To move or to stand still
In the quiet neighborhood of Vasques guesthouse, many of the houses are well preserved, recently painted, the sidewalks are clear and clean, it’s pleasant to walk on the streets without being constantly harassed by the traffic. I rediscover with Sara the pleasure of being together and alone, enamored in idle exploration. Only perspiration makes our entwined hands detach, and between the long and indolent walks, we stop at the cafes. We walk along the river, and even the market seems cleaner and tidier, without destroying its colorful gradation, the fruits and vegetables piled up by colors, the flowers hanging in garlands, the fish in plastic baskets. High in the cloudless sky, birds of prey glide in circular flights. If we have strayed too far, we return on motorcycle-taxis, dodging the cars, peeking back to look for the other in the traffic, waving, trying to talk when we happen to be side by side. Whenever her driver speeds up Sara laughs, with a surge of fear and much more of delight. It’s an unbridled joy, overflowing, that never ends and is quenched in itself, it’s inclusive and generous, a feeling of communion that fills her with curiosity and interest in the people and the places.
“I could live here” she confides to me.
We could remain in Goa, Nirm enticed us with unknown beauties in the interior, the jungle, the spice plantations… When I went to India for the first time I had my trip planned day by day, with dates and places, one day here, two days there, three days there… Even then I felt that it shouldn’t be that way, but I needed a schedule to squeeze the most out of that time, although I resisted thinking it mattered that much to me. I was coming from a string of disappointments, though none too original. In many ways they were even predictable, the last growing pains: disenchantment with my first real job, disenchantment with first real love, disenchantment with my country. The move to Maputo, in Mozambique, had promised to fix it all, it was going to change everything, it had saved my parents from ruin, and it could save me in another way. The disappointment was quick, and when I returned to Portugal I felt even more lost. I had my moments of self-pity, I thought I had nothing to hold me in my country, I had no job, no love interest, we had lost the family home of my childhood and adolescence, my father was still in Mozambique, and many friends had emigrated as well. I didn’t want to stay and go back to the same life as before, but I also didn’t know if I still wanted to leave, and where to. I dreamed of going on a great trip, if only I had someone to go with me. And unexpectedly I did! I bought the tickets to Delhi in a fit of euphoria, before my friend Julia changed her mind.
Three years later, the pace and expectations have changed. Even though at home everything remains nearly the same, I am no longer so focused on my sorrows that I don’t see other good reasons to go back, or to be glad to have a place where I can always return to. The journey is now a less desperate urge, it’s a deliberate move. And yet, part of the motivation remains the same, the aversion to a comfort that numbs and stagnates. Or maybe it’s because it never gets comfortable enough: work gets tedious, home becomes a weight on our backs, the friends who gave us so much joy to see again disperse, get married, or slumber in the rush of days, the family gets older and demands to be enlarged, and to grow the family would be to become permanently moored. After a year of living abroad with Sara in Amsterdam, to settle in Portugal again was the certainty of finding it all again. That prospect no longer seems to me, as before, a bottomless abyss with no turning back, it’s something that we keep on postponing, a web whose threads we also weave, to which we give in or flee in turns, without ever escaping at all or having to remain forever entangled. But when I’m standing still, the petty squabbles and dissatisfactions, the stresses and expectations, the monotony, pile up, and even though I recognize them as insignificant, I feel myself giving way to them, slowly losing my mental sharpness. On the move, it’s difficult to carry so much baggage, and I’m forced to let go. I could do it without leaving if I had the wisdom to do so. Since I don’t, I have to use a trick, to sever the anchor.
I no longer expect the great revolutions that stubbornly populated my deeply buried hopes on the move to Maputo and the first trip to India. Maybe I am so bothered by the travelers who come looking for the mystical India, of exoticism and spiritual enlightenment, because even if I insisted on not being so, under a cloak of irony, I was a bit like them. And what exasperates me about these travellers is the same that does when Sara focuses only on the misery and squalor. For me, beyond those two extremes, India is mostly what lies in between, with all the permutations and contradictions, the India that gradually unravels and not the one that punches you in the face, the one of little moments and surprises, of chance encounters, of unexpected intimacies, and that is much more difficult to explain and to relay to others. And the experience is so full, so abundant with subtleties, that I feel unable to absorb it fully when carrying it alone, without someone to talk to, to compare it with, or just to digest it in silence with. That’s why it’s so urgent to me that Sara understands it. Not everyone would be able to, but she does, she just needs to get past the amazement of the first impressions, the best and the worst.
You need to have time, and a time that is not all taken up. On the first trip, my strict plan soon faltered due to unforeseen events that made us run around trying to make up for the lost time. And those moments that were impossible to plan, even the delays, some times resulted in revealing incidents. Little by little I gave in to the desire to stay longer in a place where we felt good, I began to take suggestions from people we met on the way… This time we have no plan at all, we have been invited to a wedding, another Indian friend we met in Amsterdam, but that’s still three months away. I’m the one who is getting impatient.
I don’t want to flutter from one destination to the next, covering kilometers, landscapes and monuments and checking points on the map; more than latitude or longitude, I’m looking for depth. I have no illusions of reaching the undergrounds, that would take even more time, I am content to reach somewhere in between, and for that it’s not enough to pass through or even stop somewhere. We face a colossus of many faces and limbs, alluring and terrifying, often impenetrable. With Sadhna and Rahul it was easy, with them we started from the inside. I fear that, alone, Sara and I are left slipping on the greasy, shiny layer on the surface, waiting for a chance to break through the armor. Or maybe we can trigger it. Besides escaping the larger enclaves of tourists, the predictability of air conditioners and fancy hotels, above all, we have to get involved.
On the way to Vasques guesthouse we bought a bar of soap. When we get to the room, Sara puts the dirty clothes in a bucket of water and starts scrubbing. She opens the window and spreads out the clothes on the windowsill. Then asks me to get out of the chair, I move over to the bed.
“I’ve been looking for places for us to volunteer” I say. “In Goa there are only hotels and restaurants.”
“That’s fine, I don’t mind” Sara says, balancing panties on the back of the chair. There are only a few free surfaces left on the room, I’ll wait for the next stop to do my laundry.
“If I’m going to work for free no one is going to make money on my account. I wanted a community project, a school, something like that. But I’m suspicious of those that ask you to pay to go there. There are places that don’t ask for anything and even give you bed and meals.”
“And have you found anything?”
“I’ve seen three, so far only one has replied. It’s on the coast, south of Goa.”
“And what is it?”
“It’s a recovery center for drug addicts and alcoholics” I say, already fearing resistance.
“Is that what you chose?! It must be so heavy… I don’t even know what I can do to help.” Sara is wary. I also feel a certain reluctance myself, and strangely enough that’s what attracts me the most.
“They ask for people to paint, to garden, to cook, to do workshops, yoga classes… They must be Russians, I talked to a Dimitri.”
Perpetual Motion is a serial novel. Go to the Table of Contents to read previous posts.
Next: A Russian enclave on the Indian jungle
