The lure of Anjuna

We are on our way towards the beaches of Vagator from Mapusa, Goa. Along the way, we pass by so closely to Anjuna village's St Michael's Church that a few patches can be seen where the white-washer had been lazy the last time around, slapping on just a single coat of lime wash. At the foot of this massive church, the road splits in two ways. The route to the left skirts the church's façade before curving sharply towards the heart of Anjuna village. For the moment, we will turn left with it.

Tens of thousands of the tourists who land up in Goa each year drive down this road, either heading for the Wednesday flea market or Anjuna beach, which fringes the village on its western edge. They arrive in crowded motorcars or on motorcycles, armed with fruit juices in tetra packs, pints of beer and bottles of drinking water – most of which, empty, later line the streets. Then there are the ever-hurried package-tour buses, tightly packed with tourists from Rajasthan, Gujarat, West Bengal and Karnataka. While a sizeable number of these tourists arrive with their families, quite a few also come in gangs of single males on macho pilgrimages. Anjuna is where the skimpily-clad occidental deities dot the beaches, after all, like tanned idols washed ashore by the sea, soaking in the sun. The eroticism of the famed sculptures of Ajanta, up north in Maharashtra, is trapped in cold stone. But here in Anjuna, the waves and sun kiss the beached, European goddesses to life.