The police station in paradise

Don’t go to Anjuna,” was my friend’s reaction when I mentioned I was off to Goa for a weeklong break. Stay away from the shacks and don’t go for a late night swim, he continued, mostly in jest, knowing that the northern beach hub and its associated culture do not suit my more conservative palate. In the days before my trip, news reports had force-fed us an overdose of details about the tragic death of teenager Scarlett Keeling on Anjuna beach. We knew intimate information about her mother’s lifestyle and had read about the local authorities being hauled up for negligence and sloppy investigation.

Goa is an ideal getaway, not just from the hectic city life, but also from current affairs and newspapers. Three days after arriving in Goa, I read my first newspaper at a breakfast café, but I already knew the only piece of information relevant to me at that time: that the beach shacks were being closed down by midnight. Peter, the owner of a shack in Baga where we parked our beach towels, had shrugged his shoulders in resignation at the turn of events, admitting that it was an inconvenience. But in the same breath he conceded that if the pressure after Keeling’s death was forcing the authorities to pull up their socks, he was willing to forgo some profits for a cleaner Goa. The next day we saw the number of sun-beds halved on the beaches. “We are allowed only 10 each,” said Pandu the shack boy. “But everyone was putting more beds out,” he said, looking down the empty coast, imagining his tip collection depleting.

Fortunately, the season was on the wane. “Thank god for the Indian tourist,” said Peter. Indian tourists arrived by the busload for the long Easter weekend, from Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune and beyond. The Russians, Israelis and Finns were finally outnumbered, albeit briefly. Where’s the party yaar? Tito’s, Mambo, Paradiso… a handful of clubs announced house, hip-hop, ladies free. If Goa was a washout that weekend, it was not because of the music being turned down at 10.30pm or because only a handful of locally owned nightclubs operated beyond midnight. It was no-thanks to the unexpected thundershowers which made the ocean unsafe for swimming and rained out the Saturday night market. Sitting in a bar that rainy Saturday night, we couldn’t but help overhear the guy at the table next door regaling his mates with the story of how his supplier had smartened up and welcomed him with a complimentary pint of beer. He told of how the man with the supply of paradise in a pill happily raised his shutters and displayed his wares even as he chirruped, “Have a beer, man,” and shoved a pint into his hand.

Post-partying, there’s nothing like sea breeze to clear your head. With the shacks closed, the beaches were quiet, dark and empty. Knowing that a plainclothesman brandishing a stick might shoo you away from Worli Sea Face or Bandra Bandstand is a deterrent, but here there were no patrols, no security, as if the shacks were somehow instrumental in raising the danger levels on the beach. Somehow I always felt safer when the lights and music from the shacks illuminated the beaches and when the waiters, busily going about their jobs, also kept a watchful eye on their patrons.

A month after Scarlett’s death, the story was no longer a talking point in Goa. The greatest change is the attitude towards the indigenous tourist. It’s not the pound or the ruble, but the rupee that uncorks a bottle or gets you entry into a nightclub. Our only visit to Anjuna was the Wednesday flea market, and as we drove back to our hotel in Baga, the cabbie pointed out the Anjuna police station. “You saw it on the news, no?” he said, and for the first time in 10 years I noticed the ramshackle, nondescript building. It had suddenly become a landmark.