Transmission 2 – Royal Enfields & The Goan Sun

….I parked my bike outside, feeling proud of the ride, but grateful for some rest. My muscles were hardened and sore, after enduring miles of the worst roads. The hostel was average, with half finished artwork on the walls, a cafe outside, and a kitchen for longer staying guests who wanted to cook their own food. Purvasha greeted me in the sunlit lobby, and showed me a bunk. All the other beds had helmets on them, and I could see that I was among good company. All of them were riders from other parts of India as far as Bangalore. I ordered a pizza and black coffee at the cafe attached to the hostel, owned by a Portugese man, and his wife who came traveled to Goa eight years ago and never left. This seemed to be a theme in some others I had met, Goa keeps people for business, drugs or parties. I didn’t hold much interest in any of these, my purpose here held a more sentimental value. I ignited the Himalayan and rode off again, moving through cows in the streets, and the constant mill of traffic. A dirt road off to the right lead me to a grassy clearing,  where my eyes set on an entire field of bikes.

India’s Rider Mania is the largest assembly of Royal Enfield bikers in the world, all crammed into the small town of Vagator in Goa, on the shores of the Arabian sea. 10,000 engines, riders and their pillions travel from all parts of India to gather and celebrate the Royal Enfield culture, compete in dirt track races, trials courses, indulge, and throw a huge party. Before leaving Canada I registered my name on the rider list, stoking the motivation to secure a bike before the convention. An acute feeling of euphoria came over me as I put the kickstand down next to the army of Royal Enfields, then tried to remember where to find it when I came back. I wandered the event fields past processions of Hindu street riders, Himalayan adventurers, mechanics clubs, dealers, and vendors, even a few women in the saddle. I wandered between the dirt course circuit, the bike lot and the arena, as several young Indian man inquired of my country of origin. Some wanted selfies, and this made me feel awkward, like a celebrity, while others were simply thrilled to meet a Canadian riding their nations motorcycle with as much passion as they did.

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Once I had my fill of motorcycles and Indian pop music, I left the festival and headed for the Royal Enfield Cafe and service center to leave the bike in their care. I had wanted to visit the place since discovering them, their property also housed the Royal Enfield museum, and the guys in the shop were stocked full with riders bikes needing attention. I would be lucky to get mine in, and fixed in decent time, the whole ordeal would take two days, with an entire breakdown of the bill given beforehand. Such impressive service I thought, under the circumstances. The Enfields were built like a gun and rode like a bullet. I could now start to pick up their unique thumping sound by ear, I could tell the 350 classic or the 500 machismo, through the echo of the carburetors, or the gritty buzz of the Himalayan.

By now it was dark as I walked along the Baga river, a local picked me up, and carted me the way back to my guesthouse where I met Purvasha again, my new acquaintance from the Nagpur region of India. She spoke perfect English, and was rather poetic for her age, an artist at heart, and traveling on her own in Goa, something I admired. We walked to Vagator beach, to the far end of the sand, past the neon lights of the rave clubs to the quieter strands of beach, followed by my first baptism in the Arabian sea. A warm salty brine, foaming at the mouth, leaving random bits of flotsam on the shoreline, it was a hell of a lot cleaner than Juhu beach in Mumbai. A bull and a cow were scavenging in a rubbish heap, one of them had a badly overgrown toenail that had abscessed and was bleeding. We did what we could to coral them away from the glass and plastic into the vegetation above the beach, but it felt somewhat hopelessly optimistic. Cows are worshiped by the Hindu, and they are everywhere in the roads, though questionably as happy as in the fields or the beach.

