Terry has posted his collection of wedding photos on Flickr. Check them out - they’re great. Matthew
No sooner do I mention the links between Goa and my home county, Devon (soil, water, me) but Devon gets its own shipwreck. The MSC Napoli ran aground off Sidmouth last Thursday.
Last time we went to Goa, it took two flights and a stop in Bahrain. This time it was a nine-hour direct flight. On the one hand, this is quicker. On the other hand, it is moderately stressful for a man to be sandwiched between his wife and his mother for so long.
But the pain of the journey is redeemed by the warmth and beauty of the destination. All the hubbub of the airports made tranquil by the sound of the ocean and the songs of paradise birds. The view from our villa (see picture) is breathtaking. Above all, the inviting bed and the prospect of a long night’s sleep.
We slept for 12 hours straight and woke up just before noon. Lunchtime! We ordered up fruit, tea and - what I had been waiting for - masala dosas. These are like crisp pancakes with a thick potato curry filling and, in a separate dish, another curry sauce. Lovely.
The stranded oil tanker is still here (after eight years). Apparently, they are now making plans to recover it soon. The sea is filled with ships waiting to load up on iron ore, which is one of Goa’s main exports. Apparently, the Chinese are buying it in vast quantities. In England, we’ve virtually stopped making things and perhaps we don’t need so much.
One side-effect of the tanker is that the sand doesn’t move down the beach and so the beach near the hotel is much shorter than I remember. It’s too hot to go lie in the hammock but I plan to put in serious hammock time when it gets cooler in the late afternoon.
I keep thinking how interconnected things are. I’m married to a Goan and here I am in her country but, at the same time, it is oddly like home. I grew up in Devon, by the sea. I could get in a boat here and sail home on the same water. The soil here is enriched by iron ore and Devonian rock and it’s the exact same rock that gives my home county its distinctive red colour. The sound of the waves is another deep memory from my childhood.
We went to a late lunch at one of the hotel’s restaurants. I have Pakora - a kind of tempura vegetable (but beware the deep-fried, unseeded chilis) - and chili cheese on toast. My mother and Aileen share a dish of pomfret, a fish, and tiger prawns. Along the beach, one of the shacks advertises “Roast beef and yorkshire puddings.”
I wasn’t feeling up to a day-long stag party, particularly since it promised pig hunting. As a lazy vegetarian this was a double taboo. Aileen and my mother went off to the hen day and I joined everyone for an evening party.
This was at Pam’s family’s ancestral home. A huge place that had been opened up specially for the party. There was a feast of Goan delicacies. Also, lots of beer.
The party set the standard for the rest of the week’s events. Apart from the lovely food - a given in Goa, there were many speeches, some singing, some kind of ceremonial (in this case dousing Shirley with coconut milk) and, of course, lots of photos. In many ways the photos are the most important bit. They ensure that the tree doesn’t fall in an empty forest.
The day began with a blessing at Mona and Sybil’s house in Tivim - Don’s family village. Close family gathered for a brief blessing from the priest, short speeches, tea and, of course, photos.
Then we met up with the main wedding party at a large hall in the village. It was midday and the sun was intense. Inside the hall, only ceiling fans moved the air and it was very warm. So everybody enjoyed sitting and watching a short, moving ceremony where Mike and Shirley exchanged rings and were blessed by the priest. The hymns were in Konkani and the Lord’s prayer was said in Konkani, English and Danish (Mike’s family being mainly from that happy country). Aileen sang Ave Maria which made me very sad, remembering that she had sung it at my grandparents’ funerals.
Then, naturally, food. Followed by speeches. Some more speeches. And for good measure, a couple more. Then dancing! Since I am as scared of dancing as I am of historical re-enactors (I think this is a phobia unknown to medical science) I skipped outside for a while. But I had forgotten the next stage: photos. Everyone poured out and many, many photos were taken of the happy couple and their families.
