When a marketing consultant who can call the shots with a snap of her lovely fingers, ups and decides to relocate to Goa, you have to sit and up and wonder what it is about the place that is stealing all our friends away from Delhi. Getaway homes, retirement villas, beachside cottages, it was all right as long as they were a second, or third, or fourth home away from home, but relocating for work? Wasn't the whole idea of going to Goa to get away from work?
A small percentage of our friends don't have homes in Goa for which they make up by going and spending time with our other friends who do, calling themselves bonafide Goans because they know which chic restaurant serves tacky food and which shabby diner has the best fish in town. They have a Goa wardrobe that hangs permanently in these Goa homes - whether sprawling mansion, restored bungalow, humble cottage or studio apartment. They have "interesting" Goa friends who are famous, nearly famous, notoriously famous or once-were-famous - writers, photographers, actors, film-makers, architects, designers, musicians and artists - who no longer feel the need to come to the city, leading a sosegade life tending to their gardens and planning informal soirees, not touristy beach bonfires but intimate tête-à-têtes under the stars where they hang around "and actually talk".
Some start hobby professions, opening trendy boutiques, managing cafes, running art galleries. They develop estates for other friends, plan landscaping, teach meditation, practice yoga. Some do it forever, others up and leave the business but not Goa itself. They are there for the leisure, not the moolah. You'd think that they would starve for lack of company, but Goa attracts the international jet set, too, who come here incognito to bum on the beach or jam with newly-met friends. They collaborate on projects by the poolside, almost casually, away from pressure and the limelight. And now a very dear friend wants to up and leave behind a corporate career to rough it out in a kitchen as a cook. To serve up home-cooked meals and great booze instead of fake atmosphere and bogus food, to waitress and hostess herself, not because she's cheap but because it's "fun".
Won't she - don't they all - miss the swinging city life? "Delhi has no soul," gripes a friend. "The pressure in Mumbai is incredibly claustrophobic," another says. Goa is their nirvana, a place they can let their hair down and be themselves. They have its clear sky and the stars at night while we grapple with traffic and road rage. For every major event, or party, or celebration in Delhi, there's the triumph of watching a bud blossom, bringing in a fresh catch from the sea, reading a book in a verandah and falling asleep without the guilt of a missed appointment. Or working - if work they must - at their own pace, of having a siesta because everyone else does.
We don't have a Goa retreat of our own and don't plan on one any time soon. That's because my wife has it all laid out. She's tied up with our friends with whom she'll spend a week each serially - the cook first, then the artist, followed by the film-maker, then the photographer, unless the hotelier wants first dibs, in which case she might abandon the designer to hang out with the potter. "It's such hard work," she says of the great organisational effort, but its reward is Goa. So far, I haven't been invited.
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