IN COMPETITION WITH SPRATS

Victory! Or victory of a sort...
A waiter has taken my order for lime and soda and a fried pomfret (flat fish somewhat akin to a sole). He assures me that the fish is fresh. True – and delicious. Sadly the rice is preboiled and the bill for the fish is 50% higher than the price on the menu.
“It was a big fish,” says the waiter.
In competition with sprats.
Memories surface of State-run restaurants in Cuba. Four years of Cuba was sufficient. Arboli, here I come...

TARKALI PENINSULAR

The MTDC resort on the Tarkali Peninsular suffers from the dread hand of Government employees. A brick path leads up through casuarina pines to a scattering of simple cottages and an open-sided restaurant. Some of the bricks are missing and rubbish needs removing. An aircon unit protrudes from the rear of each cottage. Glance up and the cottages appear hunchbacked.
I sit at a table outside the restaurant. Three members of staff ignore me. No matter, the deserted beach is white sand licked by blue sea and stretches way into the distance - bliss for beach lovers. I drag off my boots, stick my socks in my pocket, roll up my pants and paddle. The sea is cool. The sand is too hot for bare feet and roasts my backside when I sit to pull my boots back on. The restaurant staff are in the same conversation. I wait patiently and wonder whether I really want to stay the night. Would Amboli be more welcoming?

NO BARE BREASTS

Turn west off the NH 17 at Kasal and Malvan is twenty-six kilometers down a twisty lane across paddy and passed houses sheltered by mango, jack fruit and coconut. Bananas, guyavas, papaya grow in the yard. Spit out a seed and it sprouts. Malvan is one narrow crowded higgledipiggedy street blocked by a couple of busses and a builder's truck. Carry on a few Ks and you reach the Tarkali Peninsular promoted by the Maharashta Tourism Board as India's Tahiti. Gaugin would have been disapointed – no bare breasts. Houses grow larger closer to the beach and more numerous – holiday homes. A few boards advertise family home stay for respectable Indian families. The Maharashtra Tourist Development Corporation owns and runs the only hotel. It is easy to find. Governments excel at signboards. They are less good at service industries.

FEARFUL OLD FOOL

Back home I cross the hills to Malvern most days and swim at the Malvern Spa. Today I head for Malvan where I intend spending the night. Malvan is on the coast. It is reputed to have a fine beach. It is a few kilometers north of the Goa state boundary. Tomorrow I will ride up into the mountains to sleep in the cool of a little visited hill resort, Albi, from where a side road circles down to Goa's capital. Forty years have passed since I rented a small house in Goa, on Calangute Beach. Goa is full of ancient memories. I delay my arrival for fear of what I will discover, not so much in Goa as in myself. I was callous then. Callous and a coward. I had broken out of jail, on the run from a life sentence. My jailers were a wife I loved and two small children whom I adored. Did I think of them? Yes, often, and with tears. So why run?