Dearest Marykutty, I am in Goa and I think coming here was one of the best calls I made in life. The monsoons – and the unseasonal showers that followed – have drenched the place and I am not as itinerant as I would like to be. Grounded most days with an eidolon of warmth who loves me no end and feeds me whenever I am hungry, I don’t have to tell you that I am purring content. But I think of you every time I see something new; I
The artist couple arrived on the dot of nine as they promised they would. It didn’t matter that it was Diwali eve or that it was pouring or they were on a two-wheeler. The irritating plangent of the hotel room bell suddenly took on a dulcet charm as I imagined Mira to be pressing it. Her partner, the famous mural painter Tutti, always walked a step or two behind her languidly, his gaze shiftless over the sky and the sea but settling with fixation on her shapely buttocks. She walked
Goa / Escape routes The path was so pretty he knew it would be a dead end. It was six in the morning and he had crept out of bed without making a sound when she was still sleeping. A few months ago he had opened the windows of their hotel room in Pondicherry waking her and she had given him hell. It was a sunny ten and he wanted to fly his drone before the harsh light of noon. Yes, she was taking medication for depression and bipolarity and
At the O’Coqueiro in Alto Porvorim I sat exactly where the ‘Bikini Killer’ did over 30 years ago enjoying what would be his last meal as a free man for a long time. Hatchand Bhaonani Gurumukh Charles Sobhraj, widely known by the last two names, might have been celebrating his latest exploit. Or he was serenading somebody – one led to the other, invariably. He was so immersed in his favourite curry, the Chicken Cafreal, that he didn’t notice the posse close in on him. Wanted for the murder of
