Limitless World: From Rags to Riches

Juxtapose: To place or deal with close together for contrasting effect. Immediately after arriving in India, this word began to manifest itself in everything that met the eye. The strikingly bold crimsons, emeralds, turquoises and golds of women’s saris clash with the brown of dry, dusty, manure lined streets. The energetic, fast-paced cities like Delhi and Mumbai contrast with the tiny villages who still use ox-pulled carts for work in the fields. The alluring smells of fresh flowers, frying street food, and the spices that make India famous fight against the combination of sweaty bodies, rotting trash, and animal waste. Juxtaposition is dominate in India, but I didn’t realize it would become so apparent to me personally.

I have been living in Hunsur, one of those rural villages with one main road and not much to see or do outside of eat or use the internet cafe. Cows, pigs, goats, chickens, dogs, and cats run rampant through the trash filled streets and nothing less than pure mayhem exists during mid day when rickshaws and people are involved. We’ve been washing our clothes in buckets, using hoses for toilets, and eating some variety of rice or bread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We’ve lived in a cramped, dirty, cockroach hotel with an extremely fickle electrical system. I am describing this without the slightest hint of complaint or regret. On the contrary, these things have made my stay in India that much more adventurous. But I want to clearly establish an idea of my everyday reality so that you can better understand the dream world I entered into last weekend.

My friend Mariana is Portuguese and her parents happen to be acquainted with the Portuguese consul who lives in Goa, a small but beautiful state in western India. Portugal had control over this part of India for a couple hundred years, finally leaving in 1961, so there is a significant Portuguese influence in Goa, hence the need for a consul. He generously offered to let us stay in his house for however long we liked. As a traveler on a budget, a free place to crash is gold, so we were already ecstatic about our good luck. We had no idea what was in store.

Antonio, the consul, and his driver picked us up at the bus station after a grueling 16 hour bus ride (think run down school bus) and took us to his mansion on a hill overlooking Panaji, the capital city of Goa. He led us down the long hall and showed us the two rooms we would be staying in. We also had our own bathrooms, with real toilets, clean sinks, and hot showers. You have no idea what a treasure this is, but it doesn’t end there. We had servants, a butler, and a cook that made us breakfast and lunch. For dinner Antonio took us to the nicest restaurants in town, refusing our constant offers to pay for at least half. After we mentioned that we wanted to go to the beach, he took it upon himself to arrange a hotel for us in a small beach town, dinner at a restaurant his friend owns, and transportation to and from the town - all for free. I have never in my life been so dumbfounded and unable to express my gratitude. I have no idea how I stumbled on such good luck, but I can’t help but think about that frustratingly true maxim: it’s not what you know it’s who you know.

Arambol, the beach town we stayed in, can be summarized by this quote: “The sixties have never really come to an end. They’re still going on right now in Goa.” (Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides.) Hippies galore. Which also means fun hippy stores to shop in. We shopped, sun bathed, and soaked in the party atmosphere that Goa is famous for. Basically, our lives were the exact opposite of what we had been used to the last month. Juxtaposition is a beautiful thing.