says Sara. And it’s true that she is moved and ashamed to be disgusted with them, but it’s unpleasant to have a dog full of blisters, its fur falling in curls, panting beside us.

Nirm is used to it. “Ignore them, they won’t hurt you. Are you enjoying Goa?”

Sara has a hard time lying. “It’s good… I was hoping for something different.”

“Ah yes, expectations…” muses Nirm, mysteriously.

“In the photographs I saw, the sea was turquoise and transparent, and after all, it’s brown…”

“Yes, I’m sure they use Photoshop a lot to attract tourists” scoffs Rahul.

“…and it’s all built at random, and right on top of the sea…”

“Most of the construction is illegal” explains Nirm. “The state of Goa doesn’t issue many permits, so you can’t build anything permanent, in concrete. But when the high season comes, demand is too much and the state wants all the money from tourism, so they close their eyes and let people build these wooden huts. When low season comes the monsoon destroys most of them. And before the new peak they start to rebuild. If the damage isn’t too bad, they repair what was left of the previous year, otherwise it’s easier to start from scratch somewhere else.”

“They rebuild every year?” asks Sara.

“Yeah.”

“I thought there was going to be more nightlife,” I say.

“You want to party?” asks Nirm.

“No, not really, I was just curious to see the famous Goa parties.”

“You came too soon. In two or three weeks it will be overcrowded. And the government is on top of the parties, because of drugs, now most of them are clandestine, you have to know the places. Perhaps in Anjuna, there is always more going on there. And there are the clubs in Baga… I personally like the beaches in South Goa more, they are quieter. I like Palolem.”

“We could go to Palolem!” says Sara.

“We can move tomorrow” says Rahul. “Are you going to stay Nirm? You can sleep in my room.”

“No, I have to call a taxi, I work tomorrow morning.”

Perpetual Motion is a serial novel. Go to the Table of Contents to read previous posts.

Next: A spicy date turned sour