Lunch partaken, we made a quick dash for The Leela in Mobor (a beach in south Goa) where we would be staying. Now on most occasions when an auto journalist makes a dash for anywhere it’s because he’s running late for some planned activity. In our case, though, it was a case of our beds beckoning to us, for in Goa no weekend getaway is complete without your quota of daily siesta.
The evening saw us fresh and rejuvenated as we headed off for the capital city of Panaji with its Jewish quarters and the Miramar beach. Weaving through the evening traffic the realisation that we too are under the spell of the Goan susegad dawns on us as we find ourselves in no particular haste to get anywhere. By the time we reach the beach, the sun sits low on the horizon, making way for the twilight vanguard that signals the onset of the famed Goan night life. Soon enough the pubs in the city and in the various villages would make brisk business while money would fast change hands in the multitude of casinos that exist inside luxury liners tethered in the middle of the Mandovi river that flows along Panaji. Would we head to a pub or a casino that evening? Perhaps, we would, but right then we were content to stare into the open expanse of the Arabian Sea where the Mandovi merges into it, the coming darkness punctuated with the bright pinprick of the rotating beam from the lone lighthouse atop the cliff of the opposite bank.