Pam and Shirley had planned a big ceremony in the church in Tivim. Tragically, a local boy had drowned a few days before and the funeral was due to take place later that day so the religious part of the festivities were somewhat curtailed and moved to the village hall. This was proper and, I think, touchingly thoughtful.
It was a sad time for the village even though it was a happy time for us. This is how life is sometimes. As Samuel Pepys said, “sometimes all turd, sometimes all honey.”
The day concluded with more tea, more food, more speeches, more photos and more singing back at the house.
With no particular sense of priority, looking back on today several memories stand out:
View from sunset point
- Back at the house in Tivim, the sound of blues as one of the guests, Tom, teased out beautiful music from the family piano. It had probably never heard anything of the sort before.
- In the kitchen in Tivim, seeing the well. Deep. Dark. Cool. As water was brought up, it is placed in a large, unglazed earthenware chicken where the slow evaporation through the skin keeps it cool. I seem to recall the ancient Romans doing something similar. (Lest anyone think I am patronising their lack of amenities, I should mention that they also have a fridge, mains water, electricity and a phone line. The chicken just works better and costs nothing.)
- Don tells us in his speech that he has been struck by lightning twice and that only the daily prayers of his family in Goa keep him safe. He must be the only man alive who has been hit by lightning twice but never won the lottery.
- The contrast between the forest of billboards advertising phones, fridges, investments, drinks and all the getting and spending of western consumerism and, on the other hand, the timeless rhythms of village life. The animal herds, the well, the prayers. Did we lose something when we moved into cities?
- Back in the hotel, Aileen and I watched the sunset and then retired to our hammock. A bird fell out of the sky but one of the patrolling security guards prodded it back into life. A coconut fell. It did not come back to life.
If you want to know what Goans are like, here is a true story for you.
When Aileen was 17, she visited Goa on her own for the first time.
For some reason, her family weren’t able to pick her up from the airport. There had been some confusion over times or something.
Seeing the forlorn, anxious-looking Aileen waiting on the kerbside, a Goan hotel rep from the Taj gave her a lift, first to the hotel, to drop off guests, and then all the way to Tivim.
This is nearly a two-hour roundtrip. It’s like picking someone up at Heathrow, driving them to the Ritz in central London and then dropping them off in Oxford.
This is what Goans are like.
Having had a church wedding in London, a Catholic thanksgiving service in Tivim, a Hindu-style coconut milk thing in Aldona, you might have thought that Shirley would have fully explored multi-cultural weddings. But no, she’d saved the best till last. A pagan, druid ceremony on the beach was booked for last night.
We all met at a shack near Calangute. Many beers were drunk. In the picture, you can see me, Don and Eddie chilling out on the beach waiting for the big event.
The actual ceremony took place after dark (because we had to eat, sing, dance, have speeches and take photos first - see the emerging pattern now!?). We all stood in a circle around the celebrant while Aileen sung and fires were lit. Words were said. More songs were sung. Then we wrapped the happy couple in rope and flowers and string. They then burst free by main force and Aileen sang “Love one another…” by Kahlil Gibran.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
Helen Chadwick and her friends sang this at our wedding. I am not ashamed to admit that it brought a tear to my eye, hearing this again on the beach in Goa at another wedding. That’s romance.
(Did I mention that on each of the five days of the extravaganza, Shirley wore at least three different outfits. Since it took Aileen several weeks of intense study and negotiation to buy her wedding dress, I suspect that Shirley must have been shopping for a couple of months.)
Aileen’s main priority on this trip was to get me to swim in the sea. I am not a natural beach person and, having grown up in a tourist town, I have a natural antipathy to ‘grockles’ (as the locals called the horrible visitors). So I was reluctant.
What a mistake! Swimming in the sea in Goa, especially early in the morning, is a delight. Up at 8am and riding over, under and before the waves like a dolphin. Followed by an enormous, slap-up breakfast. What could be better?