I retired for the night, in my single bunk, as I have so many times before in foreign countries around the world, it was always the same, and always different. At the second day of the event, I watched teams of mechanics disassemble and reassemble parts of their bike in a tooling race that involved taking of the front and rear tire, and engine cable, then putting it back together and riding it across a line for scrutiny, which I found fascinating. I even entered one of the contests myself and carried a Himalayan in a straight course with three Indian guys from Bengalaru. We didn’t win, but we didn’t drop the bike either. The exhaustion of the ride caught up with me later, so I just vegged at the hostel, drinking glasses of masala chai, and sampling some raw cashew nuts that had recently been collected. I took the next day to create a short term itinerary for the week in Goa, toss myself about in the ocean, and try some new Indian food.

On Sunday, my bike was ready, so it was back to the garage cafe to pick it up, it was comparable to going on a blind date, and there was no disappointment on my side. I payed my 6000 rupees for the repairs, happy to see it free from the bondage of its bungee cords that held on the lights and windshield. She would ride tomorrow to Arambol, in the north of Goa.

There I stayed in a small thatched hut near the beach with Purvasha at a place called Alladdins. Arambol was filled with tourists, and the locals had hungry eyes, not at intense as Anjuna and Vagator, but these were fringe zones, where the mingling of the western and eastern worlds blended in a form of chaotic game. There was a tremendous hook-up energy among the younger folks, and I found that this triggered the parts of me that don’t like being alone, this made it feel quite estranged from the romancing crowds, thus I found myself longing for some sort of sensual encounter while staying here. I realized the connotations of my circumstances, and how unlikely it would be to form a deeper connection with a woman in these parts of Goa. Most were here from Europe or Russia on holiday, seeking hedonic escapism, party, with a few yogis peppered into the mix. I sat on the beach most hours watching the parade of life go by me; minimally dressed women with friends or partners, single men, children, dogs, cows, merchants, drug dealers, businessmen, snowbirds.

Occasionally I swam but found the saltiness of the water very dehydrating, and had to drink several liters of water each time to replenish my body. I watched a bull being treated by a farrier under a palm tree, which took seven full grown men to hold it down, and ropes around its feet to keep it from standing. As a farmer, I found this fascinating, having only seen this done with hydraulic hoists on cattle and horses. Some of the bulls were kept roped up in small tin sheds for fighting, involved in a betting network where amounts exceeding 1lakh rupee (100,000) were not rare.

I met with Ulrich who I met on the flight from Montreal, who had been coming to India since the 70’s, over thirty times. We ate the south Indian thali, veg biryani, dosas, fruit lassis, and a fish feast caught the same day by the local mariners. Seafood was the freshest here, and it was easy to eat cheap if you knew where to go, with the prices ranging between 100-300 rupees for a full meal.

I have always heard stories of strange babas and yogis in remote places or practicing curious habits living around India, and one afternoon I happened to meet one of these Babas. After walking for one hour along the coast, Arambol, Harmal and finally Kalacha beach, I reached a sweetwater lake, fed by fresh springs higher in the jungle. These were sand bluffs that leveled out a couple hundred feet above sea level into a kind of grassy mesa. Leading on a trail up from the fresh lake, one comes to a Mango tree, a few pools, and a giant Banyan tree, that no one knows the age of. Underneath the tree, the Baba lived, with a few local Goans, smoking chillum and welcoming guests. I felt an irresistible urge to climb the hanging arms of the banyan, a hundred feet high to look over the canopy of the jungle, feeling vigorous, strong and in my element.

Big Banyan

Wild Bliss

The last two nights brought a restless travel lust and a tinge of anxiety for my ride on to Pondicherry in Tamil Nadu. Purvasha and I seemed to be involved in some kind of karmic entanglement for a short moment of our lives, and I think we both mirrored each others doubts and fears. There was a kind of shadow and sickness in me, that I felt needed to be purged and healed from. I was sleeping well enough, but I had the overwhelming feeling that the true India had not revealed herself yet, and my past lives were affecting being here now. I carried with me a picture of Ram Dass, and that night listened to some of his words on the devotional tantra. It’s about giving it all to the Kali, the mother. All your experiences, bliss, vices, fears, insecurities, expectations, attachments, you just feed it all to her. So that’s what I needed to do…